Stress or Life events

"There’s nothing wrong with you, it is probably stress..."

"Yes, I know, you understand, that’s because I have some problems..."

All events of life possess their own « somno-toxic » effect but their impact on sleep efficiency is often independent of their objective intensity.

Stress ...

"Stress" is a set of reactions of the body in front of a new or threatening situation. These reactions have developed during evolution in a way that we can survive thoses changes or threats.

The human culture gets more sophisticated, but the emotive basic reactions stay the same. (The brain at Mc Gill, Canada (in French))

Stress or life event ?

The notion of life event is wider than that of stress because the ground counts more than the intensity of the agression in the appearance of fatigue and functional disorders in a chart that we call the «hypo-sleep syndrome».

The events of life are situations on which the individual has no grip and that he has to face with his own abilities of resistance.

If his abilities to resist are large, sleep is not (or little) affected in spite of the intensity of the constraints.

If the subject is fragile or already exhausted, less important life events can be the occasion of the appearance of functional disorders (decompensation of the adaptative mechanisms

We can roughly try to classify life events into four categories:

Non exhaustive list of the elements of the "worry box", or of the traumatic records often placed in the foreground to interprete functional disorders or insomnia.

• Situations of loss :

  • death of a relative, divorce;
  • mourning, miscarriage, abortion;
  • physical (and/or sexual) agression;
  • handicap (amputation, hysterectomy, mammectomy...),
  • emotional shock (hostage taking, accident, burglary...);
  • grief (of love);
  • loss of work, home, identity papers, credit card, reverse of fortune;

• Situations of exhaustion :

  • harassment, insecurity, armed conflict;
  • professional overwork (Burn out [1], Karoushi [2]);
  • unrealistic responsbilities;
  • pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, children ...;
  • hormonal changes linked to menstruation.

• Situations of expectation :

  • dispute, adjournment or stand-by in a procedure;
  • uncertain illness (cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis...);
  • imprisonment, captivity;
  • examination results, competition, promotion;
  • delays in building (a home);
  • current important project (business creation).

• Changing habits :

  • modifications in life surroundings (moving houses, travelling, jet lag, climate, season);
  • rythm of rest (night or shift work, nap...);
  • voluntary sleep deprivation (TV);
  • withdrawal of an addiction (tobacco, alcohol, drugs...);
  • life hygiene (stop of all sport... transportation time...);
  • big family gathering (family meal...);
  • recent illness;
  • restrictive diet ...

"Somnotoxicity":

• "Somnotoxicity" is the ability of having a bad influence on the balance of sleep (and thus, on its efficiency).

  The "somnotoxic" power of a life event is not strictly correlated to the intensity of the "stress".

  Some life events are such traumas that it would be illusory not to suffer of them during the time necessary for healing the wounds (and as time passes by, the subject retrieves his/her energy).

  Other events can seem insignificant but are sometimes responsible for a brutal decompensation of the sleep regulation systems according to the principle of the drop of water that makes the vase overflow.

  
• It is tempting to open the "worry box" to "explain" this or that symptom. But in our opinion this approach is counterproductive since one can still not act on his/her problems.

  The somnologic or even "somnicologic"" approach of their chronobiological impact can, on the counterpart, present a certain amount of clues meant to improve sleep efficiency.

  It appears positive to us to avoid to add up a health problem (True False sick persons or False True sick persons) on events that are already difficult and traumatic.

See the article ("Burnout and Karoushi")

More information...

• Fight or flee "Stress in the world of work" (in French)( Pdf 7 pages, International Office for Work, Genève 1993). ("Nowadays, unfortunately, that system of quick reaction can do more bad than good ...").
• Stress management (in French) (Brain at Mc Gill, Canada).