For over a hundred years, researchers have been keeping track of life expectancy among various segments of the American population. For the first time ever, the life expectancy of non-Hispanic white women actually decreased from 81.2 to 81.1 years according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.
That's only about a month. Still, it does mark a never-before-seen reversal of a trend of longer life spans. Non-hispanic black females' life expectancy did not change, remaining at 78.1 years.
Compared to other industrialized countries, the life expectancy for U.S. citizens is lower. Laudan Yvett Aron, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, believes the difference has to do with emotional problems Americans face. That's because the United States is experiencing increasing rates of suicide, drug use and alcoholism.
"Really it's a bigger conversation we need to be having," she said.
Donald A. Lichi, vice president of EMERGE Counseling Services in Akron, Ohio, and an adjunct professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, says women are particularly stressed. He notes that while women make-up half of the workforce, their traditional domestic responsibilities have not diminished at all.
In other words, in far too many American households where both the husband and wife work outside the home, the woman bears a much greater burden of domestic responsibilities including shopping, housework, childcare, scheduling appointments, taking care of extended family members such as aging parents, and so on.
"Even on a so-called day off they're not unplugging," Lichi says. "We live in a fast-paced, fed up, stressed out, highly addictive culture. The human body is just not designed to deal with this over an extended period of time. It's not sustainable."
In an effort to cope, many women are turning to prescription drugs to ease the pain, such as anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medications and pain pills like Oxycodone, Vicodin and Percocet.
Health professionals suspect the rise in opioid abuse is one of the main causes of the increasing death rates, both from suicide and accidental overdose, as these drugs are highly addictive. They also create a tolerance in which the body requires more of them to achieve the same high.
Opioids include prescription painkillers as well as heroin. Physicians are pressured to crack-down on the number of prescriptions they write for opioids and communicate with other doctors who might be writing similar prescriptions to the same patients. This means prescription painkillers are now harder to obtain and the price of these substances skyrockets.
In some cases, individual pills can sell for $80 each as people with prescriptions for them sell them illegally. That's why many people who are hooked on prescription painkillers switch to heroin, because it is much cheaper and easier to get.
Heroin provides the same type of high as prescription pain killers. However, besides the ease of availability and the lower cost, another big difference between the two is the fact that painkillers are regulated, so you know what you're getting. Heroin, on the other hand, is often laced with deadlier toxins, such as fentanyl.
Although substances like drugs and alcohol appear to be a solution to stressed-out lives, health professionals suggest more natural remedies such as exercise, prayer, and counseling.
I had the pleasure of traveling to Ohio to interview Dr. Daniel Neides, the medical director and chief operating officer of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute. Watch a portion of our conversation as he describes why stress is so deadly and what we can do to minimize the effects of stress.
Also, my collegue, CBN News reporter Charlene Aaron has some great advise on dealing with stress from a spiritual perspective on her blog The Link in an entry called, "From Worn-out and Weary to Living Freely and Lightly."