Dear Friends,I wanted to write to you about stress. After all, this issue is about dealing with Stress Monsters, both real and imaginary. But two dialogues kept butting their heads in, so I had to put them down. The first is ‘All is Well’, the 3 Idiots philosophy. And what a wonderful line it is. Think about it. How does stress build up There is that upcoming exam or test or stage performance that we regard with much dread. ‘Get it over with, already’, we mutter. But then our hearts thump heavily followed by an unpleasant rumbling in our stomachs. Despite the similarity to certain tummy troubles, we’d swap falling ill to an exam, in a heartbeat, wouldn’t we If you are one of the few who say ‘no’, good for you. For the rest of us, such symptoms mean our brains switch off, which is a definite ‘no-no’ just before an exam. So what does one do Fool the brain into thinking ‘All is Well’. We repeat and repeat and repeat till we learn it by heart… and till we actually believe it. The second dialogue goes ‘Why so Serious’. There will always be that last chapter we couldn’t revise on time, too few days to do last-minute studying, parents or teachers who are unhappy with our grades, too little time to answer that last question, friends who seem to have studied more… the list can go on. But why add to the misery by brooding about it Being ill-prepared is bad enough. But if you add stress to the bargain, you are asking for a brain wipe----that phenomenon where everything you have learnt just goes ‘poof’! So relax, take a calm breath, laugh your worries away and say ‘All is Well’ before you tackle your Stress Monsters head on. Trust me, there is nothing that Stress Monsters hate more than laughter and joy. Just ask the Dementors.Beat those Stress Monsters and enjoy your studies. All the best,Rajani