Having felt quite under the weather in recent days, I was surprised to learn the cause is my old friend Stress.

I hate admitting – or being advised by my twinkly eyed doctor – that I am over-stressed as it immediately conjures up images of wiry haired, horn-rimmed bespectacled individuals with broken pencils between their teeth and teetering towers of unorganised papers.

While I have the wiry hair, I always thought I was pretty much on top of everything else. It is ironic then, that with the culmination of my Ph.D. on the very near on the horizon, that I find myself exhibiting all the signs of chronic stress: eating problems, upset stomach, headache, backache, insomnia, anxiety, melancholy and anger.

The anger so far has mostly manifested when people cut me off with their trolley, or the railway staff prove exceptionally belligerent, but the recent development of an aversion to food and chocolate (for it is so much more than food) is frankly startling.

Being a researcher to the bone, I promptly set about reading up on the signs, causes and general miscellany on stress, and came upon the Holmes and Rahe Scale for measuring stress.

Created in 1967 by psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, the table was based on the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients examined as a means to determine whether stressful life events might cause illnesses.

The patients were asked to tally a list of 41 life events based on a relative score, with a positive 0.1 correlation found between their life events and their illnesses.

Thus, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) or the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale was born.

Interestingly, divorce is perceived as more stressful than imprisonment; a new addition to the family is more vexing than the death of a close friend; and outstanding personal achievement more angst-ridden than minor violations of the law.

So, what’s the cure? Exercise, diet and hobbies. Question is, does ritualised watching of The A-Team count as a hobby?