Three friends face mid-life crises. Paul is a writer who’s blocked. François has lost his ideals and practices medicine for the money; his wife grows distant, even hostile. The charming Vincent, everyone’s favorite, faces bankruptcy, his mistress leaves him, and his wife, from whom he’s separated, wants a divorce.
Researchers are great at finding correlations between lifestyle and health. Here are four study results you’ve probably seen.
1. People who have a drink or two each day live longer.
2. People who own pets live longer.
3. People who exercise 20 minutes a day live longer.
4. Religious people live longer.
What do all four of those lifestyle choices have in common in terms of a possible root cause explanation? Read the list again and see if you can find it. (…) The pattern I noticed is that each of the lifestyle choices directly lowers stress by improving a person’s attitude.
My hypothesis is that stress is the root cause of most health problems.
