These thoughts provide an entertaining twist on the stress management and positive thinking literature encountered so often these days. Looking at suggestions from an opposite angle often gives them new meaning!

• Save your major worries until mid-night, then start in with some heavy thinking. Suggested topics include old age; losing your job; the mistake you made at work last week that they haven't discovered yet; and that serious wart you've had for five years. You can work up to a good panic by 1:00 a.m.

• Keep an inventory of your faults. Ignore all your strengths; focus only on your bad points. Try to select friends who will remind you of them. If you don't have such friends, you probably have some relatives who can point out your weaknesses.

• Set unreasonable goals. No matter how much money you're earning, remember that there are always others doing better. Try to name three of them, preferably younger (and better looking) than you are. Think how others could do a better job than you.

• When your kids screw up, don't accept it as normal. Regard it as the first sign of impending moral decay, delinquency and a wasted life. Imagine them as shiftless bums at age 30, scrounging off of you.

• Put off everything until the last minute. In this way you can create a sense of frenzy and chronic stress, no matter how much time you had in the first place.

• To create enhanced stress, try to sleep as little as possible. Eat junk food, drink a lot of coffee and never, ever exercise.

• Don't let others know how you feel or what you want. You shouldn't have to tell them. They should be able to read your mind. If you can do this, you stand a good chance of feeling really deprived.

• Don't trust anyone. Struggle with problems. If you feel the urge to confide in someone who seems to care, remind yourself that people are basically no good and looking out only for themselves.

• Never take a vacation or rest. It's a luxury you can't afford, especially if you are working up to a fine state of exhaustion.

• Above all, never seek help. No matter how serious the problem, convince yourself that asking for help is a sign of weakness, and that you can always tough it out alone.

• If you follow this program, you have a good chance of feeling really rotten in no time at all. Good luck!