Tense? Women are used to it

In a recent study, researchers discovered that men who experienced high levels of tension suffered higher rates of heart disease and atrial fibrillation and had higher mortality rates compared to men who did not experience chronic feelings of tension. Tension did not appear to have the same effect in women. http://www.realage.com/news_features/tip.aspx?dat=2_12_2005

Yeah, we know. If women had not evolved over millions of years to handle tension and still outlive men, the species would have been deader than the dodo.

The researchers suggest 10 minutes of deep breathing, meditation, listening to soothing music. I guess the researchers are just too realistic to add to that list, "go tell your boss to commit a physical impossibility upon himself," or "avoid all viewing of Victoria's Secret Christmas advertising," or "use your credit cards until the raised numbers on their faces are rubbed down flush with the cards' surfaces." These are some of the ways I for one would like to manage-- not tension, which we women are supposedly less damaged by-- but anxiety, which makes women and men equally ill.

Apparently, tension is dealing with the stress of what is. We can handle that. Anxiety is the stress of imagining what horrible thing lies waiting just around the corner. Or on the other end of the telephone line when your boss tells the receptionist you will answer the client who had asked for him instead. Tension makes your lips thin and causes vertical lines between your eyebrows. Anixety kills you.

I'll just take a few deep breaths and think about that while you administer this stress test on yourselves. http://www.jokefile.co.uk/quizzes/stresstest.html