Our daily stresses, are more specially, the events that elicit muscle tension (as opposed to relaxation) are in the popular as well as academic lexicon of psychology attributed to simple and rather Pavlovian processes. Namely, a stressor (nasty boss, crying child, impending deadline at work etc.) occurs and the body reflexively becomes tense. Tension has historically been defined as reflecting a 'fight or flight' response, or an artifact of our evolutionary past, where we were constantly primed to escape from prehistoric predators and perhaps prehistoric spouses. Similarly, the antidote to a stress response is popularly considered to be the 'relaxation response', a natural and equally reflexive response elicited by focused attention (Benson, 1974).

This dichotomy is neat, simple, and is in accord with common sense and scientific study. It is also wrong. If for the state of theoretical clarity muscle tension is used as a proxy for the rather incoherent term stress, then a strong case may be made that muscular tension is mediated by learning, and primarily occurs not because it is a knee-jerk reaction, but because it has a practical function.

Somatic responses from muscular tension to visceral responses to neurochemical production do not just occur as mere reactions to stimuli, but are strongly mediated by experience, and in particular occur because they 'do' something. In particular, our basic decisions are facilitated by somatic responses that are shaped by learning. This widely accepted somatic marker hypothesis, postulated by the neurologist Antonio Damasio (1994), holds that changes in somatic or bodily states increase the accuracy of decision-making processes by biasing an individual towards one course of action. Furthermore, these changes recur because their results (namely a good decision) have been successful. In other words, our 'gut' feelings, whether originating from muscle tension or actual feelings in the gut are critical for our everyday decision-making, and recur because they do positive (or positively reinforcing) things.

Thus, following the somatic marker hypothesis:

1. Tension occurs because it facilitates choice.
2. Relaxation occurs when there are no choices or few choices to be made. (see note)

In our workaday world, choices that confront us are considered to be purely rational. Thus, the reason we feel anxious is that we don't have enough information to easily mediate choice. So, because we don't have the knowledge about how to do a job to please a fickle boss, avoid a deadline in time, or write a proposal to make an important sale, we become necessarily anxious or tense. At other times however, decisions are not rational and involve choices between value that is mediated by information and value that is mediated by other somatic events. As examples, when we taste a steak, smell a rose, or see a pretty face, the neuromodulator dopamine is produced that fixes attention and bestows an appetitive value on behavior (i.e., it feels good), thus making steaks, roses, and pretty girls more important. This clash between reason and 'temptation', whether the temptation is food, flowers, or sex, elicits tension not because we do not possess information that allows us to choose, but rather because two incommensurable processes determine value that cannot be rationally compared. The first being learning and the second being the 'drive' like characteristics of neurochemistry. In other words, it's hard to choose between God and mammon because the former makes sense rationally, but the latter makes sense because it feels good.

To eliminate the drive like temptations that elicit tension, we can merely avoid them and thus avoid the resulting bad feelings. However, avoiding the stressors of our workaday world is rarely possible. Thus, although the temptation to eat can be avoided by avoiding the sight of food, we cannot avoid making critical decisions at work. The result of this is that coping skills are emphasized in stress management, since only the ability to appraise properly our complex environment can eliminate the confusing and stressful choices that the world presents to us.

It is implicitly accepted that the decisions we make in our daily lives involve a rational consideration of options that can have inescapable stressful consequences, and that only in highly circumscribed occasions can mere avoidance be adopted as a strategy to reduce stress. However, contemporary neuroscience is presently demonstrating this common sense position to be wrong, with implications that will alter the procedures employed to alleviate stress.

Food and sex acquire 'drive' like properties in large measure because of the production of neuro-chemicals or neuro-modulators that enhance the incentive to pursue them. However, this neurological basis for incentive motivation has been presently extended to nearly all the decisions we make each moment of our lives. In particular, neuromodulator production is stimulated not just by primary motivators like food and sex, but also by abstract properties of the environment that mark the prediction error or discrepancy that attends decisions. Prediction error is defined by the moment-to-moment discrepancy or surprise that occurs when events do not turn out in the manner that we predict. If prediction error is high, positive, and sustained, as in gambling, creative, and gaming pursuits, we feel good, comfortable, and sometimes euphoric. Similarly, if prediction error is negative, dopamine production is reduced, and we often feel depressed, sad, or lethargic.

