There I was, hooked up to a heart monitor as the doctor zeroed in with needle in hand. It wasn't a big deal. I was about to be anesthetized for a routine if mildly unpleasant colonoscopy. I wouldn't even have been consciously aware of being stressed but for the monitor's tinny, insistent allegrissimo: Clear as a bell, my heart began to race as the needle neared, despite my rational mind.

It was fascinating how completely my subtlest anxiety was reflected in my heart rate. It lasted no longer than a few seconds; the prick was minor, yet my body registered a little internal yelp. I remarked upon it because I had been reviewing statistics showing that African-Americans suffer from chronic hypertension at five to seven times the rate of Americans deemed white. While high blood pressure is not necessarily associated with emotional distress, distress can certainly increase blood pressure.

I do not mean to imply that my little moment of trepidation represented any significant measure of arterial tension. Surely it didn't rise to the average stress level of getting my seventh grader to finish his homework. Nothing about the situation ranked near the way my temples throb whenever Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson are compressed into the same sentence.

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