It's Not "Microstress"...It's Life

The endless push to pathologize the minutia of living undermines well-being while highlighting the privilege of its purveyors

By Rebekah Wanic

We have written previously about the harm in pathologizing the normal range of human experience. The psychology industrial complex thrives on making us feel that we are unwell. So too does the HR complex and all manner of “well-being experts” who spout trite mottos about self-care, offer silly or meaningless interventions, and simultaneously increase problematic thinking by drawing attention to “problems” that shouldn’t be viewed as problematic and dumping money into creating problems that were on the decline.

The Harvard Business Review is often a prime purveyor of this benefit-from-problematizing nonsense, for example, publishing several articles about “microstresses,” which are events that are minimally impactful in the moment but have been argued to build up and negatively impact the experiencer. They are thus somewhat akin to, but less impactful than, the long-standing concept in stress psychology of “hassles.” Since there is no money to be made or academic careers to be built around admitting that a concept is not new or that a phenomenon is not the cause of some ill, we encounter the creation of a new term and the problematization of some additional aspect of experience is instantiated.

According to a recent HBR article, microstresses “are small — often invisible to us” and they “also sometimes seem like positives or easy-to-justify decisions that, in the moment, appear harmless.” Yet, we are told to believe that such experiences are “pernicious” and “pack an enormous punch.” Consider for a moment how ridiculous (and damaging) this is: something that is invisible in impact or seems positive must now be viewed through the lens of negativity. This is the very definition of creating problems where none exist.

The reality is that living involves interactions with others and engagement in work of some sort, both of which require us to adjust our behavior to incorporate the needs and desires of others. Both also entail the necessity of modifying our behavior and plans to meet certain needs, goals and objectives in both the individual and the collective sphere. There is no denying that such adjustments might be accompanied by some amount of stress. In fact, they all are, as early stress researcher Hans Selye pointed out: stress is “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made on it.”

The point here is not that microstressors are not real in the sense that they don’t occur or that they will never have any impact. It is simply to point out that giving unwarranted attention to, and supporting the pathologization of, such aspects of interaction is not helpful, in the same way that focusing on microggressions - another nebulous concept recently targeted by HR training - or providing trigger warnings is not helpful. Messaging that teaches people to focus on and magnify the impact of small, mostly meaningless events will not help them move in a more positive direction. The only individuals who benefit from such preaching are the authors who can sell books and build careers by helping feed people’s need for victimization with an ever growing list of labels to pathologize existence and the purveyors of “interventions” to help address these manufactured ills. (See the DIE industrial complex as a case in point.)

We live in an era of great prosperity, working less, less hard and for more money than ever before, yet so many people are trained to believe that their existence is one of constant struggle and strain. This is not to argue that many have not faced significant challenges, but rather to highlight that such challenges are experienced during a period of great privilege. It is only in such an environment of ease that minor slights like microstressors could rise to the fore of attention.

Finally, let us take a moment to consider how this worrying trend undermining striving and excellence. The Harvard Business Review seeks to target readers who are “powerful and influential,” leaders in business and industry. If one wants to earn the high salary of a CEO and/or be a top performer, they must be willing to accept and learn to tolerate a high level of stress or step aside. The psychology industrial complex has effectively undermined the development of resilience, placing self-care as paramount to personal achievement. Arguments associated with attending to and problematizing microstressors reinforce this damaging perspective. When industry leaders and heads of state succumb to the narrative of self-care, we are all in trouble for who will then be capable of developing the ability to lead?

No doubt most, if not all, readers have heard that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Although this sentiment arose from pop culture comics, the sentiment offers important insight about expectation, privilege and obligation. Part of the responsibility in leadership and achievement is the responsibility to sacrifice at times and to accept that if one wants to fill a high-power, high-profit role, they must be willing to tolerate stress. Working to improve one’s ability to deal effectively with stressors does not entail viewing smaller and smaller aspects of everyday experience as destructive.

There is always space to explore ways to improve work environments and learning to understand environmental effects on physical and mental well-being is important. But continuing to create labels which pathologize a wider and wider range of experience is not likely to help in either situation. It is time to set aside the victimhood orientation that seeks to view everything as problematic and instead attend to messages that empower individuals and their agency to achieve despite challenge. For example, one could begin by focusing regularly on the opportunities they have been afforded and expressing their gratitude: only in a state of plenty would one have time to begin worrying about the triviality of microstresses.