I. I live in a prison: the maximum security chancre at Huntingdon Pennsylvania, a 130 year old dungeon built originally to confine "defective delinquents" (i.e. mentally retarded children.) It's not one of your better neighborhoods. Every life is certainly riddled with stress. I had some while I was teaching and while I traded in incunabula. There was even stress when I operated our farms in West Virginia and Tennessee. But, these years in S.C.I.-Huntingdon makes all former stress trivial by comparison. Visualize my circumstance. In a room the size of your bathroom I live with another man...and I don't even like him! I sleep on a steel slab while the vermin and the stench occupy my cell floor. I write on a table the size of a legal tablet while facing my cell-partner relieving himself on the encrusted toilet. Don't think we can't move around in our "house." We can...about as you could move about in your clothes closet. It's stressful. I live in a moldering block of cells which confine 386 other victims like myself. I palpate them from the relentless roar of their noise beating through the ancient black-steel bars. Everywhere there is litter and idleness, aggression and violence, death and illness, frustration and hostility. I smiled at the professor of nursing suggesting I keep a journal of my stressors...I smile at her naivete. How different her pristine, civilized community must be from my ghetto...ah, yes, I myself remember it well. Yesterday a black man who couldn't get medical treatment or pain medication killed himself. His vomit and his feces and his urine and their bitter aroma spilled down over the tiers of cells. He had AIDS and sickle-cell anemia and other confections so he hanged himself, and his puke cascaded in phlegmic strands through the steel grating, swaying like Spanish moss from an iron cypress. It has since congealed into miniature greenish icycles danglini stalactite-style frgm the roof of.this cave. The same day my life was twice threatened, I was barred. from attending meals, I was trying to manage twenty-one separate legal suits in Federal Courts (I must find a way to get to the library). The photocoper was broken down for the fourth day and a brief and petition were already late. I rushed to get busy and do a critique on some silly "stress" article for this undergraduate course I've taken...and I couldn't even receive the lecture tape which the course announcement didn't bother even to mention. I struggled also to get together some sort of program to get parole ("I'm late for my duties with the Jaycees and I've got to mail these proposals for the Inmate General Welfare Fund. The radio is on the fritz and I've got no idea how to get it repaired.") I've got a stress-related herpes on my lip which jumps in and out like a groundhog in February, and the prof wants a journal of stressors...is that Ivory Tower or what! I expect a visit and my heart pounds in stressful anticipation wondering, worrying if she will get here safely. She leaves and I'm again alone in the boiling cauldron. I'll have to jot this down in my journal as a stressor, but I can't do it now, the block is locked up while they beat men. I wonder if I'll be one of them. Stress is a constituent of each molecule of my life...and I can't even get ribbons for my damn typewriter. II. Guys in prison are bad people and deserve everything they get. It's axiomatic! It's part of the retribution ethic of organized Christianity and pollutes our system of cruelty since the days when the Puritans delighted in torturing old women. Of course, it's nonsense. But, for the bad-guy in prison they are realities which he must confront. When you are old and fat and white and over-educated as I am, much of life is an exercise in avoidance: try to avoid death today, try to avoid a beating, try to avoid loss of health or property or sanity. It's like dodging cannonballs during a cannonade. But beyond this defensiveness is a more positive and directed vector: I want to live after prison and walk the pickets of our high meadow with my wife. That goal, survival, is endangered by stress. Not only is my current lifestyle immediately life-threatening, but the stress it produces aggregates, militating against the quality of my future life. It may then be useful to identify sources of stress and to limit or control them or their effects. Doctor Holmes1 invented a scheme for evaluating so-called "stressors," that is, the life stresses which produce the stress effect on humans. His little evaluation system is perhaps not terribly practical or useful in real life, but it serves to codify two principals: different stressors implicate differing consequences and seriousness, and stress accumulates with the likelihood of adverse physical effects increasirig with the aggregate. Identifying stressors and being alerted to their potential effects is all well and good, but little more than an exercise in the morose if cure or prevention is not also available. Sad to say, the cures for stress and the management of stress ~re very much less definite and dependable than its production. In the quaint parlance of pseudo-science, stress is created to mean "the rate of all wear and tear caused by life"2 or, again, "the non-specific response of the body to any demand made on it."3 In the course text stress becomes only a negat1ve effect; "wear and tear on the body...an adverse bodily reaction [to]...a stressor." To me, stress is the response of my mind and body to the stimuli and demands of my life. Some of these responses are desirable, others are damaging or potentially damaging and so it would be to my advantage to identify and control them. Similarly, I should try to control the offending stimuli/demands, and to control or manage the adverse effects. It's a three phase proposition: the cause level, the response/recognition level and the adverse effect level. III. The stressors in my life, that is, the forces in my life which produce stress are largely beyond my control. If I remain sane and sober, if I continue to