EXPLORING THE WORLD OF STRESS

I often experience stress. I am experiencing it at this moment. I am tense, my mouth is dry, my hands are shaking. But I don't understand the experience at all. What is stress? Is it always a bad thing? What are the causes of stress? And what can I do in order not to suffer stress? These are the questions I am going to explore on this journey of discovery.

I experience stress, I think, when life asks for too much from me, when I face a challenge and am afraid that I will be unable to meet it. Then I feel helpless, a prisoner of my situation. And then the stress begins.

Although stress is unpleasant, I don't think it is always bad for us. We suffer stress for good reasons as well as for bad reasons. Without stress, would an athlete set a new

 record? Could anyone be successful in business without stress? Could an author write a book? So stress can come from a challenge as well as from a problem. Art itself comes from stress. Speaking for myself, I'd rather live with stress than die without contributing to art. A writer must experience stress. Even if some stress is useful or inevitable, I don't want to experience it all the time.

So my next question is, what causes bad stress, and how can I keep it to a minimum?

Stress comes, I think, either from outside or from inside. Serious problems that you are unable to control can be outside causes of bad stress. For example, if you

don't have enough money to live, or if you have too much work, or your working conditions are very, very bad, or if people are very nasty to you. But stress comes

from inside when you make life difficult for yourself. For example, if you want everything you do to be perfect, or if you want other people to be perfect, or if you are badly hurt every time someone is a bit nasty to you, or if you can't forget problems that you have had in the past, or if you blame other people for all your difficulties.

When I am a bit calmer, I must find out which of these causes of stress I suffer from That will be another "journey in my mind". But now, to end this journey, I want to write down my ideas about how to keep my stress to a minimum. Here

they are:

1. I must always be polite to people, particulary in the shop.

2. I must smile when I talk to people.

13. I must remember to talk to people about their problems, not just about mine.

4. If someone is impolite to me, like Dr Gayle, I must understand that it's his problem, not mine.

S. I must always look at my problems very calmly, to see what their real causes are.

6. I must have a realistic idea of myself. I am not another Najib Mahfoud. I don't think I'll win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

7. I must work. If I haven't started writing my book, it's my fault. I mustn't blame anyone else.

These are seven points in my programme to keep stress to a minimum. This journey

In my mind has made some useful discoveries.