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Correlations between a Busy Lifestyle and Schizophrenia

Jinhan Chen (Judy)

Wells International School

Master Mark Jacobsen

Abstract

According to the biological and psychodynamic theories, schizophrenia is the disintegration of the ego, which can trigger by genetical factors. Living in populated cities increases the likelihood of developing schizophrenia especially during adolescence. People may wonder that schizophrenia is a predetermined disorder, but this research shows that the environment plays an important role in the development of schizophrenia. Constantly being exposed to stress and rapid modernizations of the society can trigger the onset of schizophrenia according to the “triggering” hypothesis.

Correlations between a Busy Lifestyle and Schizophrenia

Nowadays, the vast majority of people live in an unban environment, a place where it’s always crowded. People tend to be busy in such places. While everyone is probably familiar with this place, the modernized city, the place full of traffic jams, the place everyone tried to blend into. People living in those major cities are pretty concerned with their physiological health as well as psychological healthiness. Almost every person in the society is developing a psychological problem as a response to the busy lifestyle. Much more people are suffering from schizophrenia in the world today; therefore it is important to verify the correlation between living in major cities and schizophrenia. Therefore living in major cities develops the likelihood of schizophrenia.

There are 7 billion people in the world and 560 million people are suffering from schizophrenic episodes today, since the majority of people started to live in one of those major cities. Living in major cities develops the likelihood of schizophrenia, because schizophrenia itself is a predetermined psychotic disorder in which it is triggered the stressful events and the environment. Living in major cities leads to a busier life style which causes tremendous amount stress and frustration, by then being under constant stress will trigger the schizophrenia that was predetermined in the genes. Therefore it proofs a correlation between a busy lifestyle and schizophrenic episodes

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder under both axis one and axis two in the DSM-IV. There are many approaches to schizophrenic disorder. Schizophrenia is contributed by three different factors, Biological, Psychodynamic, and lastly environmental factor. Biological and psychodynamic factors were either predetermined or already developed since childhood. Environmental factor is then the most important one since it is the factor in which triggers schizophrenia to occur.

The biological factor states that the lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia is approximately 1% of the general population. The risk is much higher in relatives of sufferers. Children with one parent suffering from schizophrenia have a 12% risk; those with two affected parents have a 36% risk. This may, on the face of it, appear that schizophrenia is a genetic illness (Gottesman, 1991). This causes this psychotic disorder to be a predetermined disorder. Having the schizophrenic genes doesn’t mean a person will encounter schizophrenia surely in his or her life span; instead it will only increase the probability of encountering such disorder. However 60% of sufferers give no family history of the disease, in such situations psychodynamic and causes were to explain such disorder.

The psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approach has an explanation for the 60% sufferer who gives no family history of schizophrenia. According to the psychodynamic analysis, schizophrenia is caused by the breakdown of the ego, while ego is in control of the id’s desire. The ego was also responsible for balancing the id and moral of the superego. Traumatic childhood events and family stress were most likely the cause of the breakdown of the ego. (Gwen H., 1990)The disintegration of the ego may not appear right away after traumatic event which does not resemble that it’s not occurring. Schizophrenia is then triggered by the society starting in the beginning of adolescent onwards.

Lastly, the environment has one of the greatest impacts on schizophrenia. Although schizophrenia was already predetermined in the genes and during early childhood but these factors won’t force schizophrenia to occur. The environmental factor has the main roles; the surroundings trigger schizophrenic episodes to take place in a person. The environmental approach has clearly stated that particular sources of stress are triggers of schizophrenic episodes. Those particular sources of stress include moving house, changing jobs, illness, injury, and etc. As an example a person with predetermined schizophrenic genes won’t certainly have schizophrenia while if the environment the person were living was overwhelming with stress, then the schizophrenic episodes would have been triggered.

Schizophrenia will not simply occur based any one approach or one factor. It is a combination of different factors and approaches add up together to develop such complex disorder. Having one of the factors will only increase the percentage of encountering schizophrenia while one factor may always trigger the other. The environmental stress may always trigger the traumatic childhood event and the schizophrenic genes that were predetermined. Therefore more attentions should be paid to the environment since it’s the last trigger and increases the likelihood of schizophrenic episodes.

