Imagine that you live in a dictatorship. The leader is a• ant and a bizarre character, even by tyrant standards. While iand most other citizens are reasonably prosperous, educated, J secure, you’are required to pursue a certain kind of life—yle. Specifically, you must refrain from all vigorous exercise, ta high fat diet laced with refined white sugars and flours, d take plenty of additives, preservatives, and stabilizers in ur food each day. You are expected to weigh at least 20 pounds re thanj^ optimal range for your age, sex, height, and bone frame, addition, there are certain quotas expected of you: you must nsume large quantities of coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, aspirins, d other drugs. Computers are set up to monitor your adherance these regimens; deviations are treated harshly. Naturally, no iditation or other forms of relaxation are allowed. Once a year, iwever, on the tyrant's birthday, citizens are permitted to enjoy itural foods, refrain from caffeine, smoking, and the drinking: intoxicants. The exercise of your choice may be pursued on lis day, and any form of stress management is similarly looked ion as a permissable endeavor on this particular occasion. s it not amazing how many of us act as if there were a tyrant programming us to self-destruct before our time? Imagine what would happen on the tyrant's birthday when a 24 hour period of health-enhancing behavior were possible. How many folks do you suppose would pass up the single chance to get out and run, play, and feel alive on this special day? How many would choose the health-robbing diet when a nutritious alternative were possible? And would not this occasion be a time of experimenting with methods to allay anxiety, tension, and upsets with some form of stress management?

You have such a day— everyday. The only tyrant you face is inertia and absence of will— a sense that you are too busy to take your own well being into your own hands and a sense that self-health through a wellness promotive lifestyle is too hard/comY> licated/or inconvenient.