News Flash

The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it.
Osho

“Stress could save your life.” This was the cover story of the February 23rd edition of Newsweek. My initial reaction was, “My God, they stole my idea!” My second thought was “I’ll sue and be rich.” My third thought was “I’m going to get a bigger boat.” After I came down from this litigious high I went to the internet and read the article. What I found was a relief and a disappointment: they had not stolen my idea but, therefore, I was not going to get a bigger boat.

The general message of the article was that despite dire warnings that stress can kill you, or at the very least shrink your brain cells, it can also be beneficial. The author pointed to the fact that stress often helps create the energy necessary to take on new challenges, overcome obstacles and motivate us to do better at jobs we care about. The article even quotes my favorite stress researcher, Hans Selye, and references his concept of “eustress,” which is a term for good stress.

The author even went on to dip his toes into the Zen waters. He mentioned that research has shown that meditation can help the brain recover from the negative impacts of prolonged stress. But then the wheels fell off his “let’s look at stress in a new way” bus.

The author quickly dismissed the benefits of both mindfulness and meditation by stating “not all of us want to or can become monks; not all of us can spare even eight weeks for a course at the Center for Mindfulness.” He further turns out the lights on the healing power of stress by stating that the core issue of stress is control: that when we feel that we have no control over our lives, we feel stressed. The antidote is neatly prescribed as “We're going to have to figure out what parts of our future we can control, and we'll need to engage with them thoughtfully.”

At this point I slumped in my chair, no longer worried about the gleaming fiberglass fishing boat that would never be, and thought “this is the same old idea.” The notion that we need to look to the future for stress relief is how we got into this mess in the first place. “Stress isn’t about not being in control,” I shouted at my computer screen, “it is refusing to let go of control that keeps us stressed.” The screen simply stared back at me as if to say “what are you yelling at?” In a more relaxed state, I added, “this article is one small step forward from the present moment and a giant leap backwards from mindfulness. I sighed, and I’m sure I heard the computer screen giggle.

So, in the style of Stephen Colbert, a tip of the hat to Newsweek for putting the idea that stress may need a second look on their front cover. However, a wag of the finger for suggesting that the only way out is the way we came in—through thinking.

One final note, if you read the article online (see hyperlink) make sure that you check out the comments from readers. Many of those who responded were apoplectic about being asked to consider that stress is anything other than a plague upon mankind.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184154