What? Me relax? - tips on how to reduce stress - includes list of resources and alternative therapies

Vegetarian Times, March, 1996 by Jeanne Rattenbury

SIX MONTHS INTO my first pregnancy, my husband and I started attending a 10-week childbirth-preparation course. It was a hefty time commitment in our already hectic schedules, but I thought I was dedicated to doing everything possible to make labor and delivery as quick and painless as possible. That was before I knew that part of my homework would be to relax for at least 20 minutes, twice a day, every day.

Relax? You might as well ask me to score Beethoven's Ninth Symphony from memory. I can bring myself to eat an additional 300 calories, and I can even squeeze 200 pelvic rocks into my daily routine, but there is no way on Earth I can lie down and breathe deeply for a minimum of 40 minutes every day. I don't have the time, and even if I did, I can't say that I have the inclination.

Trying to relax makes me edgy. For one thing, I'm not good at it. For another, I can't get past the feeling that I have more important things to do--read a book, volunteer for a good cause, scrub the grout between the tiles in the shower stall with a toothbrush--anything.

Judging from my classmates' reactions, I'm not alone. We flashed each other "yeah, right" looks when our instructor asked us if we were doing our relaxation exercises. And yet, we all knew she was right. None of us doubted that relaxation is beneficial and desirable, even necessary; we just didn't believe that it was attainable--not then, and certainly not after our babies were born. Relaxation takes time, and time is what we don't have.

We know that failure to relax is linked to all sorts of health problems, including heart disease, migraine headaches and digestive disorders. We also know that, with a few exceptions, racing against the clock seems to be a peculiarly American affliction: You never hear about stressed-out Samoans, or Chileans who can't chill. Even western Europeans, whom we think of as our cultural peers, don't seem to be as rushed as we are. Heck, after one year of employment, they average five or six weeks of paid vacation a year, compared with our two. What we don't know is just how we ended up this way.

A LEGACY OF RESTLESSNESS

THE SHORT ANSWER is that Americans are probably the most restless people on Earth, an affliction rooted in our heritage. The Puritans were champions of the Protestant work ethic, a 16th-century philosophy that viewed idleness as taboo. In the United States, even as the religious influence of the Puritans waned, this ideal was propagated in the immensely popular writings of Ben Franklin (originator of the phrase "time is money"), whose widely read Poor Richard's Almanac counseled new Americans not to waste time. Driven by this mentality, Yankees became internationally renowned for their ingenuity in inventing time-saving devices (not to mention time-extending devices, like the light bulb).

By the time rock 'n' roll rolled around, Americans had created the most efficient and prosperous society the world had ever known. The future looked so rosy that sociologists actually began to worry that people wouldn't know what to do with all the free time they were going to have on their hands. They needn't have fretted. Despite all their promise, efficiency and prosperity have not translated into more leisure time for Americans; in fact, just the opposite is true. The postwar era has seen the coining of the word "workaholic," the advent of fast food and the proliferation of instant cash machines.

THE PROSPERITY PARADOX

MOST OF US, IF ASKED, would say that we d rather be living now than hundreds of years ago. We have indoor plumbing, effective medications, speedy and comfortable transportation, a wide variety of foods to choose from and entertainment at the touch of a remote control. What we don't have, however, is much free time--and, believe it or not, a medieval peasant did. (Before the rise of capitalism in the 1 6th century, there was no incentive to produce surplus, so people worked only as long and as hard as was necessary to subsist.) Although time spent at work started decreasing in the 20th century, it was only in comparison with the Industrial Revolution years--an aberrant blip on the work timeline--that working stiffs appeared to be making gains. Prior to the 1 9th century, human beings spent far less time working than they do today. A 4th-century Roman, for instance, enjoyed an average of 200 holidays a year; a medieval peasant had 115.

How can this be in an age in which one machine can do the work of dozens of humans? In her book The Overworked Arnerican: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, (Basic Books, 1991), Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor argues that present-day Americans have become indentured servants to the consumer-goods marketplace that industrialism created. If we wonder why it seems we have to work so much harder than our parents did to maintain a middle-class lifestyle--and why so many families find it difficult to get by on only one income--we should take a hard look at what we think constitutes a middle-class lifestyle. Today's new houses are not only much larger than they were a generation ago, but they also are filled with a panoply of items that weren't even available when our parents were starting out: VCRs, CD players, computers, food processors, espresso machines--the list goes on and on. Moreover, these are items that the rest of the world--including western Europe--generally manages to do without. According to Schor, the average American owns and consumes twice as much today as his or her counterpart did 40 years ago. We live in bigger houses, have more possessions and use more energy.