[lbo-talk] UC London study: Job-related stress literally can kill you

[John Thornton]

shag wrote:
> At 04:28 PM 1/24/2008, John Thornton wrote:
>   
>> Dennis Claxton wrote:
>>     
>>> Yeah, I've done my time in the country.  A few years ago I went back
>>> to visit and was sitting on the back porch sipping a little
>>> scotch.  I had to cut the experience short though because the
>>> darkness and noise from unseen critters was elevating my pulse and BP.
>>>       
>> I'm sorry you had such a negative experience. I would suggest you
>> refrain from visiting rural areas if it has such an effect on you.
>>
>> I take it you have some studies that show that people who experience an
>> start upon awakening and experience a BP and pulse rate increase of 40%
>> to 60% as well as elevated cortisol levels have shown no long term
>> negative effects from this repeated stress exposure? Or do you not any
>> studies to show that your opinions are just inherently correct? Maybe
>> you should read studies on awakening cortisol responses and its effects
>> on health so you can post an informed opinion rather than clever nonsense?
>>
>> John Thornton
>>     
>
>
> there's nothing "nonsense" about it as a response to *you*. you said 
> yourself that you believed it was possibly just a specific response 
> on  your part:
>
> "Not everyone is going to react this way to an alarm but for people who
> do it cannot be healthy to be startled every fucking day to start their day."
>
> For Dennis, he feels differently. Me too. I don't have the same response as 
> you do -- to an alarm or rooster or dump truck.
>
>   I have a congenital heart condition that has gone untreated for years. 
> Therefore, for years, I found myself waking up with a start without an 
> alarm clock. I do that because my heart stops. My body responds by kind of 
> "jump starting" me back and my heart races, feel a little heart burn, my 
> head aches a bit. Normal stuff for my condition. This is related to why 
> people die early inthe morning from heart attacks. the heart stops; you 
> die. in my case, it stops ... and i awake with a start. Someday, I won't 
> wake up and earlier than yer "average" shag because of it.
>
> it has zip -- _for me_ -- to do with an alarm clock since, working from 
> home for many years meant I made my own work schedule and, being an early 
> riser naturally, I don't need an alarm.
>
> i lived across the street from a farm for 14 years, generally awakened by 
> cows mooing, a rooster, and -- my fave --  the mocking bird that perched in 
> a pine tree by the bedroom window and woke me with his litany of songs.
>
> now i live in a backwater city, with lots of hustle 'n' bustle, fire 
> engines, garbage trucks, sirens, etc. it's all about the same to me and I 
> can find loveliness in all sorts of venues -- though I must say that the 
> utter silence of the suburbs irritates the crap outta me.
>
> Both Carrol and Dennis, on my reading (and I concur) are people who, having 
> lived in rural areas, resent the way people romanticize the rural and 
> pastoral as more "natural".
>
> So, yeah, what he said was a response to you -- including the subtext.
>
>
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO) 

No, his reply is nonsense but at least now I understand where his 
mistake lies.
I never romanticized any fucking rural setting. You're putting words 
into my mouth. Read what I wrote.
Now maybe you and Dennis know people who backpack through farm land but 
I don't.
I've lived in both rural and urban setting and nothing I wrote pertained 
specifically to either.
Your resentment of persons romanticizing rural settings is clouding your 
judgment and making you infer things that aren't there.
I don't care if it's a Manhattanite or an Iowa farmer we're talking 
about. I'm only talking about alarm clocks inducing a BP increase, 
increased pulse and increased cortisol response in some people 
regardless of where the person resides.
What I wrote was:
"In a sense it is like awakening when one is on a backpacking trip and 
has a 'natural' feel to it."
and
"for lack of a better word I wake up naturally in the sense that I 
awaken with my own circadian rhythms."
What does that have to do with romanticizing rural life? 
Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
Is there something unnatural about waking to ones own circadian rhythms 
that makes my statement false?
If alarm clock don't induce this response in you then they don't. I 
never said it effected everyone but for those it does I can see a health 
component that Chuck alluded to earlier.
Changing my alarm clock eliminated that problem for me and I suggested 
Chuck try it since he seems to have the same response.
I likened my response to this clock to awakening to my own circadian 
rhythms in a similar manner to when I go backpacking.
That's it, that's all there was to my post. Nothing about enjoying a 
bucolic rural life or romanticizing one place of residence over another.
While you're mistaken about my romanticizing anything I do notice 
neither you nor Carrol are posting a jack-ass type response like Dennis did.

John Thornton