The New York Times had a nice article Saturday on the health problems of ministers. Some extended quotes:

“It’s a personality trait that accompanies the sense of divine calling,” said Mr. Hickle, 58, who has been the pastor at Fairmont United Methodist Church in Raleigh for 19 years. “You’re feeding your need to be liked, your need to be valued, your need to be needed.”

The Rev. H. Gray Southern, who oversees 91 Methodist churches in the Durham area as a district superintendent, echoed the point.

“The tendency of clergy, for the best of reasons, is to be self-effacing, to take care of others before taking care of yourself,” Mr. Southern said. “You’re the ‘suffering servant,’ you’re the ‘wounded healer.’ It’s hard to set boundaries.”

Such worries are more than merely anecdotal.

While medical studies in various denominations indicate that clergy members live longer than comparable civilians, an emerging body of evidence over the last two decades has shown that ministers are more vulnerable to diabetes, depression, hypertension, gastrointestinal distress and heart problems.

[…]

“The tendency of clergy, for the best of reasons, is to be self-effacing, to take care of others before taking care of yourself,” Mr. Southern said. “You’re the ‘suffering servant,’ you’re the ‘wounded healer.’ It’s hard to set boundaries.”

[…]

“What’s probably true for a great percentage of preachers is that we’re all people-pleasers,” one minister said, generating both murmurs of assent and knowing laughter, according to the transcript. “I know there’s preachers out there that aren’t people-pleasers, but I haven’t met any of them. And so that inherently creates anxieties. You can’t please everybody, and you’ve got that anxiety to cope with.”