relate to the reality of my world, they will be there. The best I can do at this causative level is, I think, "drive defensively" practice avoidance. Of course, that effort itself may be stressful and worry or anticipation of harm is often as hurtful as the harm itself. Over the course of my years in prison I've developed a set of practices of avoidance which have proved their worth in helping me to reduce conflicts and stress by circumventing the cause. (1) Avoid all young men particularly black ones, loud ones, insecure ones, frightened ones, and ones who feel they must show how tough they are or tell what great criminals, drinkers, or lovers they are. (2) Avoid all Christians, particularly the born-again-and- again-and-again ilk and the ones who have to show you how holy they are by flaunting their crosses. The ones who know just what the Bible means but read not a jot of Hebrew, and the preachers and the hypocrites are extremely annoying, and intolerant; but, while they are as numerous as cockroaches, they must be avoided. (3) Avoid all faggots and fellow travelers, particularly the sissies who like to dress up and have other faggots fight over them. An incredible number of men get killed over homosexuals. The faggot can be almost as noxious as the Christian, and since many of the most loudly boasting Christians are the boy-molestIng queers, this group melds together. (4) Avoid gambling. That means losses, debt and, the hell of usury. Most trading in prison is in "packs" ... packs of cigarettes. Owing GMAC $8000 for your Buick is not stressful. Owing "Duck LeRew" 50 packs is stressful ... may even be fatal. (5) Avoid dope, "wine" and "sniffing." There are others, but these are the big five. Since I started the Lifestyles course I've given some thought to my avoidances. I re-evaluated in light of the outpouring of profound "wisdom" which Williams and Long4 sold to Houghton Mifflin. Certainly my techniques reflected a "self management lifestyle," but am I proceeding in my own best interests? The text is, shall we say, not directed at my situation. It is largely out of phase with reality, contradictory to empirical science and sanctimoniously simplistic. I think it's safe to assume that neither author has watched a man pushed from the eighth tier plummet head first into the ground tier radiators, depositing fragments of jawbone and puddles of brains on the scalding tines. In consequence, they have little refinement to offer to my avoidance techniques. The principle of the course and the text is that "men are masters of their fate" and ought to manage and control themselves and their lives. That's obviously crap. Men, all persons, are victims of a thousand unsene elements and forces. While the course may not be silly, still it's not a bad idea to try to exert management over one's reality and one's self. Within limits I think I'm doing that: managing myself and the forces at play upon me. So, so far so good. IV. It is vacuous to infer that the present monograph is, or could realistically be a scholarly treatise. Neither the text nor the course is "scholarly," in the way I use the word. My own views are "observations" not "research" in a scientific~ sense. The trite formalities expressed in the study guide for writing an "Investigative/Research/Reference" paper are obviously to be ignored. They are not only misapplied, but simply wrong in critical areas. [Can you believe it, the study guide purports to quote Aristotle5 which is of itself more than a bit pretentious, and then has that Greek speak words in English which he never inferred in any tongue! Scholarly, this ain't!!] My present commentary discusses in personal terms my own stress, how I deal with it, and the effects (slight though they may be) of the course on my efforts. In that context, the course has been most useful to me in the second level of my efforts: my response to stressors. "Don't let it bother you." "Ignore it." "Don'·t worry about it." To me such platitudes have always been more annoying than helpful. Indeed, they are uselessly impossible like G.B. Shaw's "not thinking about a white bear," or Colleen,6 being silent for a minute and not thinking about feathers. Still, there is a real value to being able to turn off the stress producing inputs from our environment. For me, I've customarily achieved that detachment through ordinary concentration and by keeping actively busy/occupied. [I even hand stitched a handkerchief into a typwriter case.] In this prison environment, however, detachment and preoccupation may go before a serious shot in the chops. Prison is a place to be alert and watchful. It isn't really safe to allow one's self to be preoccupied. At least two prisoners and two of those bull dyke guards are up to no good behind one's head. In studying this course I re-evaluated my self-enforced alertness. I've adjusted my conduct to some extent, trimming down my cautious sensitivity and partially restoring my former habit of active concentration. During the tenure of this course I've written more than two chapters of a new book7 speculated on the syngagogue at Meroth8 and even theorized over the role of the metalloregulatory MerR protein in transcriptional switching.9 And, as I said, above, I've even done some hand stitching! In these ways, then, I've tried to help myself and limit stresses' harm to me by filtering out smaller stressors. I hear less of the noise. I anticipate visits for shorter periods. I smell less of the male sweat10and see fewer of the ugly realities. I experience less stress by turning off some of the stressors. This course has helped me achieve that result through forcing a re-evaluation of my approach to my reality. V. At the heart of this stress business is getting rid of it. Not easy. Such treatment is divided to passive and direct branches. The passive approach is popular and natural but tenuous. In the real world sex is no doubt the ideal mechanism for ridding one's self of stress. At least it's the most natural mechanism and by far my favorite. A little