If it seems tougher than in the past to deal with what life throws your way, you're not the only one who thinks so.

The death of a friend, getting laid off or having a baby takes more adjustment than in the past, according to a study that compares perceptions of life changes today versus 40 years ago.

"Life just gets more demanding. Today's life is more stressful," says Richard Rahe of Salem, Ore., a psychiatrist who in 1967 co-created the Life Changes Stress Test (also known as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale), which is now widely used in stress management.

The online survey of 1,306 adults reproduced a section of Rahe's scale, which assigns point values to life events and gauges the amount of adjustment they require. Marriage was the standard by which other events were measured.

The original scale looked at 42 life events; the new study selected 10 of them for a direct comparison that were thought to require greater adjustment today.

"The common wisdom is that even good things can be stressful," says Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University. "You can view change as an exciting opportunity for growth or a threatening possibility."

Rahe wasn't involved in the new study, but he says it's in line with his findings. He has twice refined the scale, most recently in 1997, when he found that the difficulty of adjusting to major life events was 45 percent higher than in 1967.

Rahe calculates the increase in difficulty at about 1.5 percent a year.

"If you look at travel today and compare it to the stress of traveling 30 years ago, can't you see it's increased? The ones that really went up were the low life-change values. What used to be low — like a traffic ticket — are now moderate. Now, when you get a ticket, it can cost $500," Rahe says.

The perceived adjustment necessary to the death of a spouse or divorce declined. Rebecca Adams, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, says reasons for that could be many, including differences in survey methodology.

Social norms also have changed in 40 years. Divorce rates have increased, and more people are staying single than in the past.

The study was commissioned by a New York company called First 30 Days, which offers products and services to help people through life changes. The survey was done in August by Southeastern Institute of Research based in Richmond, Va. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.