To the editor:

As our flight was approaching Boston in September 1980, my husband Hal was conversing with our seatmate. I was trying to concentrate on a flight magazine article before landing.

When I heard the seatmate tell Hal that he was returning from Texas where he gave a speech on stress management, I thought,”Who is this guy?” as I jumped into the conversation. He was Dr. Herbert Benson, Cardiologist and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston. I had been reading his publications at that time for classes I was teaching at Olympic Community College.

Now that we are in this coronavirus pandemic, I am again realizing the importance of stress management.

We don’t know how the pandemic is going to affect us. We don’t know what important decisions we will have to make. We do know that we must be calm and manage our stress to keep ourselves and others as healthy as possible, too.

Effective decisions and actions are much easier when we’re calm. Stress management isn’t the “cure all” we’re looking for, but it will help.

HELEN HOOVER

Kingston