The modern world is a very turbulent and stressful society. We all worry about having enough money, keeping our jobs, getting food poisoning, being blown up by terrorists etc.. but it need not be this way! There are several things which can be done to make the world a less stressful place.

One of the main contributing factors to stress these days is lack of sleep. People sleep a lot less than they used to, to make time for their work and leisure activities. People get an average of only 7 and a half hours sleep a night, compared to about 9 hours a few hundred years ago. So what can be done? We could ban night clubs and television programmes after 11 o'clock, but this would no doubt be quite an unpopular measure. We could make everyone work less hours, so they can stay in bed until 12 o'clock, but then they'd miss breakfast and their mums would shout at them. Therefore I propose to increase the length of the day to 28 hours. This not only gives us more time to work and play, but also leaves room for an extra meal. I would call this extra meal "the extra meal". This takes the total number of meals in a day up to ten (on top of breakfast, elevenses, brunch, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, tea, dinner, supper, midnight snack).

The other main cause of stress in modern life is the anxiety caused by missing an episode of one's favourite soap opera on the television. I would cure this by banning soap operas. This would be an unpopular measure at first, but only until the withdrawal symptoms wear off (can take up to eight weeks). You'll thank me for it one day.

Removal of soap operas from the television schedules will leave lots of half-hour gaps all over the place. These gaps will be filled by a simple card bearing the words "Now go for a 30 minute walk". Not only is walking good for stress, circulation and all round general health, they are a good substitute for the supposedly "realistic" soap operas, because you get to see lots of real things happening. I was out walking on Tuesday, and I saw a young couple fall out and get divorced (the man lost custody of the kids), someone's long-lost drug addicted brother turned up, but he said he'd turned over a new leaf, only his dealers were after him because he owed them money. On my Wednesday walk I saw the token homosexual getting beaten up, and the token ethnic minority family were getting really worried about their son's progress at school. Today I saw a pregnant teenager, and her boyfriend is in lots of trouble even though the baby isn't his - she was raped, but didn't tell anyone, and now there is a moral dilemma. So you see, going for a good walk can be just as entertaining.

To ensure the viewing figures stay high, the card and words will be in a different colour each day.

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3.2.2000
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