The last century has apparently seen tremendous advances in medical science. From heart transplants to cloning, the discoveries seem straight from the pages of science fiction. But if we take a holistic look, has medical science really advanced?

"Medical science has very effectively succeeded in getting rid of certain epidemics but others have appeared in their place. We no longer have polio, small pox and malaria, but we do have cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, degenerative disorders, AIDS, drug addiction and alcoholism," says David Simon in his best-seller "Wisdom of Healing".

Thus medical science seems to be taking one step forward and one and a half step backwards.

Medical science, though nonetheless a noble profession, has, somewhere in the process of curing the body, lost touch with the equally if not more important task of healing the mind.

If you were asked which is the biggest killer today, chances are that you would say AIDS, heart disease, diabetes or drug addiction. But then you will be talking about the effects not the cause. The real causes are a stressed out mind, a shrinking soul, and a love-starved heart.

These are the root causes of most, if not all diseases. Although this may sound simplistic, it is true.

Today stress has been widely acknowledged as the biggest killer. It is also a great equaliser - it doesn't distinguish between the bold and the beautiful, the simple and the sensible, the men in black or the woman in red, the housewife or the executive, the student or the teacher, the doctor or the patient. Mister Stress, like Keats' La Bella Dame Sans Merci, has everyone in his thrall. Millions of words are being written on stress. Seminars, conferences and workshops are being held across the globe on how to combat stress. And yet there seems no David ready to take on the Goliath of Stress.

I firmly believe that solutions to tackling stress are not without but within. It is not the situation per se which creates stress but our response to it. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us," says Oliver Wendell Holmes. There are some very simple concepts which, if internalised, can help us move from the stressful to the stress-free state.

Art of Acceptance

There are many situations in life you cannot change so it is best to accept them. For instance if you meet with an accident and are bed ridden for a month, you have two choices: you can complain, crib, rave and rant and make your life as well as the lives of everyone around you miserable, or you can accept the situation and embark on a speedier and far more comfortable journey towards recovery.

Many a time we are hell bent on changing the people around us.

"I am a perfectionist. My husband/wife is so careless. Why can't he/she be like me? You keep thinking and try your best to change the person. In that process you create tension for yourself as well as for those around you. You forget that just as you want to change, modify some quality in your spouse, he/she might want to do the same. Our efforts to change meet with little success and naturally the frustration grows. We feel stressed out. This doesn't mean that we should worship the status quo. We should know what we can change and what we can't. The Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr, adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous sums up the difference beautifully:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Art of being Non-Judgemental

Often when dealing with people we jump too quickly to conclusions and pass hasty judgements, leading to a negative mindset. Usually we are in the habit of analysing each mistake committed and coming up with the results we were originally looking for.

For instance if a junior colleague delays the submission of a report, one's first reaction may be: "Just because I refused to give him leave, he has delayed the report out of spite."

Or, if someone attends a dinner party at your place and brings along an inexpensive gift, one may think "How stingy!"

As far as we are concerned, these actions have been done on purpose. This line of thought causes us to prejudices and create stress within ourselves as well as within others.

Pause and reflect. If our smallest errors were placed under the microscope, enlarged and analysed, if judgements were passed on the smallest of our actions, would we tolerate it? We would hit back, with equal if not greater vehemence.

So the best thing is to accept the action for what it is without getting judgmental and reaching conclusions.

We should keep in mind these immortal words of Mother Teresa, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."