Permanent Stress in Germany: Housewives Mostly Affected

This Friday morning after our marital shopping
in this public market in our city, hubby read to
me this piece of German news which says
"Jeder Dritte Deutsche Leidet - Im Dauer Stress"
which roughly means Every Third German Suffers
Permanent Stress.

"Uh-um, that's good stuff for blogging," I told him and
when I make such comments, the dear
kabiyak ng puso gets the message and tears the targeted
news off the dailies.

The news says: Every third German from ages 14 to
65 years old suffer permanent stress. For working
people the main factors for pressure are rat race,
too much work, financial worries, fear of losing
job, endless rush-hour traffic and too little time
for the family.

Housewives belong to the most stressed group
of people in Germany; 38% of them feel permanently
overstretched. Their daily routines are full of
surprises and are hardly organized. They function
as drivers for their children going to ballet
lessons and hockey trainings; they cook, clean
and wash, have never taken real time off and get no
praise for the job.

(Break for dinner)

This the result of a research done by a German
health insurance company, Techniker Krankenkasse (TK)
von Forsa and FAZ-Institut with 1,014 people
as respondents.

Summarizing the result, stress causes sickness
and absence from work. This costs alone
German companies about 20 Billion Euro every year.

It shows that stressed people suffer 4 times more
from depression than those who are less affected
by stresses and strains. Complaints are often
about backaches, burn-out, migraine, Angst,
insomnia, heart and stomach troubles.

Some pieces of advice to get out from this
"spiral of stress":
Go jogging, join a choral group, get early time-off
from work, reduce own personal demands and make
oneself unavailable.

(Source:KSTA:Koelnerstadtanzeige, 15.05.2009. Seite 1)

My Suggestion: Don't be a housewife, be a singing
jogger, meet friends after getting off early from
work, forget the Toscana villa dream and be away when
cleaning the terrace is in the marital agenda.

What's yours?