Points make prizes

The 'big year' is a term used in the birding community to refer to an attempt to see as many different species as possible within that year. Turns out it's also a film due 2011, starring Tombolablog favourite Rosamund Pike and rather less promisingly, Jack Black. I've been meaning to blog about this for months now, and still haven't properly got around to it. But I have been able to bash out a simpler, sort of related one. Hurrah! And here it is.

Over roughly the same period [that I could have done a Big Year - bird tally, not film], we stacked up an impressive tally on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. There are plenty of academic papers about this, but I'm using Claire Rayner's Marriage Guide as my source text. As indeed I have almost daily since purchasing it a couple of years ago.

No longer appears to be in print, so check out those charity shops!

I'll let Ms. Rayner explain:

"In 1968 American researchers devised a system for assessing stress effects of life events and their effects on health. They gave numerical values to various experiences and found that a total of 300 points or more in any one year gave people an 80% chance falling ill; a score of between 150 and 300 gave a 50% chance of illness."

Between Jan 2009 and Jan 2010, we've notched up several of those on the list. Let's do some totting:

Marriage: 50 points
Change to different kind of work: 36 points
Change in living arrangements with spouse/partner: 35 points
Taking on a large mortgage: 31 points
Change in residence: 20 points
Change in social activity: 18 points
Change in number of family reunions: 15 points
Vacation: 13 points
Christmas: 12 points

Total: 230 points. Eek!