Calvary's touch Encourages you: The Impact of Life Crises~ and how to minimize them

Life crises such as death of a spouse, divorce or bankruptcy can disrupt even the best stress management regime. Different life crises have different impacts. In many cases, however, it may be possible to anticipate crises and prepare for them. It may also be useful to recognise the impact of crises that have occurred so that you can take account of them appropriately.

Some very interesting work in this area has been done by Drs T H Holmes and R H Rahe, with the Social Readjustment Scale. This allocates a number of 'Life Crisis Units' (LCUs) to different events, so that you can evaluate them and take action accordingly. While this approach is obviously a simplification of complex situations, using LCUs can give you a useful start in adjusting to life crises.

The idea behind this approach is to run down the LCU table, totalling the LCUs for life crises that have occurred in the previous 2 years. As a rule of thumb, you may anticipate some form of serious mental or physical effects of the crises according to the following table:

Life Crisis Units and the Probability of Illness

LCUs	Probability of illness
300	80%+
200-299	50%
150-199	33%

The LCU table is shown below:

Life Crisis Scoring Table

Event	LCUs
Death of spouse	100
Divorce	73
Separation	65
Jail term	63
Death of close family member	63
Personal illness or injury	53
Marriage	50
Fired at work	47
Marital reconciliation	45
Retirement	45
Change in health of family member	44
Pregnancy	40
Sex difficulties	39
Gain of new family member	39
Business readjustment	38
Change in financial state	38
Death of close friend	37
Change to a different line of work	36
Change in number of arguments with spouse	35
A large mortgage or loan	30
Foreclosure of mortgage or loan	30
Change in responsibilities at work	29
Son or daughter leaving home	29
Trouble with in-laws	29
Outstanding personal achievement	28
Spouse begins or stops work	26
Begin or end of school or college	26
Change in living conditions	25
Change in personal habits	24
Trouble with boss	23
Change in work hours or conditions	20
Change in residence	20
Change in school or college	20
Change in recreation	19
Change in church activities	19
Change in social activities	18
A moderate loan or mortgage	17
Change in sleeping habits	16
Change in number of family get-togethers	15
Change in eating habits	15
Holiday	13
Christmas	12
Minor violations of law	11

Where you are in danger of suffering the ill effects of life crises, try to minimise the disturbance to your life. If, for example, you have lost someone close to you, try to avoid changing your job.

If you have a high score, or know that you will have a high score in the future, it may be worth pre-empting any problems by adopting stress management strategies now. Look after yourself.

Be encouraged.

*********************Letter # 20 (2.6.2002)**********************