Stress On The Farm

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Cover stories and major headlines across the country proclaim that there is real trouble on the farm. Most of the stories about farm problems are mainly about the economic difficulties facing farmers and seldom about the human side of these financial problems. Stress is a human cost of the risky business of farming. Stress is familiar. It's hard to pick up a newspaper or magazine that doesn't have an article on stress, its effects, and management. We all experience the physical signs of stress—increased heartbeat, rapid breathing, increased perspiration, churning stomach, and muscular tension—when faced with pressures and demands. If continued over long periods of time and in large quantities, these stress reactions can become a serious threat to both physical and mental health.

Stress Symptoms

"Stress" refers to the energy inside our bodies that allows us to protect ourselves. Whenever we perceive a situation that is a potential threat—whether positive or negative—our bodies pump adrenalin to get us ready to meet the situation. Basically, this stress reaction is our emergency alert system. It prepares our body to defend itself.

So we feel stress in the body. Often, when we live lives with too much stress, the energy starts to turn into tension that we hold in our muscles. Physical tension is experienced as aching muscles, stomach problems, diarrhea or constipation, shortness or breath, cramps, and fatigue. These are early warning signals that the body is experiencing an overload of stress. If we pay attention to these signals, we can improve the situation before it gets worse. If we ignore our body's physical signals of stress and strain too long, we invite real problems—hypertension, declining health, accident proneness, or coronary heart disease.

In addition to physical symptoms of stress overload, there are behavioral, emotional, and relationship symptoms. For example, some people have trouble relaxing, concentrating, making decisions, or sleeping. For farmers, these symptoms are particularly dangerous, because they may lead to farm accidents. Increased irritability, impatience, frustration, angry blow-ups, low self-esteem, and depression are emotional reactions to intensive and prolonged stress. These symptoms are particularly dangerous because they may lead to farm accidents. Increased irritability, impatience, frustration, angry blow-ups, low self-esteem, and depression are emotional reactions to intensive and prolonged stress. These symptoms often interfere with relationships among farm family members, creating communication breakdowns, marital dissatisfaction, parent-child conflicts, verbal and physical abuse, or separation and divorce. Particularly disturbing are reports of a rise in suicide among farmers. University of Missouri sociologist Rex Campbell reports that farm suicide rates are 30 to 40 percent above the nonfarm rate and are rising.

Ronald Pitzer
Family Sociologist

Origninally published in February 1986

College of Human Ecology in cooperation with the University of Minnesota Extension Service

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