diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 6c504e8416..5e72de3a82 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
  * Change nodetool setcachecapcity to manipulate global caches (CASSANDRA-4563)
  * (cql3) fix setting compaction strategy (CASSANDRA-4597)
 Merged from 1.0:
+ * increase Xss to 160k to accomodate latest 1.6 JVMs (CASSANDRA-4602)
  * fix toString of hint destination tokens (CASSANDRA-4568)
 
 
diff --git a/conf/cassandra-env.sh b/conf/cassandra-env.sh
index c2a1078cd6..6fa37ede30 100644
--- a/conf/cassandra-env.sh
+++ b/conf/cassandra-env.sh
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ if [ "`uname`" = "Linux" ] ; then
     then
         JVM_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS -Xss180k"
     else
-        JVM_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS -Xss128k"
+        JVM_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS -Xss160k"
     fi
 fi
 echo "xss = $JVM_OPTS"