Beware of Stressed Out People! Stress is Contagious

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by Dr. Bob Kamath

Yes, stress is contagious. There is much truth in the following story: An irate woman verbally abuses her timid husband, a schoolteacher. Humiliated, the teacher takes his anger out on his student by paddling him. Outraged over the unjust punishment, the student kicks his hapless dog. The resentful dog bites the lazily snoozing cat. The incensed cat works out its frustration by mauling an unlucky rat.

Running scared for its life, the wounded rat topples an oil lamp, shattering it into a thousand pieces on the floor. The burning oil from the broken lamp sets the house on fire. Carried by the blowing wind the raging fire jumps from house to house and spreads rapidly across the doomed town. The whole town goes up in smoke—all because of the wrath of one woman.

Not only does stress adversely affect the health of people Suffering from it, but it also negatively affects everyone around them. A stressed-out boss can upset all his underlings and create an intolerably tense atmosphere at work. These upset workers might take out their anger, helplessness and frustration on their family members.

Sometimes I see many workers from the same company, all seeking psychiatric help immediately after a new boss has come on board. Sometimes I see several siblings at the same time for the treatment of depression or anxiety; their histories reveal that, several decades earlier, they were all traumatized by an alcoholic father who routinely brutalized the whole family.

Or a stressed father of a four-year-old boy suddenly wants to abandon his family; his history reveals that his parents split up when he was four years old. A grown man sexually abuses an innocent child; he reveals that he was sexually abused by an adult when he was a child. A woman gives up her child for adoption soon after giving birth, because her own mother gave her up for adoption soon after she was born.

An African American man abandons his wife and his newborn baby, because that is what his father, grandfather and great-grandfather did to their families. Thus, the ripple effect of stressful events can be felt not only by the people in the immediate circle of those events, but also by several generations to come. Arguably, stress has a far greater direct or indirect negative impact on humanity than any other single factor.