Lower social status typically means more stress
Stress for SuccessOctober 15, 2013
A fascinating TV program reported research about status and
stress with Stanford neurobiologist and my guru of stress
physiology research, Dr. Robert Sapolsky. It featured a female
researcher in Africa studying this phenomenon with apes, whose lowest status
members sported huge rolls of abdominal fat! It was astounding! (An Internet search
for her name yielded no results.)
Why would the lowest status apes store so much fat? They’re
wild animals. You’d think they would be lean and muscular.
The
reason, as researchers have long agreed upon, is that the more helpless one feels
- the less control one perceives - when facing stressors the more lethal those
stressors’ effects. This perception of control typically declines the further
down the socioeconomic ladder you go, with potentially severe consequences. This
was first noted decades ago when the assumption was that top executives who had
the greatest responsibilities would have the highest corporate stress. To the
early researchers’ surprise, it was secretaries, at the bottom of the influence
ladder, who had the most stress. They had plenty of responsibility but very
little control. Top executives had the control.
Researchers
have found those of least status:
·
Are
more than three times as likely to die prematurely as those at the top;
·
More
likely to suffer from depression, heart disease and diabetes;
Additionally,
early childhood adversity produces consequences that remain decades later, such
as:
·
Increased
inflammation;
o
When
chronic, it increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes;
·
Telomeres,
the tips of chromosomes, appear to be shorter, which may indicate accelerated
aging;
·
A
higher risk of high blood pressure and arthritis;
Even
those who later succeed economically may show persistent effects of early-life adversity
by remaining more prone to illness than those who were never poor. Becoming
more affluent can lower the risk of disease by increasing one’s sense of
control and by providing greater access to healthier resources and social
support.
In
other words, people are not doomed by their upbringing. But the effects of
early-life stress tend to remain, particularly because those peoples’ nervous
systems are unfavorably molded and may even accelerate their aging.
“Early-life
stress and the scar tissue that it leaves, with every passing bit of aging,
gets harder and harder to reverse,” says Dr. Sapolsky. “You’re never out of
luck in terms of interventions, but the longer you wait, the more work you’ve
got on your hands.”
British
epidemiologist Michael Marmot calls this, “status syndrome.” He found a direct
relationship among health, well-being and social status. “The higher you are in
the social hierarchy,” he says, “the better your health.” He explains that unlike
those of lower rank, both a top executive and a worried affluent parent have
resources to address their stressors. The poor have far fewer.
So
the stress that kills, Dr. Marmot and others argue, is characterized by a sense
of insufficient control over one’s fate often referred to as, “learned
helplessness.” We’ll look more closely at this phenomenon in my next article.
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S. is an international
speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach.
Order her book, Let Your Body Win:
Stress Management Plain & Simple, at http://www.letyourbodywin.com/bookstore.html.
Email her to request she speak to your organization at jferg8@aol.com.
