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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Over 70% of Russians live under stress - research
2004-09-19
More than 70% of Russians live under "protracted psychological, emotional and social stress," said the Demography and Human Ecology Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This "increases the danger of abnormal mass-scale destructive reactions and outbursts among the population," the Center said in an annual report released in Moscow. Nearly twice as many psychiatric patients, excluding drug addicts and people suffering from alcohol-caused psychoses, were registered by Russian mental outpatient clinics in 2002 as in 1992, the report said.
I'm always put off by "studies" like this. The definition of "stress" varies from person to person, and from day to day with the person. The stuff I don't notice on Monday may drive me nutz on Tuesday, and Herb, the guy down the street might not notice a thing under similar circumstances, while Dagwood, the guy up the street, might snap and slaughter his lovely blond wife and their two children and their houseful of dogs. There's stress involved in making a living and paying your bills every month, because your wife and kiddies depend on you, and some people kill themselves because they can't keep up. There's stress involved in sitting behind sandbags in cold red mud or hot brown sand while Communists or Islamists drop mortars on you. There's stress involved in driving to work in the morning and having a 16-year-old with the IQ of a Brussels sprout driving $35,000 worth of car weave in front of you and almost kill you both.

I'd rather have my life, complete with the occasional 16-year-old, than Ivan's life, having to put up with unsettled ecomomic and political systems, corruption, and occasional exploding Chechens. Ivan would probably rather have his life than that of the poor guy in Bangla, living in the most corrupt country in the world, surrounded by malevolent mullahs and incompetent commies.
Posted by:Mark Espinola

#5  For me, when I lived in Latvia 2 years after it broke free of the Soviet Union and was still beholden to that state's whims, stress meant no heat in any buildings until it got cold enough for the pipes to freeze; no hot water, so you shower in ice cold water in winter (kinda like ice cream brain freeze but all over), dry yourself off in an unheated apartment, walk to the bus trying vainly to avoid soaking your feet in lake-sized puddles, catch public transportation, then to get pickpocketed, stomped on, and pushed off public transportation that is taking you to work by aggressive fellow commuters.

Yeah, I can already hear the overwhelming cries of sympathy. I can tell you though, even for a winter lover like me, it wears you down. Another volunteer teacher had a nervous breakdown from the difficulty of life there. Life there bore some similarity to the lives our ancestors experienced in the US in the early days of our country. 21st century life pampers us so we sometimes have a hard time trying to imagine how bad things can get when you rough it year after year after year.
Posted by: jules 2   2004-09-19 8:31:58 PM  

#4  Stress means you are working.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-09-19 7:55:30 PM  

#3  Well, hell, I'm stressed too, and I don't even live in Russia.

What, you say stress is normal?

Oh. Never mind, then.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2004-09-19 5:46:44 PM  

#2  Okay, so put the USSR back together, and everything will be just fine. There's no depression, no problems, no unhappiness when you're working for the elevation of the State. Just look at Cuba and North Korea. They're shining examples. No problems there.

Posted by: nada   2004-09-19 10:00:46 AM  

#1  Lies, damned lies and statistics, fer sure!

Let's see, this could be due to:
o more stress than 10 years ago - the writer's opinion
o more people willing to seek treatment
o treatment available for more patients
o more patients being treated as outpatients, rather than in a locked ward
o treatment being extended preferentially to non-drug/alcohol addicts
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-09-19 6:05:23 AM  

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