The Stress Protection Plan

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Dedication

To my darling wife, Alkmini,

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The individuality of each person must be recognized; this leads to a realization that the particular factors which enable successful adaptation to the environment will vary. Stress-proofing involves gaining understanding and insight into the nature of the problems of stress, as well as a determination to make changes, alterations, modifications and efforts in accordance with this knowledge. Through this apparent maze, I would urge you to hold fast to one concrete thought: given the chance, the body is a self-healing, self-repairing and self-regenerating organism. The aim is to give it that chance, and at the same time to erect barriers which will provide protection against future hazards.

Living in the present lessens the tendency to dwell on past events or to worry about anticipated future events, and a further aspect of this is that the nearer our concept of reality is to actual life the less stress will be created. Reality may not always be the same for all people, but in many daily situations the stress felt by people is the direct result of their ‘fantasy’ of how things should be, being at odds with reality. My ‘fantasy’, for example, is that when people make appointments they ought to keep them, and what is more, they ought to be on time. In reality, however, this is often not the case. The annoyance and stress which is generated every time an appointment is missed or someone is late, could be avoided if I could bring my fantasy closer to real life, i.e. anticipate that people will, by the nature of things, be late for or will actually forget to keep their appointments from time to time.

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