    49

    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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