Mike Carruthers

Stress is our topic today, and I'm talking with one of the foremost authorities on the subject, Dr. Arthur Sierra McCauley, and he is a clinical psychologist and author of the book, The Stress Solution.

So Arthur, you gave some statistics a few moments ago about how many Americans are feeling stressed and staying up at night.

And it's really remarkable.

I mean, how many people are consumed with stress?

Well, who could remember that if they're all stressed out?

And what is it about, it does seem that people are so less empathetic and sympathetic to their fellow man today.

Is that just a perception, or do you think that's true?

I mean, road rage and all this, is this just, what's going on?

You know, it's amazing from what I've read and heard and talked to people about this who are experts on the topic that all this does, I mean, all this stress and getting all pissed off at everybody, all it does is hurt you.

I mean, it doesn't do anything.

You get mad and brood about somebody who cut you off on the highway.

They're not home worrying about you.

People will often say, though, that, you know, I'm a worrier.

That's what I do.

That's part of my personality.

Yes?

No?

But that surprises me because I've seen plenty of families, kids in families, where, you know, one kid is a worrier, grows up to be a worrier, and the other kid didn't, and they grew up in the same house.

As someone who has certainly experienced that, waking up at four in the morning and worrying, to not do that seems almost impossible.

When I've had those times in life, and I imagine everybody does, where you're up at night worrying and catastrophizing and everything, one of the fascinating things I've found, maybe it's just me, but if I just get up and really wake up and not be in that kind of half-asleep fog, then things seem better.