Mark Pavilons
Stressed out, but still consuming!

For years, medical professionals and others have been warning us about the dangers of stress in our lives.

For most, it's simply shrugged off. It's the price of doing business, many will argue. It's a sign of the times.

It's also a plague that may very well take us all out if we're not careful.

While much fund-raising and research are being done to combat major illnesses and diseases like Alzheimer's, MS, diabetes and cancer, there's still no definitive test for stressrelated ailments. We've only scratched the surface and stress can be ranked right up there with smoking, high-fat diets and clogged arteries as identified risk factors.

With little in the way of scientific study, many medial practitioners will be quick to chalk down our upset stomach, bowel troubles or aches and pains to the allencompassing menace - stress. While anxiety and stress may very well be the modern culprits, we still have no idea what being under constant pressure is doing to our minds and bodies.

Most of us grin and bear it and try to go with the flow in this age of anxiety that we've created.

And that's the sad thing. We've done this to ourselves. There's really no one else to blame for our noxious burdens.

Self-imposed turmoil over finances, career moves, bigger houses, luxury cars and designer running shoes for the kids predominate our daily thoughts. Oh, to turn back time if we could.

Our ancestors, early man, also faced stress - simply surviving day in and day out in harsh conditions wasn't a picnic. Our cave-dwelling predecessors were driven by instinct, innate flight or fight responses, self-preservation and a need to further the species. Boy, some things haven't changed at all in the past two million years! Well, take-out has gotten a lot better.

Life was very simple back then. We killed our food, ate it and if we got injured, we limped away to die cold and alone.

But despite those bleak beginnings, early man did not require Valium, Nexium or feel the need to share inner most thoughts with a psychiatrist.

Today, stress is acknowledged to be one of the major causes of illness and chronic pain. Stress effects all of our bodily systems - nervous, hormonal, circulatory and gastrointestinal (my personal favorite). Some experts liken our condition as being in a constant state of flight or fight - muscles contracting, heart racing, and release of adrenaline. I assume that's not good when it occurs 24/7.

So, we allow ourselves to be overmedicated for conditions we could likely eliminate on our own. Many prescription drugs either make matters worse, or produce serious side effects.

It's hard to know where to start in our inner cleansing process. We read that heart attack and stroke are number one killers, so let's concentrate on good heart health. And then we're told we need to cleanse our colons to eliminate toxins and improve our overall health. Others tell us to detoxify our livers, and swallow countless herbal supplements in the process. And still many diehards swear by good nutrition and regular exercise to rid us of our demons.

You can literally stress yourself out just finding the right approach to tackling stress.

Where and when did it all go wrong?

Well, it may have started 150 or so years ago, in the era of mechanization. Once we began to learn how to produce mass quantities of goods, we created a villain - the consumer. Prior to modernization, our rich ancestors were bored, and spent their money on lavish castles, art and trinkets from far-away lands.

Once we introduced things like factories and assembly lines, we created a monster - a fire we continue to feed to this day.

It's our own self-fulfilling prophecy. We learned and excelled, not to further humankind with great scientific or spiritual discoveries, but with ways to make tons of cheap stuff to buy.

The better we got at it, the more we spent, until we've dug ourselves into this massive consumer pit. There's no escape, you know.

We will forever be tied to the dollar to buy things and more things - things we don't really need or even want. The vicious cycle continues.

Our schools are not designed to create radicals, free thinkers, philosophers or spiritual leaders, but very good spenders to feed the mega machine. And it starts early. At our dinner table each

night, my kids often ask rather strange and unusual questions. Bring it on, I say.

Liam, at five, frankly has no real sense of how important money is. I suppose that's a good thing. But he soon will, and when that happens, I believe all innate innocence flies right out the window.

Lexie has an idea that you need hundreds, maybe thousands, to afford the good things in life. But to her, all that's required to buy that chicken dinner or oriental takeout is a magical debit card.

Shame on us that we turn young, brilliant minds into mindless consumers. Money, or a lack thereof, should never be a topic at the dinner table.

That treehouse in the far north is looking better all the time!