I am worried about President Barack Obama. No, I am not a conservative who is ticked off that a democrat is in the White House. I am actually a very happy liberal. And I am not worried about his smoking (see my previous blog) or how they decide to decorate the family's residential quarters (although I am mad that Laura Bush spent almost half a million dollars on china last week. You have got to be kidding me. How many children would that money have fed?). And I have not lost a moment of sleep over what Michelle is going to wear.

But I am worried about the level of stress that he has got to be experiencing and, perhaps even more than that, the unbelievably high expectations that this nation, and the world, has for him. I like watching him speak because he seems to be thoughtful, calm, and fair. And given the odds he has fought against successfully, he is certainly one stress-hardy individual. But the pressure is there and I hope that he is taking really good care of himself. Keep up the basketball Barack, but perhaps a bit of structured relaxation would not be a bad thing. A technique like progressive muscle relaxation is wonderful for those folks who have very active, racing minds.

Also, we all have to be realistic about the obstacles facing this country and the pace with which it is even possible to start turning things around. When I see patients who are experiencing stress and the consequent symptoms, one of the main treatment modalities I use is called cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy requires that you begin to challenge your automatic thought patterns; you have to recognize them, and then restructure them. It is relatively easy to do this when they are in my office and I am coaching and supporting them. But when they go out into the real world, it is far tougher. My patients return for their next appointment, reporting feelings of discouragement that they were not able to think in a different way quickly enough. My response is always the same: I tell them that they have been thinking in a certain way their whole life, and expecting that they can change all that in a matter of weeks is setting themselves up for failure. If you have been negative for 30 years, you are not going to become a positive person in a week. It might take a few months to really get there.

It is the same thing for this country and our economy. If we have been behaving and acting in a non-productive or even destructive way for years (in my opinion, just about eight), then it can’t be fixed in a matter of weeks or even months. We have to give Barack and Congress time to truly figure out the source of each problem, effective ways to approach each and every one, and the freedom to fix and solve and negotiate.

So we need to back off, and trust the guy that he will indeed make this country better and safer and more popular in the world. Not in a week or two, but hopefully within the next few years.