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One in three men turn to drink to cope with stress at work
British men are suffering high rates of stress and depression due to overwork, a survey suggests.
More than one in three men turn to alcohol to try and switch off from work and 17% have been to see a doctor about their stress levels.
Experts said men were making themselves ill by not facing up to problems and using drink as a coping strategy.
The poll of 2,200 men found the highest levels of stress in the legal profession and banking and finance.
More than a quarter of men are suffering from exhaustion as a result of stress and 38% are dissatisfied with their jobs, with a third feeling that there company rarely recognises their achievements.
"Men tend to go to the pub, blot it out and they don't talk to anyone about their problems"
Professor Cary Cooper, stress expert
One in five men have aggressive outbursts as a result of stress at work and 22% suffer from depression because they are unhappy with their jobs.
Pressures at work led to sleeping problems in 35% of men and 40% struggle to switch off from work.
Professor Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University, said men didn't seek help because they didn't want to be seen as "weak".
"If you look at stress-related illnesses, such as heart disease, mental ill health, immune system diseases, they are higher in men.
"Women probably have double the pressures of men but their rates of illness are lower because they have better coping strategies.
"Men tend to go to the pub, blot it out and they don't talk to anyone about their problems."
Work problems
Professor Cooper welcomed the fact that one in six men had visited their GP because of stress but said problems in the workplace needed to be addressed.
"Jobs are less secure than ever before, people are working longer hours and they are being micromanaged," he said.
"Don't stay in a job you don't like because it will make you ill.
"Seek employers that are more responsible to people and take control."
The survey, commissioned by the makers of Wellman vitamins, also found that stress was affecting men's love life.
Around 15% of men said they suffered from a lowered sex drive and 5% had sexual impotence as a direct result of stress at work.
GP Dr Rob Hicks said: "Stress can be responsible for real physical symptoms but many men don't make this link.
"They often just keep worrying about the symptoms they are experiencing but don't do anything about them, so they find themselves in a vicious cycle that makes matters worse.
"Even if they do acknowledge that stress may be responsible for how they are feeling, although they shouldn't feel afraid or embarrassed to seek help many still do feel this way and keep on suffering in silence."
Bob Patton, a researcher from the Action on Addiction Alcohol campaign group, said: "We know that men often turn to alcohol when they feel stressed because they think it will make them feel better but drinking too much alcohol will actually exacerbate the stress that they are feeling.
"If you are drinking alcohol every night as a coping mechanism for stress it will really creep up on you until it starts causing other problems including anxiety, depression as well as other health conditions."
Stress: A blight on modern life
By Vivienne Parry
Presenter, BBC Radio 4's Stressed Out
Stress can damage physical health
"I could feel my blood boiling, my pulse is racing, my heart's going.
"My muscles get more and more tense, my heart's getting faster and faster, there's a pain in my chest - I'm a gibbering wreck'.
"When it comes to bedtime I'm tired and try to make myself go to sleep, but I can't, my mind is racing and my thoughts whirling."
These are the words of John and Anne and what they are describing are the all too familiar symptoms of stress.
Stress is a constant theme in our lives.
It is the second biggest cause of time off work and is estimated to cost the country £13bn a year.
It's a wonderful adaptation should you come across a bear - but too much of a good thing and you're in trouble
Professor Robert Sapolsky
We clearly are not coping well with it, but how sick is it making us?
We all differ in what hits our own particular stress buttons - deadlines at work, being late, traffic jams - or what does it for me, computer rage.
This differing response makes stress difficult to research.
Simulating stress
But researchers at a unique stress research facility in the Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology at the University of Bristol have found a way.
An individual's blood pressure and heartbeat are recorded before and after they breathe an air mix containing 35% carbon dioxide for four seconds.
Normal air contains just 0.03% of this gas. This prompts an acute - and automatic - physiological stress response.
And it's what I found myself doing for the programme.
At the start, my heartbeat was 54 per minute and my blood pressure a healthy 110/65.
I knew I was safe, but my body disagreed violently - it thought I was being suffocated.
My blood pressure shot through the roof - to 193/65. I felt sick and panic stricken. It was horrible.
But a couple of minutes afterwards, I was back to normal again.
The initial but dramatic rise is normal. In those who are chronically stressed, the return to normality is much slower.
"Their body is able to turn their acute stress response on, but is not as good at switching it off again," said Professor Stafford Lightman, director of the Bristol unit.
As Professor Simon Wessely, of King's College Hospital says, an acute stress response is actually good news: "It allows you to react to an emergency."
A bear jumping out at you in the street will prompt a flood of the stress hormones, first adrenaline and then cortisol, preparing you for fight, flight or fright.
Robert Sapolsky, professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and the world's leading stress researcher, summarised it like this.
"Your body is turning off all the long term building and repair projects. It's do it tonight, if there is a tonight'.
"So blood pressure soars, more body fuel in the form of glucose is made available, the immune system is enhanced.
"It's a wonderful adaptation should you come across a bear. But too much of a good thing and you're in trouble."
Long-term impact
Constant high levels of cortisol take your body's eye off the ball.
Repairs aren't done, patrols for invaders aren't sent out, you tire more easily, you can become depressed and reproduction gets downgraded.
It's a profound privilege to die from stress related diseases
Professor Robert Sapolsky
High bloodstream levels of glucose and fatty acids and high blood pressure increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The immune system is suppressed.
Work at Bristol clearly demonstrates the latter in the much reduced response of older carers of those with Alzheimers to flu vaccines, compared to people of the same age not under so much stress. But why are some people more affected by stress than others?
Professor Stafford Lightman, director of the Bristol Centre, said: "There are three main reasons.
"Our genes, our experiences in early life and what's happened to us recently."
We all understand the latter. Bereavement, losing a job, divorce, caring for someone who is sick are highly stressful life events.
Stress controls
Of great scientific interest are our stress 'thermostats' which switch our response on, and, most importantly, off again.
Professor Lightman said: "Understanding pathways in dysfunctional stress responses means that you can rationally design therapies to block their effect."
The settings for our thermostats are partly inherited - but scientists also know that they can be reset during childhood.
Work with animals suggests that emotional deprivation in early life causes heightened stress responses as adult animals. It's highly likely this is the case for people too.
Re-setting the stress thermostat in childhood is an important adaptation - it equips a child born into a difficult world to be constantly on the alert.
But this alertness comes with a long term price: heart disease, diabetes, obesity and depression.
There are also behavioural implications of raised stress hormones, such as greater levels of violence and risk taking.
Since we now have epidemic levels of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, does this indicate that we live in a much more stressful world? The answer is a resounding no. If anything we live much less stressful lives than our forbears.
Professor Sapolsky said: "It's a profound privilege to die from stress related diseases.
"It is the elimination of other causes of death such as infectious disease which is responsible for bringing lifestyle diseases to the fore - and these are exquisitely sensitive to stress."
It makes finding a way to treat stress in those who are vulnerable to it ever more important.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4216732.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5059278.stm
Writing in a journal could help though in a different way in that you're reflecting so it's almost like meditation. But nothing beats the supercharge of relief that oxygen and physical movement give you with exercise!
