Small Hassles, Big Stress: Why the Little Things Get to Us

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In Jonathan Swift’s 18^th-century novel Gulliver's Travels, shipwrecked sea captain Gulliver collapses on the shores of Lilliput—the land of tiny people. He awakens to find himself completely immobilized; though he is a giant by comparison, the Lilliputians have bound him with thousands of minuscule ties. The story illustrates how something tiny, when multiplied, can topple even a giant.

By analogy, in our everyday life, we encounter many minor aggravations: the Lilliputian hassles. We are all aware of the stories of people who overcome mind-boggling injuries, medical illnesses, or severe financial and other life obstacles. These narratives are undoubtedly inspirational, yet, while instructive about the power of resiliency, there is the other side of the story: Little things can (and do) get to us.

Lilliputian hassles: Tiny aggravations are stressful.

Because the everyday hassles are small, we may underestimate their effect. At face value, these common, everyday irritations might not seem like they should impact us: the toddler who throws a fit at the grocery store line, waiting forever on hold to address a cable bill, the significant other who forgets to stop at the store and buy milk, the elderly parent who forgets to charge their cellphone, the mandatory online work training that you can’t link onto, and so on. Waiting on hold is not the same as “big-ticket stressors," such as getting fired, divorced, or losing a loved one. Therefore, it may seem trivial and irrelevant to our mental health.

We underestimate the impact of daily hassles on our emotional health because—unlike major life events—they are common occurrences. Although we have more than enough psychological resources to deal with a single tiny stressor, Lilliputian hassles, when multiplied, can emotionally overwhelm and immobilize us. Daily hassles can and do cause stress.

Daily hassles can negatively impact emotional health.

The impact of daily hassles on emotional health is not negligible. Psychological research has repeatedly demonstrated that daily hassles are stressful, particularly when they create negative emotions. Over 30 years ago, psychologists began to recognize how major life events—the death of a parent, spouse, or child, loss of employment, or a significant health issue—create psychological distress. The research then turned to the impact of daily hassles that also predicted emotional distress—and, in some studies, with an even stronger effect than the impact of major life events.

When not managed, daily hassles can stress our bodies. They can lead to poor habits (overeating, drinking too much, not exercising) that can compromise our physical health. When an event is perceived as stressful, even these seemingly trivial stressors over time may trigger the release of cortisol and other hormones (as in through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). A daily and relentless dose of negative emotions, which are reactive to hassles, can erode one’s sense of well-being.

Manage daily hassles as they occur to avoid emotional exhaustion.

Each daily hassle by itself is manageable. It is the buildup that is emotionally exhausting. The pathway out of emotional exhaustion and inertia may be finding ways to neutralize the effect of everyday hassles as they occur. Psychologists have found that reducing the negative focus of the stressor through cognitive reframing—deliberately pivoting toward the positive—can reduce the subjective distress that can accompany minor irritating events.

Neutralizing the impact of the hassle requires recognizing the event as a stressor and identifying its impact in the moment. As an example, you have been either on hold or switched from one customer service representative to another in dealing with a credit card charge issue. You may be thinking, “I’m feeling really irritated waiting so long on hold.”

Neutralizing the impact requires that you actively re-brand (cognitively reframe) the experience: “I feel glad that I am getting this overcharge finally taken care of.” Follow up with rewarding yourself with an “uplift” or a positive experience, such as treating yourself after the task is over to something you enjoy: a latte at your favorite coffee shop, listening to a song that lifts you up, or going for a brisk walk.

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Free yourself from being a prisoner of stress.

Everyday hassles are stressful, and the impact of that stress is not inconsequential. We get to an emotionally depleted state when we don’t recognize the emotional consequences of the Lilliputian hassles. The cumulative impact of hassles is that they can create negative emotions: worry, irritability, anger, and unhappiness. These emotions can wear on a sense of control over one’s life, enhance a feeling of lack of competence in the ability to manage our lives, and, in turn, foster helplessness.

Gulliver—a giant, by comparison—became a prisoner to the tiny denizens of Lilliput. Our psychological resources are like Gulliver—gigantic in comparison to a daily Lilliputian annoyance. Recognizing at the moment that the annoyance is tiny and neutralizing the Lilliputian hassle is a pathway out of being immobilized by a thousand little daily irritations. In other words, it is freeing yourself from becoming a prisoner of stress.