Table 4.

Representative quotes from mid-life participants regarding stressors’ impact on health behaviors.

Occupational stress

• I’ve had high-pressure, high-stress jobs, jobs that don’t end at five o ‘clock in the afternoon...I think the load I have in terms of work, it’s too, too high...what I call it is ‘plates begin to drop’ once it starts to get above a certain point. I lose control of it and then I really give up [on changing health behaviors]. (ID-8-QRDM)

Caregiving stress

• I had a phenomenal mom and she had breast cancer, and she was dying and I took off and I... I literally took a year off and I took care of my mother. (ID-31-REACH)

• My wife likes to play tennis so we play tennis together. But we just haven’t played since the baby [was born]. (ID-18-PEACE)

Financial stress

• If you want to make any money and pay bills, you got to work all the time. Your day is gone working 12 hours a day, seven days a week...working a lot of hours and overtime every day of the week, when you are busy, led to a lot of wrong things [regarding self-care]. (ID-25-QRDM)

Multiple stressors

• I think ofpressure.like my responsibility as a father and taking care of my house, everything else, my jobs...brought me a lot of stress. I used to do more exercise and be active... little by little the responsibility of the family, the kids, and I changed jobs so many times and that gave me a lot of stress. I had to pick and choose between taking care of my family and looking for the next job, or...taking care of myself. I was doing the right thing for my kids and my family, but not for myself so I felt like I was losing something, and I kept pushing myself until the heart attack. (ID-36- PEACE)