The thesis of this paper is that stress-related afflictions and living in general can be treated by changing the subjects' lifestyle from harmful stress patterns to serene relaxation. Lifestyle is the manner in which the individual's body and mind react to his unique motivational set in the ambience surrounding him. Leading researchers in the field of cardiology have found that persons suffering from cardiovascular and other stress-related disorders have a lifestyle characterized by a high drive for achievement, competition, and a strong sense of time-urgency ("type A behavior"). By contrast, persons of a stress-lessening lifestyle and relatively unambitious, uncompetitive, and under less pressure of time are ("type B behavior").
Type A behavior can be converted into type B behavior by training. Thus patients are admitted to the Center for Health Advancement and Education Research at the University of California at Los Angeles for a 24-day intensive improvement of their mode of lifestyle. So far, such training has been performed by biofeedback. While this technique monitors one physiological function at a time in the laboratory, the present authors Gilbert and Coppola propose the reengineering of the total lifestyle during the total everyday life. They have joined in designing a belt-worn equipment as an aid of the self-management of lifestyle from behavior A to behavior B. The article by Coppola deals with the technology of this self-management.