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The Myth of Stress
"There is nothing better for men than that they should be happy in
their work, for that is what they are here for...."
                                                           Ecclesiastes
How do we end our downward slide in the pecking order of nations?
One helpful step would be to revise the popular misunderstanding that has
created the medical myth of stress.
Stress, we are told, is one of man's most implacable enemies.  Stress
causes headaches, back problems, divorce.  What's worse, stress kills.  And
what produces stress?  According to magazines and TV news reports, it's the
urge to achieve, the desire to compete, the preoccupation with success.  To
protect ourselves from stress, we must relax.
We try to shield our children from stress' deadly barbs by shunning
competitiveness in our schools.  We avoid making heavy academic demands,
burden our students with only the lightest hint of homework, and banish the
concepts of ambition and excellence from the classroom.130  We fear that if we
drive our youngsters too hard, they, like us, will suffer from the demon
disease.
But our concept of stress is a fallacy based on a persistent misreading of
the medical evidence.  As Kenneth R. Pelletier of San Francisco's Langley
Neuropsychiatric Institute says, "Both researchers and clinicians have
misinterpreted [the] findings...."131  Very few of the studies on so-called stress
have dealt with achievement or work.  They have centered in most cases on
social loss: men who've recently lost their wives; people who've lost their
jobs; and folks who've been recently divorced.  Sure enough, those who've
been sundered from a spouse by death or separation, or those who've been
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