Stress has been called the sickness of modem society or one of the hazards of our time and civilisation. We hear Jokes about the two ulcer successful businessman and the more successful four ulcer businessman. Stress, of course, is as old as man himself and is part of his defense mechanism to meet the emergencies of life, to stimulate the person to extra performance.

The result of stress is an automatic outpouring of hormones into the body, stimulating his reaction in preparation for fight or flight. We have all had experiences when we have felt the adrenalin instantly galvanizing us into extra alert attention or activity. A near miss with traffic, a personal insult, a sudden fear and we are instantly alert and ready to act.

Nature did not make a mistake when we were constructed with a built in hormone accelerator. It becomes very useful, and adds zest to life in adventure, sport, creativity and almost all the activities we find stimulating and enjoyable.

Damage is caused by an excessive amount and the duration of stimulation which does not have a chance to work itself off in the normal way. The businessman who has ulcers has been subjecting himself to too heavy demands and should think about delegating responsibility. Doctors have been telling us for years that stress contributes to high blood pressure, asthma and ulcers. They are now adding many more illnesses to the list of body malfunctions aggravated by stress, including the common cold, insomnia, certain skin complaints and headaches.

There are several ways of dealing with these tension creating situations. They will not go away by themselves so we should deal with the problems systematically and persistently. Here are some helpful hints.

I. Recognise and Isolate the Problems.

Purposefully set about reducing stresses by refusing to accept them as inevitable. You may not be able to get rid of all stresses immediately but they can be reduced one by one. Each problem should be tackled separately with the object of improving the quality of life. Here again attitudes are most important.

2. Set a Limit to the Amount of Stress Acceptable to You.

I was building a large new factory. The machinery and men were working to complete it by a certain date in readiness for the incoming tenant who had already signed a lease. I was called to the phone to be told that my brother had just dropped dead of a heart attack, My only brother Edwin! A good man, only 52 years old! Dead! Just when he should have been enjoying the best years of his experience and knowledge. That telephone message felled me like a body blow. What was I doing, worrying about making money, investments in new factories and overdrafts at the bank? Life was too short. Too quickly ended. It could pass before I had fully experienced and achieved what I wanted. So I sold my factory investment, took out enough money to buy a new yacht for myself and put the rest of the money into a smaller investment.

I have never regretted the moves nor suffered financially and I have gained tremendous pleasure for myself, family and friends, and perhaps added years of very pleasant living to my existence.

We do not have to put up with stress. Something can be done about it if we are determined and persistent enough. The quality of life is more important than power or money and should be pursued as the main achievement.

It is satisfying to achieve a high degree of perfection in the things we do and create- We should aim for high standards. Absolute perfection, however, is not necessary. When something does not "come off" quite as well as we hoped, do not get upset about it and start whipping yourself up into a state. Be like a gambling man and adopt a win some, lose some attitude and say "well it was a good try." We cannot always win and there is no point in putting unreal demands on ourselves.

3. Avoid New Stress by Keeping Short Accounts.

In other words, live without accumulating emotional debts. Every debt, whether emotional or material places a strain on us. The more we owe the more we feel strain. Promises are emotional debts; avoid them or if they cannot be avoided, keep them as close as possible to the present time so that they can be discharged before a sense of obligation appears. You will find that you do just as many nice things for other people, maybe more, but instead of discharging a debt, you will be making a gift of your time or substance and you will feel much better for it. We can avoid stress also by living within the law of the country. If I do not drive dangerously I wilt be unlikely to receive speeding tickets.

4. Do Not Procrastinate — Front the Issue.

How often we have heard someone say "That's a load off my mind." If there is something unpleasant you must do, do ic soon, and gef it off your mind. If we procrastinate we use up emotional energy anticipating the thing which has to be done in any case.

During an economic credit squeeze after the war and as a resuit of certain unforeseen circumstances I found our printing company short of liquid capital. We could not pay our accounts when due. There were two attitudes we could take. We could simply not pay the account and thereby make our creditors unhappy and finally force them into some action to protect their asset such as stopping further supplies of raw materials until the account was paid. Such an approach would thereby be placing the company and our dealings with our supplier under considerable strain.

So I took the other course and went to our creditors, discussed the problem with them, got their approval for the extended credit and incidentally discovered a tremendous amount of goodwill toward the company. In six months time we were back again to normal trading conditions and there was no adverse credit report placed against the company's name. In business this is called fronting the issue. It is a good practise in ordinary life to front the issue.

Internal Stress

By far the hardest stress to deal with is internal stress. The pressures, expectations and demands we place on ourselves. The little whips we use to discipline ourselves. We have already discussed a lot of those stresses, the emotional debts and guilts with which we beat ourselves. We have talked about the rubbish we have taken into our boat as we sail the sea of life. Other people's rubbish and ideas. All the demands "You must do this" or "Should not do that."