1

Stress kills
A. Speaking/Warm-up activity (5 min.) What is stress? Are there good kinds of stress? When do you feel stressed? When do you feel unnecessary stressed? B. Listening (25 min.) You will watch a shortened version of a National Geographic documentary called Killer Stress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL05mVKxEAU&feature=youtu.be or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdyhY_t2bVE. Write down at least 6 theories/observations/conclusions about stress. Then you will decide in groups which two ideas are most interesting and explain why. C. Reading (25 min.) Read the article about hypochondria by the famous actor, writer and director Woody Allen, who won Oscars for Annie Hall (1977), Midnight in Paris (2011) and other movies. Woody worries about every cut and sore, yet makes fun of his worries. Underline or highlight at least one joke in each paragraph and explain the joke. There are 5 columns. In column 1 you can find synonyms of the underlined words in the text; e.g., 'inquiring' is asking'. In columns 2 and 3 you can find the paragraph and the line numbers, in 4 you can read the article and in 5 you answer the questions. excessive worry about ones health
p a r. l i n e

How can stress be bad for you? How does stress affect your emotions? How do you deal with stress?

Hypochondria: An Inside Look

WOODY ALLEN, New York Times, January 12, 2013

Questions
... ... ... ... ... ...

asking confused eccentric/insane class/kind similar to important/crucial disease/illness characterizes imply/suggest mad cow disease

WHEN The New York Times called, inquiring if I might pen a few words from the horses mouth about hypochondria, I confess I was taken aback. What light could I possibly shed on this type of crackpot behavior since, contrary to popular belief, I am not a hypochondriac but a totally different genus of crackpot? 5 What I am is an alarmist, which is in the same ballpark as the hypochondriac or, should I say, the same emergency room. Still there is a fundamental difference. I dont experience imaginary maladies my maladies are real. What distinguishes my hysteria is that at the appearance of the mildest symptom, lets say chapped lips, I instantly leap to the conclusion that the chapped lips indicate a brain tumor. Or 10 maybe lung cancer. In one instance I thought it was Mad Cow.

4 small comfort/certainty skin condition tree disease endures the worst skin tumor crying/lamenting grinding/biting arrogant friendly/mild 6 exercise weight follow/abide by desire/inclination injections/shots a blood disease from a novel about/concerning wise/careful substance released by the body walk slowly preventively gift /heritage 40 9 passes unstoppable infrequent/rare said/confirmed 25

15 5

20

30 7

35 8

45

The point is, I am always certain Ive come down with something life threatening. It matters little that few people are ever found dead of chapped lips. Every minor ache or pain sends me to a doctors office in need of reassurance that my latest allergy will not require a heart transplant, or that I have misdiagnosed my hives and its not possible for a human being to contract elm blight. Unfortunately, my wife bears the brunt of these pathological dramas. Like the time I awoke at 3 a.m. with a spot on my neck that to me clearly had the earmarks of a melanoma. That it turned out to be a hickey was confirmed only later at the hospital after much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sitting at an ungodly hour in the emergency room where my wife tried to talk me down, I was making my way through the five stages of grief and was up to either denial or bargaining when a young resident fixed me with a rather supercilious eye and said sarcastically, Your hickey is benign. But why should I live in such constant terror? I take great care of myself. I have a personal trainer who has me up to 50 push-ups a month, and combined with my knee bends and situps, I can now press the 100-pound barbell over my head with only minimal tearing of my stomach wall. I never smoke and I watch what I eat, carefully avoiding any foods that give pleasure. (Basically, I adhere to the Mediterranean diet of olive oil, nuts, figs and goat cheese, and except for the occasional impulse to become a rug salesman, it works.) In addition to yearly physicals I get all available vaccines and inoculations, making me immune to everything from Whipples disease to the Andromeda strain. As far as vitamins go, if I take a few with each meal, over time I can usually get in quite a lot before the latest study confirms theyre worthless. Regarding medications, Im flexible but prudent because while its true antibiotics kill bad bacteria, Im always afraid theyll kill my good bacteria, not to mention my pheromones, and then I wont give off any sexual vibes in a crowded elevator. Its also true that when I leave the house to go for a stroll in Central Park or to Starbucks for a latte I might just pick up a quick cardiogram or CT scan prophylactically. My wife calls this nonsense and says that in the end its all genetic. My parents both lived to ripe old ages but absolutely refused to pass their genes to me as they believed an inheritance often spoils the child. Even when the results of my yearly checkup show perfect health, how can I relax knowing that the minute I leave the doctors office something may start growing in me and, by the time a full year rolls around, my chest X-ray will look like a Jackson Pollock? Incidentally, this relentless preoccupation with health has made me quite the amateur medical expert. Not that I dont make an occasional mistake but what doctor doesnt? For example, I once convinced a woman who experienced a mild ringing in her ears that she had the flesh-eating bacteria, and another time I pronounced a man dead who had simply dozed off in a chair.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ....... ... ...

