Stress avoidance?

Last Sunday, Meet the Press had Dr. Roger Marshall, a U.S. Senator, on.

This exchange, which I'm linking in for the highlighted part, struck me.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with this. If you have no mandate, what is your plan to get more people vaccinated? Because it appears vaccines are still our only way out of this pandemic.

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL:

Yeah, Chuck, you know, boosters, boosters, boosters. That's what's going to save lives right now. But just bear with me. I need to just stop and pause and honor my boyhood hero, Bob Dole, who passed away this week. One of my – just, great American heroes from the Greatest Generation. We want to stop and salute him. So, our plan is to be honest with Americans. Look, about 30% of Americans right now have chosen not to get the vaccine. But what the biggest impact would be right now is to get boosters into seniors. That's what's going to stop hospitalizations and stop deaths. If you're a senior citizen and haven't gotten your booster yet, shame on you. Please go do that. If you have underlying health care conditions, if you're diabetic, if you're overweight, please go get the booster because you're going to get the virus and be exposed to it, I'll guarantee it. And if you don't have that booster, we know the vaccines kind of run out after about five to six months. Natural immunity would help, and even those with natural immunity may want to consider getting the booster as well. But I think being honest with America is the plan. We know that mandates don't work. From a practical standpoint, mandates are going to cause an economic shutdown. It's going to exacerbate inflation. It's going to cause brownouts. It's going to cause supply chain disruptions and national security issues. Think about this: half of the National Guard is not vaccinated yet. What would be happening in Kentucky right now if we shut down half of the National Guard? I support the vaccines, but not the mandates.

CHUCK TODD:

You said something interesting. You said, "If senior citizens haven't gotten their booster, shame on you." Is that your attitude for any unvaccinated person in the hospital right now? Because 80 percent of hospitalizations, at a minimum, right now in the northern tier where we're hitting close to max, are the unvaccinated with Covid. Shame on them?

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL:

Look, I think I've been one of the leaders from the start, encouraging people to get the vaccine. I was leading the charge back in July of 2020, saying, "We're going to have a vaccine. Let's get it out the door." In the summer of this year, I was encouraging people to get boosters. If the CDC could have pivoted sooner, we would have saved thousands of lives. I think being honest with people, the CDC needs to acknowledge natural immunity. Look, as a physician, I was never able to talk anybody into stopping smoking by a mandate or by trying to argue with them. It was by being honest and communicating with them. I would just encourage all those folks who have not gotten the vaccine yet to talk to their doctor about it. And by the way, let's talk about eating healthy and exercising every day and getting seven hours of sleep, avoiding stress. Those are the things that we can all be doing to help minimize the impact of this virus.

Avoiding stress?

How the crap do you do that in this modern work environment.  I'm a trial lawyer.  That's pretty stressful.  I'm sure being an accountant during tax season is pretty stressful.  Being a physician with a roomful of COVID patients must be stressful.  New evolving types of COVID-19 getting a start in unvaccinated southern Africa is stressful when it hits the news.  People arguing about vaccines is stressful.

Shoot, a political atmosphere in which one entire political party won't admit that their last Presidential member attempted to illegally co-opt the Oval Office is pretty stressful.

Sheesh. . . Congress could do a lot to reduce the stress level all on its own.

Avoid stress?

How?