copulation here, a little cunnilingus there, a little trespassing on the erogenous zones over where, and presto, stress is ejaculated with a sigh of ecstasy. "Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished."11 Needless to say, for me sex is not a realistic release for stress. Indeed, its want is a major stressor. For most men in prison stress seems to be released through aggression, sports, drugs or wine, or through one of several religious practices. I'm happy for them that they have a means to divert themselves of stress, no matter how 1ittle of it. These vectors do not work for me. The course text and other references offer a group of feeble and largely ineffectual mind orienting, passive stress management techniques...pure placebo! The one which tickles me the most is "imagery." The idea here is to daydream and justify it as scientific treatment! In The Relaxation... Workbook12 this behavior is defined as "visualizing your favorite scene..." The principal is expected to assume a relaxing posture, breathe leisurely, and imagine the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of his favorite spot. Does this ever not work! Prison is continual longing for the pleasures from which I am separated. Vivid recollections of what I already miss is frustrating, not relaxing. It heats my fury against the wrongs which put me in prison and the fickle "just-us" system of magic- words and illusory relief. No! When I imagine Grafton, I don't relax with pleasure, I boil with desparation. "Imagery" is a cure worse than the disease. The Relaxation...Workbook12 also offers an even sillier variation: "Body imagery." In this proposed behavior the principal visualizes body-parts, and in his imagination induces these parts to relax. [I really wonder if these authors understand "suggestion." Think for a moment that your nose doesn't itch ... see, you are rubbing the itch on your nose.] Through the use of symbols and colors and shapes [and maybe voodoo dolls], stress is imagined away through the imaginary body parts. Perhaps this works for someone. I tried it. I got bored. I got agitated. I didn't get relaxed. Relaxation is the antithesis of stress, or, more accurately, the only passive treatment for stress. The cure for stress, then, becomes a seeking for relaxation. For some persons, meditation seems to work wonders. I've seen its effects with the Islamics and their use of daily prayer. Less often I've seen it work in Zen. But with me, meditation is too intellectually stimulating and I find my mind involved in active problem definitions and problem solving. To me, even meditation on God is not passive or relaxing. It is active and participatory. I've never really tried biofeedback techniques but all those gadgets make me suspicious that the technology is more mumbo-jumbo than effective. Two physical techniques, however, seem to help me. Relaxation seems to be approached through two avenues: Relax the mind and the body follows, and relax the body and the mind follows. The former approach, the "mind over body", the approach which uses imagery,· body imagert and meditation doesn't work for this jail bird. The latter approach, "body over mind," is more for Rebecca, my wife, took a class at Slippery Rock where she actually drilled with Muscle Relaxation exercises. Boy, did it ever not work for her! Rebecca is not good at "limp" and flopping her limbs lifelessly, but for me, lying still for a few moments on my cot can relax me if I don't do it for too long. Better than muscle relaxation, however, is controlled breathing. I don't· mean all the counting and timing nonsense which Mason13 advocates, but simply slowed, deep and rhythmic breathing, really helps me to relax. Several times in a day I pause to "breathe." Maybe that's where the expression "take a breather" came from. I just stop and breathe deeply and slowly a few times and some of my stress ebbs. We might say that this course taught me to breathe. VI. Active stress management is the best real treatment for stress. It utilizes medication. The only authentic treatment for stress is medical and for acute stress nothing less should be sought. Get a rub-down at least! Conclusion For vacations avoid even a brief excursion to Huntingdon Gaol. Indeed the uninitiated might find any jail, even a happy little county lock-up a terrifically stressful experience. When stressed, breathe ... pause and smell the f1owers ... or the·gar1ic, as the case may be. -30- FOOTNOTES 1 Doctor Thomas Holmes who authored "Social Readjustment Rating Scale" in 1967. 2 After Hyde and Allen from their Investiqations in Stress control. 3 After Alan Lakein from his How To Get Control of Your Time and Life. Of the several definitions offered by my readings, this is the one which most nearly agrees with what I use the term "stress" to mean; though, to me, a physicist, the real "stress" is what causes this effect. "Stressor" is used in the text to equate that cause. 4Robert L. Williams and James D. Long, authors of Toward A Self Manaqed Lifestyle. 5Page 15. 6From the M.G.M. film of the same name. 7I've published over 30 books, mostly under the name G.G. Stoctay, and this newish effort is more smut than scholarship. 8The extraordinary synagogue discovered in Northern Galilee by Zui Ilan at Kfar Marous which defines the Northern extent of Israel in Second Temple times. See Biblical Archaeoloqy Review, March/April 1989 for a description. 9My avocation has become studies of molecular biology. Transcription is an area of real interest, as is folding. See "Transcriptional Switching by the Metalloregulatory MerR Protein..." by Lisa M. Shewchuk et al in Biochemistry March 7, 1989. 10I'm convinced that males smelling males produces an aggressive response just as males smelling females produces an erotic response and some day I'd like to study the effects of odor and phenomones on human aggression. 11 Shakespeare: Hamlet. 12The Relaxation And Stress Reduction Workbook by David, Eshelman, and McKay. 13Doctor John Mason, author of Guide to Stress Reduction.