You wouldn’t think it possible, but in one test that was conducted in the metros, Chennai showed the highest average stress levels.
Wait! The Delhi/NCR region performed the best and notched up lower average stress scores than those of any other metro.
The bigger shocker is the age groups that showed the maximum stress — between 26 and 30 years, and over 50 years — in the study conducted by Stressmobile.
Clearly, the pressures of modern life are telling on the young. A high pressure job, erratic mealtimes, and irregular sleeping patterns are all slowly adding to that invisible burden building up inside your arteries.
Invisible, because stress does not manifest but in consequences that affect your health: hypertension, diabetes, maybe, heart disease. A significant fact to ponder over on a day when parts of the world observed Stress Awareness Day (Wednesday).
“Stress can throttle the flow of blood in the vessels,” explains S. Thanikachalam, Director, Cardiac Care Centre, Sri Ramachandra University. “In our study, among those who had had an attack, we found that over 50 per cent had reported an extremely stressful period just before the incident.”
Stressmobile’s Bharat Kumar says he was no stranger to high stress levels himself during a stint in the IT industry. “If you walk into a doctor’s clinic, there is very little chance that you could ask to be treated for, and given treatment for stress,” he says.
His team narrowed down on a way to do it, scientifically. “We picked voice. Voice as a medium to evaluate a person's state of mind is not new; in fact, it is what lie detection techniques use.”
Add a little code to that, and the algorithm provides a score on the basis of signals from your voice: its frequency, loudness, intensity. All these attributes have been scientifically proven as indicators of stress in humans, he says. That is, if you call in (+91-92822-00222) and answer 3 questions.
Clearly, it is time to do something before all that built up stress makes it an uneven playing field for you.
The doctors are worried too. V. V. Bashi, chairman, Centre for Thoracic and Cardio Vascular Care, says the number of youngsters with heart issues, even those requiring intervention, coming to clinics is going up. Time to be aware of that stress, and de-stress, perhaps.
