Five Reasons Why Stress Levels Among Women Are 50% Higher Than Men
Stress affects all genders, but it’s a reality that women have to face more often than men.
It’s a hard enough task to juggle the responsibilities of being a mom, managing the household, and working outside of the home. It can be even harder when you have to deal with battling stress on top of everything else. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at five reasons why female stress levels are 50% higher than men. True, most people living in today’s world will experience some level of anxiety from time-to-time. But for women, it seems that this anxiety is more pronounced and difficult to manage.
What is stress
For anyone experiencing high levels of stress, a common cause is worrying, says Professor Olly Davidson, an expert in stress at the University of Sheffield. “What’s worrying you? If you think about it a lot you can get worried about anything.
“The brain is built for coping with risk and I wouldn’t be surprised if worrying is the most common way our brains have evolved to cope with the environment.
“It’s easy to think worrying is a minor problem, that it will just go away. It isn’t. Having high levels of worry can seriously impact your health and wellbeing. You might think there is nothing that can be done about it, but there are ways of reducing its impact.
Why are women so much more stressed than men?
1. While men are more likely to believe that their job is important, women feel more that their work is having an impact on the rest of their life – with 77% agreeing their job affects their personal wellbeing.
2. Working a 12 hour shift can cause women to feel more stressed than men, with 45% of women feeling this. In comparison, only 35% of men feel this way.
3. There are many times in which working women find it hard to switch off – with 10% saying they feel guilty about being at work while children are at school or nursery and 22% feeling guilty when they come home from work. In comparison, only 6% of men feel guilty at this point.
Women have a lot to do in a day
The average working woman in the UK is now expected to do approximately 60 hours of unpaid work every week – the equivalent to a full time job – and juggling other roles such as full time carer.
The fact that women are more likely to perform all these roles has compounded the workload, but also means they have less time to take care of their own health and well being.
Meanwhile, the men of this age group can spend time with their own health. They are also now more likely to be employed full-time than in years gone by.
The gender pay gap still exists
Despite the gender pay gap steadily getting better, women are still earning significantly less than men.
At present women earn 18.9% less than men on average.
Women need to be perfect
One of the major reasons why women report significantly higher levels of stress is because they worry far more.
According to The Telegraph, a recent survey of 2,000 people found that the average woman worries about 11 health issues, compared to 6 for men.
Interestingly, the study also found that the stress levels of those who are ‘perfectionists’ (such as perfectionists who clean the house top to bottom and then wake up 15 minutes early every morning to make it perfect) are even higher.
Of the men surveyed, 81% said they were satisfied with life, compared to only 68% of women.
However, our complaints may simply be down to the fact that we are simply more vocal about them.
Women feel guilty for not being good enough
We as women judge ourselves, comparing ourselves with other women. So I’m not as bad as her, so I’m winning. This is just another thing to be judged on.
Women are more likely to suffer from a wide range of mental health problems
We live in a sexist society where we are the weaker sex. Any attempt to hold your own in any area of life is always perceived to be a power struggle.
Women live with guilt for not being good enough
Women will beat themselves up for all the perceived weaknesses, such as not being strong enough to hold their own in fights, not being smart enough or witty enough.
Women can have problems with intimacy
Being used to taking care of others, many women are not used to being with someone else and need time to feel secure enough to start a relationship.
How stress affects your body
Stress is toxic to your body, and can trigger many diseases including asthma, cancer and heart disease.
The psychological stress hormone cortisol, which can be measured in saliva, is needed to control your heart rate and metabolism, among many other functions.
It is released in response to a perceived threat and can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, which may lead to heart attacks.
Heart disease risk
A 2017 study led by the University of Exeter, which analyzed medical records for 3.6 million women and found those with the highest levels of cortisol had a 60% increased risk of developing heart disease.
As well as giving you the jitters, stress also can bring on depression and can even cause you to forget or ignore symptoms such as back pain and tiredness.
Conclusion
However, the study conducted by HSE has raised concern from women who say that many are still under the impression that this is just a temporary phase.
Claire Burrows-Kent feels that there needs to be more awareness and focus on the importance of wellbeing and how it can effect women’s health.
According to the Daily Mail, she says that after recently trying to stop smoking for good, ‘suffering extreme withdrawal symptoms’ she realised that to do it properly you need to look after your mental health.
Chloe has stressed that women need to be supported more, saying, “There needs to be more education and awareness for women in this country that these stress levels are a huge risk to your health.
“We need to be stronger and be more open about our feelings,” she continued.
Written by Katherine Joseph
