Various News Segment

Whether it's deadlines approaching, babies crying, or quotas not filled, some form of stress creeps into everyday life. People have to confront something that contributes to our stress level. Tim ?Denk?, wellness coordinator at Wichita State University, tells us what stress is and how to recognize it. "Well basically stress is tension and flexion or type of hyperventilation over situations that individuals should be calm or be patient with, so it's kind of just really a tension of the muscles or flexion of the muscles over situations where they should be calm and be able to deliberately just go through the actions. There's several types of ways that it can be noticed, a person will be nervous or on the edgy side or all tensed up and just really tight, y'know feeling nervous or really on the edge type of a thing." And who would be more susceptible to a higher

stress level? "Well I think those individuals that are going to be put in situations where pressure is going to be mounting on them, I guess typically you'd see those individuals that would be in a higher up position where there's going to be pressure put on them by their bosses on an everyday schedule and nonetheless that could be everyone that gets... puts themselves in a situation where they actually put the pressure on themselves, whether they need it or not. I think really anyone would fit under that situation and a lot of times it's put on by the individual themselves." So often we go through life and the day to day situation and things don't seem to add up but they really do. Are those symptoms easily recognized and what are they? "Well for the most part, yeah, you can recognize them, again as I mentioned before, by seeing an individual that is what I would term on the edge

or tensed up, but there's other types of effects that you can notice throughout the day from an individual. They may not come to work, they may be absent, they may call in sick. The individual may have a poor attitude or seem like they really don't care at times, they may be very nervous. You may see them over eat, over a month or over time you may be seeing an individual gaining weight or losing weight, you may see a loss in work production, so there's a variety of things that you can actually see from an individual." Then in your estimation what can people do to relieve some stress? "Okay, in my line of work, dealing with the wellness program, naturally, exercise is the best way to relieve stress and to actually help cope with stress. There's a variety of ways you can deal with that as far as exercising. We all know there are a variety

of cardiovascular type activities that an individual can get involved in and that would be the basic recommendation." How, then, does exercise relieve stress? Tim ?Denk?: "It actually allows you to act or behave in an energetic manner and that energy helps to burn off some of that stress. It clears an individual's mind, which makes them feel at ease and also it helps in a manner that the individual feels much, much better about themselves when they're done exercising, which helps take off some of the pressure that they may have or gets their mind away from everyday lifestyle of what they're... what they've been doing and they can cope with it a little bit better and it just relaxes the body. You can go through a variation of relaxation techniques which will also help just relieve the tension in the muscles, which that process just helps you while you can go from the--

from your feet all the way up to your face, just tensing and relaxing of the muscles which will help the individual relax a little bit further. Meditation will help in that as well, as well as massage therapy so those are some of the basic things that exercise and relaxation techniques can actually help do for the individual." A few years ago, the exercise fad was running, later, aerobics was the thing to do. ?Denk? explains the latest exercise craze. "Just overall cross-training. Not really getting involved in one particular thing. We all know that as you tend to do things day in and day out you tend to get bored with it or not want to do it anymore. That's probably the big push is just in cross-training in trying to swim one day and ride a bike one day and maybe walk one day or lift weights one day or do aerobics one day so there's a variety of things that people could do there, just to break up the monotony and keep the boredom from setting in.

I think if you talk about individual activities that are starting to really grow, walking is becoming probably the most popular as well as a variety of aerobics classes." [music] A popular form of exercise at the Hutchinson Racquetball and Fitness Club is aerobics. Classes meet throughout the week for a half hour which results in a complete cardiovascular workout. Keeping a close watch on the heart rate is almost always a part of aerobics classes. Tim ?Denk? explains to listen to your body. "Because it's very, very important. The other thing we like to talk about is knowing your target heart rate range and that's something that we work with with an individual, just figuring your target heart rate to

know exactly what your heart rate is doing during exercise and there's certain formulas for that and each individual can figure that on their own once they understand how it actually works and what they would do is then monitor their heart rate to make sure that it doesn't get to what we call the maximum heart rate. If your heart starts beating above your maximum heart rate, you are to either slow down or in some cases actually stop what you're doing and just rest or do what we would call a cool down. But I think for the most part that I would want the listeners to be aware of is: to listen to what your body says." Working out in the weight room at Sam Price's Hutchinson School of Karate and Self Defense, Debbie ?Isinghoff? paused her routine long enough to explain why she exercises. "It makes me feel so much better about myself and really works off, you know, some frustrations if I do have any and

when you feel good physically it's much easier to feel good mentally. So that's why I'm down here." How often do you come down here? "Right now I've been doing it five days a week. My normal routine is usually four days a week." And how long at a time? "An hour to an hour and fifteen minutes?" And that pretty solid lifting and-- "that's correct [inaudible]" What are you after? Are you after toning your body? Are you after just release some stress? Or what's your goal? "Uh, well the release of stress was kind of... of an added benefit. I mainly came down to see if I could get some definite changes in my body because I tried other things and I wasn't getting the results I wanted and found out that the release of stress was, y'know, just an added benefit." Deadlines will approach and will have to be met, babies will cry and have to be quieted, and quotas will have to be filled. Maybe when the stresses occur, exercise will be the

