Short-term intrusions into the life style routine

Data are consistent with several long term studies of life change and health change and suggest that minor health changes may be causally related to events requiring adaptive behavior.

Abstract

1. A relatively small number of life change events account for most of the day-to-day life change, and a few bodily systems account for the majority of the signs and symptoms of everyday life. 2. A person is much more likely to experience the signs and symptoms of everyday life on days of greater than average life change, as reflected by his Life Change Units point total. Life changes tend to cluster around health changes. 3. Conversely, a person is much less likely to experience signs and symptoms on days of less than average life change, and low amounts of life change tend to cluster around symptom-free days. 4. Individuals with the highest amounts of life change demonstrate the most signs and symptoms, as do those with some form of chronic illness, though most of the signs and symptoms are unrelated to the chronic disorders. 5. Women have more signs and symptoms than men. 6. Those people with many signs and symptoms have them more or less continuously and not all at once. 7. Of any given number of days, half are symptomatic and half are nonsymptomatic, but when signs and symptoms occur, they do not affect work capacity or productivity and they do not require medical attention. 8. There is a negative correlation between variability and magnitude of mean life change. 9. There is no demonstrable relationship between occurrence of signs and symptoms and variability of life change. 10. These data are consistent with several long term studies of life change and health change and suggest that minor health changes may be causally related to events requiring adaptive behavior.