August 27, 1999
Tucked away in the brain's recesses is some ancient survival equipment. It rumbles into action when a cowgirl sees a rattler and whips out her six-shooter or when a jilted lover flees a restaurant after spotting his ex- with her new honey.
This equipment regulates our fight or flight response. It was useful gear for life in the dangerous world inhabited by our human ancestors.
But the equipment is both hair-triggered and, at times, inaccurate. That means we stress out when we shouldn't, come apart over nothing.
If you find this primitive part of your brain too often dominating the more civilized regions that developed later in evolutionary time, I have a suggestion. An independent study course at the University of Kansas will give you a shot at learning to chill out.
Called "Managing Stress," it's offered through the Division of Continuing Education and taught by Allan Press, an associate professor of social welfare.
For seven weeks, students are required to practice one of three stress-reducing techniques: meditation, aerobic exercise or deep muscle relaxation, in which one part of the body after another is tensed and then relaxed.
In addition, students practice one other stress-reducing technique chosen from a list that includes such strategies as learning to see another's point of view, giving up on being right, needing less approval, managing time and simply being nice to themselves.
Then students write a 15-page paper about their experience.
Why would I recommend a course I haven't taken? Because I've tried these techniques and they work.
For years, I've been jonesing several times weekly on the tranquilizing chemicals that flood the brain after swimming or exercise-bicycling. This is the aerobic route to calm.
I've also quieted down with contemplative prayer, which would fit within the meditation category.
And, were I an insomniac, I'd do deep-muscle relaxation, which I've also fooled with.
I regard some of the other techniques with wistful fondness. How could I give up on being right? I wonder. Or need less approval? I'd have to stop being an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.
But maybe these techniques will work better for you.
Here's my point: Stress is lethal. Besides heart troubles, it accelerates the onset of Type I diabetes and the course of Type II. It worsens or triggers asthma, inflames the intestinal tract and diminishes memory.
For millennia, humans have wondered how to deal with it. The stoic philosopher Epictetus advised: "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well."
Dealing with stress, then, is a paradox.
It requires both activity - the practice of certain physical and mental disciplines - and passivity - a willingness to go with the flow.
It's not easy.
If it were, we wouldn't need courses in it.
Column by Roger Martin. His KU research webzine can be found at www.research.ukans.edu/explore/.