Researchers have found that hassles transmit their harmful effects directly through
psychophysiological pathways as well as indirectly via changes in health behaviours.
In a 2-year longitudinal study, Twisk et al.(1999) explored the effects of changes in
daily hassles and life events on a number of biological and lifestyle variables associated
with coronary heart disease risk. The main findings of this study showed that daily
hassles were more important than life events and they predicted changes in lipoproteins
(a combination of fats and proteins found in the blood), daily physical activity and
smoking behaviour. In another study conducted by Newman, O’Connor and Conner
(2007), daily hassles were associated with increased (high fat) snack intake over a 2-
week period. However, these effects were only observed in women who had
previously been identified as high cortisol reactors following a laboratory stressor and
not in low cortisol reactors. These findings are noteworthy because they suggest that
the impact of daily hassles on eating behaviour is moderated by individual differences
in cortisol reactivity.
More recently, other studies have demonstrated that daily hassles have the capacity
to activate the HPA axis, as evidenced by increases in cortisol levels (e.g. Smyth et al.,
1998; Hanson et al., 2000). In fact, hassles that produce negative emotional responses
have been found to be most likely to activate the stress response. Jacobs et al. (2007)
found daily hassles were associated with increased negative affect, decreased positive
affect, agitation and raised cortisol levels. However, only negative affect accounted for
the effects of daily hassles on cortisol. As you will recall from Chapter 2, frequent and
excessive cortisol secretions over a prolonged period can cause wear and tear to the
body’s cardiovascular and immune systems leading to physical illness. In a 28-day study
of daily experience and cortisol, low cortisol levels in the morning were related to
anxiety, exhaustion, sleepiness at awakening and poor health the day before; while
high levels of cortisol in the evening were related to stress and poor health (Dahlgren
et al., 2009). In addition, it has been suggested that increased cortisol secretion caused
by daily hassles may contribute to several common psychological disorders such as
depression (Sher, 2004). In other words, repeated minor daily hassles akin to having
an argument with your partner or boss may lead to depression in vulnerable individuals.
Daily hassles have also been found to make some chronic illness conditions worse.
In a study of irritable bowel syndrome sufferers, daily stress was shown to be associated
with greater symptomatology (Dancey, Taghavi and Fox, 1998). In another study, Fifield
et al. (2004) showed that rheumatoid arthritis sufferers who worked in high strain jobs
(high demands/low control) experienced greater pain on days when they reported a
high number of stressors. Daily hassles can also impact on important self-care behaviours
in people with chronic conditions. For example, Riazi, Pickup and Bradley (2004) found
that daily hassles disrupted glycaemic control (i.e. regulation of blood glucose levels)
in patients with type I diabetes who were prone to respond to stress. More recently, a
study of women with current bulimia nervosa showed that daily hassles frequently
precede episodes of bulimia and they seem to play a role in maintaining these behav -
iours (Goldschmidt et al., 2014). Similarly, another recent investigation demonstrated
that yesterday’s daily stressors influence the amount of cortisol that is released the
following morning and these (lower) levels of cortisol are associated with a greater
frequency of physical symptoms on the same day (Gartland et al., 2014a).
Taken together, these studies indicate that daily hassles are able to influence health
and illness processes by disrupting habitual health behaviours, increasing the release of
STRESS THEORY AND RESEARCH 59