TM4T Stress Armoury 17  - Measuring life stress

Measuring Your Life

This part of the website is about stress management for teachers, and it obviously focuses on the work-related stress that bedevils the teaching profession (in the UK anyway).

Now, the thing is, no matter how many times I explain the scope of what I want to talk about, no matter how many times I put WORK-RELATED stress in bold capitals, some awkward teachers just insist on experiencing stress which is a mix of both their professional and personal lives.

It would be much, much easier if stress worked in compartments, but life just doesn't work like that. Excessive workload, unfaithful partners, unruly pupils and sick relatives: they all just snowball together into one big snotball of stress... And you need to be aware of this. Your school leaders may not wish to delve into your personal life, but your stress levels will be determined by an aggregate of what is going on inside and outside the school gates. Good intentions about 'leaving my marital problems at home' or 'forgetting about school when I get home' rarely amount to much.

There is a way of measuring your recent stress level (usually considering the previous 12 months). Here is the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, which allows you to calculate the number of Life Change Units (LCUs) that apply to events in the past year. Add these up and the final score will give a rough estimate of how stress is likely to affect health.

The idea is that a score over 300 represents a significant risk of stress-related illness, with a residual risk being apparent for any score over 150.

You may notice some quite odd features of this scale: is marital reconciliation really as stressful as getting sacked? Is an outstanding achievement more stressful than a dispute with the boss?

The important thing here is not to debate the minutiae but to understand the basic idea: You should be aware (or easily able to find out) when the most stressful times of the year are at work. Be sensible in how you plan your life, and be aware that life does not always follow your plans.