A considerable amount of evidence indicates that a high rate of life changes—a source of continued and unavoidable arousal—is detrimental to health and psychological well-being. The present study hypothesized that sustained high-arousal states are unpreferred and that the persistence of unpreferred emotional states is harmful. Using a conceptual framework for a comprehensive description of emotional states and the differential preferences for these, it is possible to make more precise predictions on the illness consequences of emotionally unpreferred life changes. Particular hypotheses which received support were that more arousing life changes are more conducive to illness; that among the more arousing life changes, unpleasant changes are associated with more illness than pleasant ones; that unpleasant life changes are more detrimental to health when combined with dominance-inducing life changes; and that arousing life changes are particularly harmful to more arousable (non-screening) individuals.