What's Your Stress Number™? The October Report on the New Health Metric by The Oxygen Plan

In an ongoing study of Stress in America, The Oxygen Plan reports October findings of The New Health Metric, The Stress Number™. Since September 2009, 34,388 respondents have completed the revolutionary online Stress Test by The Oxygen Plan to measure their home, work and social stress. Stress is on the rise and stress in one life dimension - home, work or social - impacts the other dimensions and overall health, wellness and happiness.

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(Vocus/PRWEB) November 17, 2010

The Oxygen Plan Corporation reports the October findings of the new health metric - The Stress Number™, after 34,388 respondents have completed the 30 question The Oxygen Plan Stress Test. To assess individual stress, there were 10 questions for home, work and social. The scoring for each question ranged from 0 - 100, whereby a score of 0 means extreme stress (red), to 100, meaning stress free (green).

Key October Findings: "Holding Steady"
Things seem to be holding steady - with no significant changes in stress levels versus last month or last year. The October Stress Number™ for work was 52.3, followed by 47.7 for home and 52.9 for social. These scores are very similar to 52.4, 47.9, 53.0 of September, for work, home and social, and 52.1, 47.4, 52.2 from October 2009. According to Dr. Donald E. Williams, board-certified clinical health psychologist (American Board of Professional Psychology/ABPP), and Chief Science Officer, The Oxygen Plan, "The current data provide good news and bad news. The aggregate Stress Number™ for home, work and social is holding steady as compared to October of last year - that's the good news. The bad news is that all numbers are still yellow indicating stress and its ill effects on our home, work and social lives - and our health - remains a serious issue."

For employers, that translates to a cost of $4,888 per employee per year. In the work place, stress manifests in lost productivity, absenteeism, presenteeism, group health expense, employee turnover and disability expenses. The total annual economic impact of stress in the U.S. is $400 Billion.'

'Never before has it been possible to measure, compute, report, trend or aggregate a stress metric as it relates to personal health or organizational cost,' says Dr. Williams. Now, we are able to assess stress, calculate the Stress Number™, provide The Oxygen Plan program and re-measure stress for individuals or organizations. 'The Stress Number™ is a significant development in the field of health metrics.' 'We feel the Stress Number™ should be used to help individuals and organizations manage health and health care costs – just like blood pressure and cholesterol levels," adds Eric Lucas, Founder and CEO of The Oxygen Plan. 'Because stress in the home or social life impacts employees at work, and vice versa, it's in employers' best interest to know the aggregate Stress Number™ for their employee populations. Now they can establish a baseline, implement programs toward improvement, and reassess their employees.'

The Oxygen Plan is a new patent-pending behavior change program designed to help people recognize and reduce stress, live healthier, happier lives while helping employers lower health care costs and improve productivity and employee engagement. The Oxygen Plan, co-developed by Eric Lucas and Dr. Williams, is the only stress reduction program to use a simple green, yellow, red color coding to easily facilitate stress recognition and behavior change for individuals and organizations. For more information visit http://www.theoxygenplan.com.

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