In our workaday world, the common distractions that keep us from our jobs do so not because they are reasonable, but because they also denote high degrees of positive discrepancy. Checking email or the stock market repeatedly, idle conversations, reading magazines etc. all reflect behaviors that embody high and positive prediction error. Thus many of the choices made during the day involve not decisions between rational acts, but rather choices between rational acts and acts that achieve value through other somatic events (i.e. dopamine) that can in turn be avoided.

This leads to a simple and easily tested premise. Muscle tension or stress occurs not only because of a need to decide between rationally appraised options, but also because of a need to nonconsciously decide between options whose value stems from contrasting neurological sources. In other words, daily distractions that are not rational but affective in origin are a major cause of stress, and to reduce stress these latter causes must be avoided.

If stress is often due to a contrast between incommensurable determinants of value, then it can be reduced by literally avoiding temptation, especially minor temptations. This latter point is critical, since the continuing possibility of engaging in 'minor' diversions (reading a newspaper, having an idle conversation, checking stock quotes) are generally considered to be a palliative to stress rather than a proximal cause of stress. This latter conclusion, which is contrary to conventional wisdom, can be easily tested through the following simple procedure:

Take an inventory of those events both large and small that are chosen because of the novelty or discrepancy they denote. Then move them to a set time (e.g. around lunch or in late evening) when they only can be performed. Only the remainder of possible events can be performed, namely events that a primarily rational in origin. If not, then you just sit, or in other words take a time out. The time out, which is nothing more than resting, will result in muscle relaxation. The key however is that when you resume activity, relaxation will be sustained because all 'distractions' large and small have been for the most part avoided.

This procedure is not especially novel, but its guiding presumptions and scope are quite new. Above all, the easy testability of this procedure and the premises that derive it is its virtue. Whether not it is correct only time and practice will tell.

Note: That is, relaxation occurs not because of some vague attentional stimulus, but rather when our muscles are not doing anything, and there is no nonconscious reason for them to do anything. This hypothesis was validated by the work of the psychologist David Holmes (1984, 1985, 1988). In a systematic review of the literature of meditation, Holmes demonstrated that the effects of meditation were nothing more than muscle relaxation and that focussed attention was not its cause, but rather the resting that attended following meditative protocols.

The following procedure and its attendant explanation diverge in four ways from the conventional wisdom of stress control.

First, muscular tension is not a reflexive process that is initiated by discrete 'stimuli', but is rather a covert operant or 'coverant' behavior that occurs because of a non-conscious appraisal between response options that have incentive value derived from similar or different neurological sources.

Secondly, relaxation is not a response, but represents a literal resting state wherein the musculature does 'nothing'. Therefore, relaxation 'training' involves the arrangement of settings that do not nonconsciously signal muscles to tense.

Fourth, a bio-behaviorally informed procedure for stress control is indirectly a procedure for self-control, or the ability to make and keep to rationally informed decisions. By being able to isolate, control, and understand the affective variables that distort decision-making through their indirect influence on muscular tension and their intrinsic and non-rational hedonic value, our decisions will more fully cohere with a rational calculus of value. This will in turn mitigate other emotional events such as feelings of depression that may follow from a perceived inability to predict and control our personal behavior.

Benson, H. (1974) The Relaxation Response. New York: Harper Collins

Damasio, A. (1994) Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Avon

Holmes, D. (1984) Meditation and somatic arousal reduction. A review of the experimental evidence. American Psychologist, 39(1): 1-10

Holmes, D. (1985). To meditate or rest? The answer is rest, American Psychologist, 40(6), pp. 725-731.

Holmes, D. (1988) The influence of meditation versus rest on physiological arousal: a second evaluation. In Michael A. West (Ed.) The Psychology of Meditation, Clarendon Press-Oxford