Major life changes -- marriage, serious illness, a new job, moving away, or a death in the family -- are important sources of stress. Common to most of these events is the separation of an individual from familiar friends, relations or colleagues. Even marriage – a positive change – may involve breaking free from many longstanding ties.
Many stress researchers have concentrated on these life changes to determine how much stress they are likely to cause. Two of the foremost life-change researches are Thomas H. Holmes and Richard H. Rahe (1967), who developed a scale to measure the effects of 43 common events, ranging from the death of a spouse to going on vacation. Holmes and Rahe asked a cross section of the population to rate each of these events on a scale of 1 to 100, with marriage assigned a value of 50, on the basis of how much adjustment of the event is requires. The figures they obtained form the basis of their Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), which is shown below. 
The SRRS was created in 1967 and was based on the stress in men’s lives. (Holmes and Rahe’s participants were male). Rahe (1975) administered this scale to thousands of naval officers and enlisted men and found that the higher a man’s score, the more likely he was to become physically ill. Men with scores below 150 tended to remain healthy, while about 70 percent of those with scores over 300 became sick. There are problems, however. Some of the items on the SRRS may result illness, rather than cause it. (Brett et al., 1990). Some of the items, such as marriage, are joyful events that are not related to illness (Taylor, 1991). Several studies suggest there is only a small relationship between stressful life events and illness (Brett et al., 1990). The scale also fails to measure stress caused by ongoing situations such as racism and poverty.
Annoying things cause stress. Stress leads to anxiety. So are pet peeves a contributor to anxiety?
Anxiety is a general state of dread or uneasiness that a person feels in response to a real or imagined danger. It’s a generalized apprehension, a vague feeling that one is in danger (Richard A. Kasschau, 2003). People suffering from anxiety disorders feel anxiety but not just normal anxiety. Anxiety disorders are the most common type of mental illness in the United States, affecting 19 million americans annually. (NIMH, 2001). These disorders share certain characteristics, including feelings of anxiety and person inadequacy and an avoidance of dealing with problems. Often the experience of generalized anxiety is accompanied by physical symptoms such as muscular tension, an inability to relax, a furrowed brow, or a strained face. All similar symptoms when you encounter a pet peeve of yours.
Why are some people anxious? some theorists stress the role of learning in producing anxiety. Avoidance. When people avoid situations in which make them anxious, they’re unlikely to never have the chance to unlearn anxiety. Other researches suggest that anxiety disorders may be partly inherited. Environmental factors such as unpredictable traumatic experiences in childhood, may also predispose someone to developing an anxiety disorder. The uncertainties of modern life also may help explain the high incidence of generalized anxiety.
So the question is, can pet peeves cause anxiety? They can cause people to feel anxious, and stressed out. The truth is science hasn’t quite figured it out yet. Dr. Ralph Nesse believes that it may be an evolutionary response. When we become annoyed our brains are shocked back into focus mode. We become more aware of our surroundings and pay more attention to the stimulus that is annoying us, causing us to feel unease.