weakness anti-inflammatory classify/place comforting strangely turn on

10 50

55 acceptable dressed/covered hint/indication endurance/grit control/keep up 12 65 someone who offers gambling advice within a vein 70 excited/angry end/cease ending up stories/reports sterilized/made clean faraway/distant specific/clear characteristics 15 13 60 11

14 75

80

But whats this obsession with personal vulnerability? When I panic over symptoms that require no more than an aspirin or a little calamine lotion, what is it Im really frightened of? My best guess is dying. I have always had an animal fear of death, a fate I rank second only to having to sit through a rock concert. My wife tries to be consoling about mortality and assures me that death is a natural part of life, and that we all die sooner or later. Oddly this news, whispered into my ear at 3 a.m., causes me to leap screaming from the bed, snap on every light in the house and play my recording of The Stars and Stripes Forever at top volume till the sun comes up. I sometimes imagine that death might be more tolerable if I passed away in my sleep, although the reality is, no form of dying is acceptable to me with the possible exception of being kicked to death by a pair of scantily clad cocktail waitresses. Perhaps if I were a religious person, which I am not, although I sometimes do have the intimation that we all may be part of something larger like a Ponzi scheme. A great Spanish philosopher wrote that all humans long for the eternal persistence of consciousness. Not an easy state to maintain, especially when youre dining with people who keep talking about their children. And yet, there are worse things than death. Many of them playing at a theater near you. For instance, I would not like to survive a stroke and for the rest of my life talk out of the side of my mouth like a racetrack tout. I would also not like to go into a coma, to lie in a hospital bed where Im not dead but cant even blink my eyes and signal the nurse to switch the channel from Fox News. And incidentally, whos to say the nurse isnt one of those angel of death crazies who hates to see people suffer and fills my intravenous glucose bag with Exxon regular. Worse than death, too, is to be on life support listening to my loved ones in a heated debate over whether to terminate me and hear my wife say, I think we can pull the plug, its been 15 minutes and well be late for our dinner reservation. What worries me most is winding up a vegetable any vegetable, and that includes corn, which under happier circumstances I rather like. And yet is it really so great to live forever? Sometimes in the news I see features about certain tall people who reside in snow-capped regions where a whole village population lives to 140 or so. Of course all they ever eat is yogurt, and when they finally do die they are not embalmed but pasteurized. And dont forget these healthy people walk everyplace because try getting a cab in the Himalayas. I mean do I really want to pass my days in some remote place where the main entertainment is seeing which guy in town can lift the ox highest with his bare hands? Summing up, there are two distinct groups, hypochondriacs and alarmists. Both suffer in their own ways, and traits of one group may overlap the other, but whether youre a hypochondriac or an alarmist, at this point in time, either is probably better than being a Republican.

... ....... ... ....... ... ....... ... ....... ....... ... ....... ... ....... ... ....... ....... ....... ... .......

D. Vocabulary/Post-reading (15 min.) I. The words below have been taken from the text. Choose the correct word. 75. only affects certain trees. A. Melanoma E. Mad Cow I. Andromeda strain O. Elm blight 150. Such a(n) remark could get you in the loony bin. A. impulse E. crackpot I. genus O. tout B 225. Could you give me a(n) as to how long well be in this traffic jam. A. intimation E. reassurance I. vulnerability O. persistence 300. is/are released before mating in the wild. A. malady E. hives I. inoculation A II. Match the words with the images. Theres one word too many. hypochondria, supercilious, inoculation, pheromones, calamine, intravenous, pasteurize

O. pheromones

375. He was stressed out over his exam results, so he needed to be A. pasteurized E. terminated I. consoled O. indicated 450. She his anxiety attacks. A. distinguishes E. maintains I. adheres to 525. Melissa promoting her for her hard work. A. inquired E. pronounced I. wound up

C D

O. bears the brunt of

O. ranked

600. Since his tumor might be malignant, he had surgery. A. fundamental E. prophylactic I. relentless O. tolerable 675. The snob gave the boy a glance. A. intravenous E. calamine I. benign F E

O. supercilious

750. He had to make a decision: his husband or his lover. A. prudent E. remote I. distinct O. clad E. Writing (15 min.)

Choose the two things that stress you out the most e.g. school, work, parents, partner, life, the future, the past, your health, what others think of you, etc. and decide if being stressed about it is useful, if you wish to change the way you feel, and how you could become more relaxed about it. Write 150-200 words.

Answer key
B. Listening No teacher interference necessary here. Feel free to let them share some ideas with the class afterwards.

C. Reading Let them share some answers/interpretations with the class and let them help and correct each other. Theres no need to discuss all paragraphs.

D. Vocabulary/Post-reading I. 75. 150. 225. 300. 375. 450. 525. 600. 675. 750. O. elm bight E. crackpot A. intimation O. pheromones I. consoled O bears the brunt of I. wound up E. prophylactic O. supercilious A. prudent II. A. hypochondria B. inoculation C. pheromones D. calamine E. supercilious F. intravenous

End the lesson with the following video to summarize: http://youtu.be/Z-C5vxj0GC8 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s93ywqFa6CM. (5 min.)

2013 ComPassionate English