From WN

Many people are saying a loved one dying is the most stressful life event and that moving house is the second most stressful event in their lives. Is there any truth to this?

Las Vegas, NV, Tuesday, April 25, 2017—Many new home buyers find themselves in a similar situation; they finally buy their dream home and were lucky enough to find a buyer for their small city condo all at the same time. Sounds like the perfect situation, but for movers who have gone through a similar scenario, they claim that moving in general, especially buying and selling all at once, is life’s second most stressful event.

Even though many movers believe this to be true, the data available on this seems to be a bit outdated, making it difficult to determine if this claim has any weight. In a study done in 1967 by Psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, they asked a study group to rate different life events using a points system. For example, they asked participants to rate the death of a spouse at 100 points and to give items such as minor law violations a score of 11 points.

The study allowed the participants to check off events that actually happened to them and then they had to total up their “life-events score”. The study was conducted and used to help mental health professionals try to link depression and other health issues with negative life events.

Interestingly, the study did not conclude that moving was the second most stressful life event. The data shows that losing a spouse indeed does come in number one, divorce second, third separation from a spouse, fourth going to prison, and fifth was death of a family member. In fact, out of all of the scale studies conducted on life-events stress tests at the time, moving was not listed on any of them.

The problem with these scale studies is that they did not take into consideration what a person may have been experiencing at the time, nor does it account for that person’s ability to cope with different life events. Each individual has a different reason for moving to a new home, for example, war-torn countries often force people to be on the move causing many of them to become refugees in a new country. The stress of a situation such as this is one not as simple as buying a brand new home and selling another one.

However, the person or individuals involved in either of these situations handle stress differently and come from two entirely different life situations. That being said, studies such as this were not considered to be very accurate at one point and are hardly a point of reference when considering stress, disease, and depression being related to simply moving house as there are often varying factors at play in every life event and for each individual or family. Even modern studies done in the U.S. were looking for similar data and came to the similar conclusion.

Many movers claim that moving is high on their stress list. It can definitely be a challenging time, but it’s clear that everyone person has different life factors affecting them in every situation they face in life. If you are in the process of moving to a new home or apartment, visit https://www.movingauthority.com/new-apartment-checklist/ to help you get yourself prepared for yourself for a stress-free moving day.