Stress \stress\ n. A mentally or emotionally disruptive condition occurring in response to external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure and muscular tension.

I am eight years old and I did a bad thing . My brother will not be happy. There were always chains on his door after that day.

Once he left, I made my way upstairs. I bumped my head on the goddamn railing, which tend to be a nuisance when you're 3-foot-6, as do stairs that seem like its Mount fucking Everest . Never mind; I was mad. That's the point.

As any trusting brother would do, he left the door unlocked, which in itself made me angrier, because deep down he saw me as no threat to his way of life. There in front of me was three months of hard work, three months of precise construction, three months of determined labor, and it was all about to end. And not in that “ I will end you ,” kind of way and not that “it's the end so are you prepared to meet your maker, did you do everything you ever wanted to instead of sit on your fat ass wondering what dress Vanna fucking White was gonna spin letters in next?” kind of way. No. This was just the end.

I don't remember why I did it. Storming into my older brother's room, I destroyed his three-month Lego project piece by piece. I enjoyed it. This story has always made me chuckle because I've been accused of being an ass, an ego maniac and even a bad lover (but so was she), but I've never been accused of having a temper.

So I did what any self-respecting person would do: I learned a thing or two about anger and about stress management.

You know what I'm talking about. In a chair in his living room, Jason “Furious” Styles, played by Laurence Fishburne, sits playing with those weird little balls. I hated Boys N the Hood . Round and round they go, ringing and ringing as he contemplates his anger. If you'd like to get some, just head down to 24th and Wentworth – Chinatown for those lazy enough never to go south of Congress – and you'll find them on every street corner. Don't pay a cent over $10 for them.

Do the silly little noisemakers help with stress at all?

The therapy balls are famed as one of the “three treasures” of China . Can you guess the other two? Yeah, neither can I. The production of the therapy balls date back to the Ming Dynasty , when they were meticulously created by Baoding craftsmen. Originally, the therapy balls were solid, but today they're designed hollow with a sounding plate inside. One ball has a high-pitched tone, and the other is low.

According to the traditional Chinese medical theory of “Jingluo ,” the main and collateral channels, a network of passages through which vital energy circulates, connect the ten fingers to the rest of the body. Thus, by means of Jingluo, the fingers are connected with the cranial nerve and other vital organs, including the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, etc. By rotating these balls in the palm of your hand, you send positive energy through the Jingluo, revitalizing your whole body, curing cancer, thwarting demons and solving the meaning of life all by playing with your balls . Blah blah blah.

At this point, my editor suggested putting in some more information on the actual “science” of these things. I agree. This would be the perfect place to do it. So here is where we open up the floor. This writer is calling for anyone to send me any scientific information that says these balls actually do anything except make noise and collect dust. I dare you to find me anything about these wonder balls that has any shred of proof, not new-age conjecture, about the benefits of these silly, over-priced and over-sized marbles.

I've tried the damn things and all they ever do for my stress and anger is increase it. So what about us here in the West, what do we do when the next nervous breakdown seems right around the corner? We medicate .

It's so easy for us here in America . For every situation in life, we have pills to aid us. If you can't handle, say, your life, then you're in luck. Alprazolam, the chemical name for 8-chloro-1-methyl-6-phenyl-4H-s-triazolo [4, 3-a][1,4] benzodiazepine, commonly known as Xanax, is here to help. Millions of anxious Americans find this little white pill to be the answer to their stress-related questions.

There is a chemical in your brain – gamma amino butyric acid, commonly known as GABA – that is God's little natural gift of hope to you, present in 80 percent of the nerve connections in your brain. When you are too anxious, your brain cells release GABA, which specifically targets the nerve cells causing the feeling of anxiety. The neurons that receive the GABA molecules then stop functioning, and thus the feelings cease.

I like cars, so let's use a car analogy . If your brain were a car, stress and anger could be the car speeding down a hill toward a sharp curve. As it comes to a curve, it must slow down. Brakes are applied so the car can negotiate the curve and not crash into the guardrail, exploding into a million pieces, thus ripping you limb from bloody limb . The GABA molecules in your brain are like the brakes in your car. If you don't have enough GABA, your brain is going to be like the car speeding toward a curve with worn out brakes. And we just discussed why that's bad. Xanax acts by making what little GABA you do have work more strongly.

Oh yeah: It's addictive and you can build up a tolerance to it, but let's look at the bright side. Xanax has added to the short list of words beginning with an “x” for Scrabble. If that's not enough for you, then be thankful for those people taking Xanax instead of carrying noisy balls around in their hands all day.

Like I said, I can't remember why at eight years old I stormed into my brother's room and destroyed it. Maybe it was something he did to me or maybe I was jealous of his toys. Maybe I just liked it. Maybe I was just eight.

Do we always need to alleviate stress? It doesn't sound that bad. In fact, I find myself doing my best work under stress. I guess we can just sit back and enjoy the fact that some people play with balls or chew pills so they don't have to take their problems out on us. And thank God, ‘cause if they did, I'd just snap and rip their head off and shove it down their … sorry, I need some Xanax .