relief. For Radio Kansas, I'm Jay Huber. [pause] Traveling along 30th street in Hutchinson, drivers have noticed some bold graffiti lately. The boys (spelled b-o-y-z) has been written on a business, a private fence, and on bridges along K-61. Most other graffiti displays loves or year of graduation or even pictures. Some people have wondered whether the graffiti indicates a gang in Hutchinson marking its territory, however, some people think it's just kids out having fun. One business hit was the Video Station. Manager Steve Runyon: "Personally, I think it was just some kids out one night with a can of spray paint having a good time." A good time at your expense, probably. Speaking of expense, what do you think it costs you not only in cleanup but in what it says out there to maybe a potential customer? "I don't... I really don't think customers have thought much

about it. For myself, it's just a matter of getting out there for about thirty minutes and painting over it." A few blocks away, a private fence was also painted with graffiti. Homeowner Bonnie Hayes didn't seem too concerned and had her own opinion about the vandals and the damage. "The family crest" And no... no plans to... white wash it or anything? "No, not unless I paint the fence, the whole thing." Who do you think is responsible for this? "I have no idea. Somebody with a perverted sense of humor I should think." Sharing some of the same feelings is the Hutchinson Police Department. Spokesman Harold Harris says there aren't any gangs in Hutchinson. He said the graffiti is the work of wannabes, kids who just hang around together and want to be in a gang. He says that being a wannabe is the first step toward being in a gang, but he saw no activity in Hutchinson as far as graffiti is concerned that it's gang oriented. A few years ago, Harris helped break up a Hutchinson gang called the Party Boys Thirteen who he says were responsible for some burglaries and graffiti. The ex-leader of the Party Boys Thirteen is James

Spence. "Gangs are basically... look just like anybody else they act like anybody else, dress the same, it's just... it's like on weekends or at night or when they get drugs or alcohol and they change. And they become different. Now as there not being gangs in Hutchinson, I wouldn't say that there are gangs or I ain't going to say that there isn't. There are groups, there are... you got your wannabes and you got your ones that just... what you might call got gangster blood in them. They... they thrive on that kind of lifestyle, they do it for these multiple reasons. There is... I'm not an expert on it. I used to run up a group here and we did a lot of things and... but I'm not considered... I don't say that I'm an authority expert and I would like to say that there's no such thing as an authority or an expert on graffiti or gangs because these gangs different in each city and the people that are in a single gang are different cuz they're in it for

different reasons. It might be cuz their family... they may be in it because they're socially outcast, they're scared so they get in for protection. On the area of graffiti, on the lower rings what is... it might be a couple guys that are friends or somethin' that wannabe... y'know or they just do it for multiple reasons and you got your ones that just go out cuz they're drunk or something not, they just figured they're gonna put a little somethin' up there. Then you got your artists that do it because they can make good pictures. But the basis of it time you can tell by names or the style of the graffiti that this marking their territory to let people know that they... that's their area, that's where they... they have their... like their turf." Spence says gang use of graffiti is important. "The large gangs in the bigger cities, the one that's been around for years, like, y'know, the generations down, they have certain styles. As you spread out into other cities

where gangs and posses - least they call it these days are just called-- they're just called posses or clubs --they don't have any... particular y'know they're known... they may give a certain mark. Our mark was the mark thirteen. Y'know if you've seen the mark thirteen, most people... a lot of people that knew us, knew that was us. Like they have numbers, there's the Cholo's fourteen it's a small Mexican group around here... hispanic... like there might be a symbol... a certain symbol or just the name." Besides graffiti, the way gangs dress is important. "My group, we was known as the Party Boys, then we went to the Homeboys. We dressed like normal people, we dressed nice, in fact. We spoke with high vocabularies depending on who we was with. We learned to adjust the vocabulary to bankers or to street people. We would... it was very under cover. You did not know, only certain people on the street knowing that we hung around together

would know, but on average you don't know if anybody's in it like... the law supposed to be 'well we don't have gang problems' well it's because the gangs and the groups keep a... y'know... they keep a low profile for that particular reason, but there are gangs in all cities, even small ones, even if they're just 3 or 4 guys who grew up together say [inaudible] they don't even have to have a name. You get three buddies, four buddies, five buddies, that would die for each other, that hang around together all the time, that is a gang because they are their own family, their own authority on the streets. You mess with one, you mess with them all." So is the graffiti in Hutchinson gang related? James Spence: "The ones that are more up to being what you might call on the gang level are the ones probably on the... on the southern area because a lot of them are lower incomes and some of them are... y'know got families in bigger cities and stuff and they take it more seriously because that's the only life they know. The ones up on north where the richer kids are, they do it cuz...

well... for really weak reasons which you might call it. They just do it cuz they want to have y'know people look at them and say 'oooh look at you, you're a big bad guy' and a lot of us in Hutchison, a lot of the ones that do it are-- they're younger people. Very few in a city like Hutchison, y'know, evolve into what you might call a gang level." James Spence, the ex-leader of the Hutchinson gang, Party Boys Thirteen. In Hutchinson, I'm Jay Huber.