When at the beginning of the twentieth century it was spoken about stress, it was usual to think of company owners or big executives.

But our accelerated and competitive western way of life made that now when we speak about stress, we not only think in big executives or in company owners, but also in intermediate level bosses, in employees, in workers, in housewives and in primary school children.

I think that everyone that has a small children, will surely have had the opportunity to take a sick children to the doctor, and listen that we shouldn't worry, that the child is only nervous, and have being given some mild medicine for it.

What did the doctor mean when he told us: stay calm, he's only nervous?

He wanted to tell us: the boy doesn't have a stroke, neither an ulcer, arteriosclerosis, or cancer; he is only nervous.

But it is also certain that the same doctor in another opportunity will tell us that, not less than ninety percent of the illnesses the medical science knows are originated by nervous tension excesses, by stress.

I always say that stress is not only the most common illness in our time, but probably the worst of all.

Why is it so? Because suppose that you could measure stress in inches, and that I have stress zero when the meter is located in zero.

In a normal existence the meter ascends very frequently. Let us suppose that it arrives to seven or eight inches high, and in that level, I begin to have headaches, or stomachaches, or pain in my back muscles, or pain in my shoulders muscles, or in the neck, or insomnia.

So let us suppose that when the meter arrives to eight inches we have some of the most frequent manifestations of nervous tension excess.

As you can suppose, I will go to see the doctor so that he gives me a medicine; or I will begin to take gymnastic classes, or I will begin to practice violent sports, or go to massage sessions.

But certainly I will do something to take off the annoying consequences of nervous tension excesses.

Suppose that as a consequence of one or more of those solutions, my nervous tension begins to lower until it arrives to the point where I feel healthy again, maybe as you feel right now: perfectly healthy.

But if we look at the nervous tension meter, we would possibly see that it didn't arrive again to zero, but rather it is parked, let us say to the height of two or three inches. That is to say that I continue having nervous tension, although I don't perceive any kind of consequences.

This can perfectly happen and in fact happens. And it was discovered in 1908 by the physiologist Edmund Jacobson, who told us that there are two classes of nervous tension.

The one that you can feel, the one that bothers

The residual nervous tension that doesn't bother or feels in any way, but that is in fact the mother of all the illnesses; and only needs time to produce its destructive effect.

We could compare the residual nervous tension effects, with the effect of a drop of water on a stone.

Let us suppose that we allow a drop of water to fall over a stone during a whole day; if we go then to contemplate the stone, what will we see? Nothing.

And if instead of leaving it alone one day we allow it to run a week, what will we see? Nothing

And if instead of one week we leave it running a month what will we see? Nothing again

But if we allow it to run during a couple of years, then we WILL see that the stone has a cavity.

But we checked the stone a couple of times and nothing happened, would this maybe mean that later drops of water were stronger than the first ones?

Evidently the answer is NO, what really happened is that from the beginning, each drop of water produced its effect in the stone, but an uncounted number of drops are needed, so that you can see the effect.

The same happens with nervous tension. When we say that we believe to be perfectly healthy but are not, we mean that stress, nervous tension's excess, isn't felt; but if we give it enough time, the same as the drop of water, will finish producing a deep damage in our organism.