Although some people still lives in a peaceful atmosphere in rural areas while the majority of people were settling up or begin a life in one of the busiest cities. In an unban city where most people live, were those cities with well developed economy, which means people were often under stressful situations when working. (Markham, 2011) These stressful situations may later be the trigger to schizophrenic episodes. Living in one of those major cities result a huge amount of stress due to unavoidable competitions, high standard of living, and as well as daily hassles.

Unavoidable competitions are the first negative effect due to living in major cities. Within those major cities, competitions exist everywhere on each and every single person in the society. Competitions occur from high school and people’s SAT scores up until one company competing with the other company in order to get a better deal or officers compete against each other to get a promotion. All of those competitions lead toward enormous amount of stress, these stress are going to cause both physiological and psychological issues. While most importantly, competition is not the only stress people undergo in a busy city.

The other source of stress in living in major cities was high standards of living. It is almost unavoidable if one is living in a busy society. In such society, everything will cost a lot more than it is in rural areas. Therefore in order to reach the standard of living, people must have enough of wealth to support such standard. Not everybody is rich enough to reach the standard of living and it is pressuring them as well. If this pressure were unresolved it will then become another form of stress and start to irritate people and interfere with their daily life.

Lastly, daily hassles were often not viewed as a form of stress even though it forms a lot more stress comparing to the previous two type of stress caused by the busy environment. People gone though daily hassles in everyday of their lives in major cities. Being under busy lifestyles there are a lot more daily hassles comparing to a life in country sides. Daily hassles include concerns about weight, the health of a family member; rising price of common goods, too many interruptions, social obligations, and etc (Kennard J. 2009). Being concerned about weight could probably be the best example of present the difference between living a life in major cities and rural areas. People living in major cities always wanted to be slim while people in rural areas won’t bother. A combination of all of those irrelevant thoughts contributes to a huge amount of stress.

Living in major cities result a huge amount of stress due to unavoidable competitions, high standard of living, and as well as daily hassles. All of the factors listed above contribute to stress, imagine a person living a life encountering all of these stress at once. Such overwhelming stress will trigger almost all kinds of psychological issues and some people may already have inherited such genes and increases the likelihood of psychotic disorders. (Day R, 2007) The stressing environment will then become the stressor and trigger the predetermined disorders.

It is fine when a person is undergoing stress; it is a natural phenomenon in life. Until a certain point where a person can no longer function normally or being diagnosed with a certain psychological disorder, then the situation is becoming real serious. Constantly being under stressful environment develops the likelihood of schizophrenia because the frustrations from daily life routines will most likely be the major part of stressful environment, having biological and psychoanalytic factors, and lastly being under stressful environment along with the genetic factors and psychoanalytic factor will increase the probability of developing schizophrenia to a higher percentage.

The over all research suggested that with accompany of environmental stress, it is more likely for a person to encounter schizophrenic episodes. Imagine a person with the existences of schizophrenic genetic factors and childhood incidences along with a busy lifestyle given from the environment would most likely to develop schizophrenia throughout one’s life. The greater amount of stress will lead to higher percentage of occurring schizophrenia. Therefore this research confirmed a positive correlation between the environmental factors and the likelihood of developing schizophrenia.

References

Gottesman., & Irving, (1991). Schizophrenia genesis:. InThe origins of madness. New York, NY: Times Books/ Henry Holt & Co. Retrieved from

Gwen , H. (1990). Schizophrenia a fresh approach. vermont,USA: Winter Ventures Inc,

Morgan, C., & Fisher, H. (2006). Environment and schizophrenia: Environmental factors in schizophrenia:. Retrieved from

Kennard, J. (2009, april 01). [Web log message]. Retrieved from

Markham, H. (2011). Stress- why city life is frying your brain. Retrieved from

Day, R. (2007), Life events and schizophrenia: The “triggering” hypothesis. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 64: 97–122. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1981.tb00765.x Retrieved from

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