There are many factors that can have a negative effect of your health, some of these factors include: loneliness, lack of social support, lack of human contact/touch, normative life transitions and non-normative life transitions.

Loneliness is often confused with alone.  Being alone means that you are by yourself e.g. sitting alone, reading alone etc. and it is a choice, you can choose to be alone.  Whereas loneliness is the felling that no matter how many people you are surrounded by or how many friends you have, you still feel lonely.  Loneliness can have negative effects on your health as it can cause major depression, diminished immune function, promotes unhealthy behaviours, causes excessive reactions to stress and you are 4 times more likely to get sick.

Social support is having someone you can talk to about all your problems and the things that are bothering you, this can include your family, friends, colleagues, help lines (ChildLine), help groups (AA), teachers/teaching staff or you partner/husband/wife.  When someone doesn’t have any social support, it can affect their health, it can lead to negative feelings about oneself, more at risk of stress, decreased life expectancy, longer recovery times from surgery, increase need for medication in some chronic illnesses and promotes negative health practices.

Human contact/touch is a vital part of our human nature, it conveys emotion and allows us to connect with those around us.  Human touch also has many positive effects on our health such as: stronger hearts, lower blood pressure, decreased stress levels and reduced overall tension.  However, if someone isn’t exposed to human contact then they do not receive these benefits thus reducing their health.

Normative life transitions, for example retirement or moving home, are life events that we can predict and expect.  These kinds of life event can cause stress which negatively effects the person’s health, but these affects are not as great as those that come from non-normative life transitions.  Non-normative life transitions, for example divorce or loss of a job, are life events that cannot be predicted and cause even greater negative effects on the person’s health.  These effects include: neurotic impairment, coronary heart disease, cancer and many others.

Here are some factors that can help in supporting a healthy lifestyle:

• Religion and spirituality
• Family support
• Physical fitness
• Coping mechanisms
• Sense of control

After adding up my score on the Holmes-Rahe Scale I had a total of 146, this implies that I have had a relatively low amount of life change and have a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown.  I’m quite happy with this score as it means that my stress levels haven’t been too high over the past year.  Well actually, although the scale tells me that my stress levels have been pretty low, I know for a fact that they have been much, much higher over the past year.  As much as I think the Holmes-Rahe Scale is a useful tool, it doesn’t take into account the stress from other life events such as exams, personal anxiety or depression as examples.  I think if these were also options on the scale, my score would be much higher, as I struggled with exam stress not once but twice last year and I was also affected by some anxiety issues as well which caused stress in other areas such as holidays, social interaction, finishing high school, moving away from home, starting at university and even going out in public.  More recently however I have been stressing about University work and the upcoming exams, as well as having these exams to study for, I have also been stressed over the Literacy resit that I have to do as well.  It gets to the point where I stress so much about having to study for all these exams that I end up doing no studying at all and I begin to lose sleep too, which is not good!  Relieving stress is something I find quite difficult, because I live away from home I don’t really get the chance to confide in my family and I don’t want to burden my friends because I know that they have their own problems to deal with and exams to study for.  So really the only way I have to get rid of stress is either to bottle it up or to comfort eat, which is also not good.  That’s usually my way to resolve stress that has built up over time but I have some other ways of relieving stress as it happens, for example giving a presentation.  This is where I either take deep breaths in fresh air, fidget (wring my fingers), bob my leg up and down or sometimes if I’m really stressed I’ll dig my fingernails into the backs of my fingers or the palm of my hand.  I know that some of my tactics are not the greatest but they seem to work for me, which is all that really matters.

This week’s class was all about at risk behaviours and societies, we talked all about the different behaviours that can put people at risk, how society influences these people to put themselves at risk and how society affects these people at risk.  We also looked at the ‘Glasgow Effect’, which is what this blog will focus on.  The ‘Glasgow Effect’ is a paper that explores why equally deprived UK cities experience different health outcomes.  In the study, various groups around the same number in Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool were compared.  The study shows that all three cities show almost identical levels of deprivation, but results in health differing quite vastly.  The results show that all-cause mortality in Glasgow is more than 30% higher in relation to deaths under 65 compared to Manchester and Liverpool, Glasgow was also higher, by 14% in the all deaths category.  Glasgow also has a higher suicide rate and alcohol/drug related death rate compared to the other two cities.  This goes to show that although all three cities have almost identical levels of deprivation, Glasgow has the biggest problem with binge drinking, drug addiction and suicide prevention.  As well as alcohol and drug issues Glasgow and even Scotland as a whole is seen as the unhealthiest country in Europe, we have very poor health habits when it comes to diet and exercise.  We have a love of deep fried food, copious amounts of alcohol and a carefree attitude when it comes to health, these issues may be a major influence in the conclusion of the ‘Glasgow Effect’.

I thought this way before, but after reading through the ‘Glasgow Effect’ I am absolutely certain that Scotland is not as healthy as it should be.  The government are taking precautions and setting new legislations to help the younger generation of Scotland to become healthier, but this positive attitude towards food and drink doesn’t seem to be rubbing off on the adults of Scotland and this needs to change if we are to thrive as a nation!

If you would like to have a read of the ‘Glasgow Effect’ paper, you can find it here.

http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/712075/mod_resource/content/1/The%20Glasgow%20Effect.pdf