...of health, happiness, dreams and bodies. Exhaustive research has been done over the past several decades to identify the causes of stress and the most effective strategies for coping with it.  Not surprisingly, most of this research has been done around the workplace, but there’s also plenty of evidence that shows that our culture is a stress-factory, no matter what your age or occupation. .  As Dr. Peter L. Schnall of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of California at Irvine points out, “When it comes to stress, control over one's work may be the most important factor”.  And in response to that issue, scores of companies, large and small, have invested millions of dollars in “stress-reduction” programs that include everything from counseling to chair and table massages to yoga, tai chi, feng shui ("wind and water") and energy dances.

But, unfortunately, according to Dr. Schnall and other researchers, the benefits of many of these programs are coming under skeptical scrutiny.  Many long-term studies are showing that while these programs have the potential to be very beneficial, the benefits of stress reduction programs are generally short-lasting, and may be more useful to a demanding employer than they are to stressed-out workers.  Your company may provide you with these nice breaks from the onslaught, but it seems to be the case that, while workers are more productive at work, by the time they get through the day, well, there’s not much energy left for the rest of life.

Whether or not you do have workplace benefits for managing stress (or for that matter whether or not you have a traditional job) the relentless omnipresence of stress in all its forms is there for all of us all of the time.  In the last 10 years alone, the shifts in the nature of day-today living itself have been daunting.  The kaleidoscopic flow of electronic information, the ever-present cell phone and e-mail, have pushed all of our obligations, not just our work obligations, into a constant presence in almost every corner of life.  Like a baby crying in the movie theater, you just can’t ignore it for long.  We used to have days to respond to a letter or a request from someone, now we have hours, or minutes.  We used to be “out-of-touch” when we left the office for the week-end or went on vacation.  But not any more!