Stress

Do you live a balanced life? Is your life rewarding? Do you enjoy work and have time for leisure, family, social activities? Or do you feel overwhelmed, feel one more item on your personal or professional agenda will bring a breakdown? Are you stressed?

Stress is an increasing North American phenomenon. Stress leads to illnesses such as hypertension and heart disease, domestic and workplace violence, accidents and low productivity. Stress in one life area spills into other areas. Stress is preventable and treatable, and can be a catalyst for growth.

Hearing someone say "I'm stressed out", or "He's under a lot of stress these days" are almost as common as observations about the weather.

The fact is, stress has always been a part of people's lives - it is the experience of adapting to change, and the only thing we can be sure will remain unchanging in this world - is change. But because change is happening at an ever-increasing rate these days, the negative effects of stress are becoming more a part of our everyday experience.

GUEST: Eli Bay, The Relaxation Response Institute

MATHESON: We all experience stress in our lives. Of course some people experience more than others. And we all react differently. We all cope differently. The bad news is too much of the wrong kind of stress can make you ill. The good news is there are ways to cope properly.

Eli Bay is the founder and president of The Relaxation Response Institute in Toronto. He is with us this morning.

Good morning.

BAY: Good morning. Hi.

MATHESON: So, can we talk about stress? What is stress? Because there's good stress, bad stress.

STRESS! `Important thing to remember is have control over how you react'

SITTING AMONG the papers, Rolodex, notebooks and files on Danielle Seery-Smith's desk is a little rubber moose with big floppy antlers. During the course of each hectic workday, whenever she happens to glance at the moose, she pauses for a few seconds to take a deep breath.

Research on stress conducted earlier in this century was important because it suggested that illness and disease were a function not only of pathogenic agents, but the adaptive reactions of the individual as well (Hinkle, 1973). In response, scientific and medical research began exploring the interaction between individuals, pathogenic agents, and the environment. Since this early period, however, stress has proven to be a difficult construct to assess and measure objectively (Edwards & Cooper, 1988; Harris, 1989; Hinkle, 1973; Leventhal & Tomarken, 1987; Wong, 1990; Young, 1980).