An illness or an excuse?

How many times have you heard someone say ‘I am so stressed’? I say it at least ten times a day. I said it to myself when the books editor of this magazine asked if I might turn this review around in two days flat instead of taking the usual, more leisurely week or so to file my thoughts. Which is ironic because the book I’m reviewing is about the myth of stress. Angela Patmore, having spent a good 20 years researching the uses and abuses of the S-word, arrives at the conclusion that it is such an ill-defined and contentious category as to be meaningless, and argues that our rush to depict overwork or personal trial and tribulation as the harbinger of a sometimes crippling ‘stress’ threatens to turn out a generation of saps.

Just what is stress? A sickness? A syndrome? It might be the word we all reach for when what we mean to say is ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I’m having a hard time’ or ‘I have a book review to write’, but most of us, I’m willing to wager, would struggle to define it. Patmore reveals that we are not alone. Even the Health and Safety Executive, the highest authority on health and safety in the land, can offer only this dithering definition:

Some academics have argued that stress is an almost meaningless term and does not exist. However, numerous research reports have shown that whatever you choose to call it, there is a clear link between poor work organisation and subsequent ill-health. As ‘stress’ is the most popular and commonly used term to describe this experience, HSE has chosen to retain the use of this word.

How woolly can you get? Patmore reveals that when she wrote to the HSE to point out some anomalies in its definition, a HSE bigwig wrote back sniffily, ‘We decided some time ago that it was unhelpful to argue with people who share your view that stress does not exist.’