My book group welcomed a new member last week. Being the official communicator and the keeper of the list, I had her write down her name and address, including her e-mail. She gave me the first two items but said it was pointless to send her an e-mail. “I never look at it,” she said.

It’s not that she isn’t connected. She just has too much fascinating stuff going on. She’s too busy to pay attention to e-mail – and even when she isn’t too busy, she never remembers to check it anyway.

I was green with envy. How thrilling.

About the same time, I started to see outraged responses to something some guy named Glenn Beck had said or done. He’s apparently one of those media talking heads, a wannabe politician furious at the real ones who won’t do what he thinks they should and when they don’t he wants to hang them.

I tried to ignore it. But it was tough. Such sound and fury, and in so many places: online, on the airwaves, in print. It’s so easy to find apoplectic people who insist you feel exactly as outraged. But that just adds to the tumult that is the 21st century. No thank you.

I can get myself worked up just fine all by myself, thank you. My goal is to do the opposite: to calm down.

Herewith, I present ways to go placidly amid the noise and haste of the 21st century. Stop letting the worked-up media darlings get you all worked up, and remember what peace there may be in silence. And like my book group’s new member who never checks her e-mail, cultivate interests that fascinate you so completely that you have no time for anything

else.

But there are other ways to counteract that sound and fury. I approached people in downtown Auburn. I don’t know everything, after all.

Adele Wise has a perfect solution: “I just go in my garden,” she said.

“Dig, plant, snip – I just get lost in it. It’s a real stress reliever.”

Her husband Dick suggests finding “a quiet, serene spot and reflecting on nature.” Someplace like the ocean or the Bear River, “where you can

get away from all the phone calls. Then go home, have a good dinner and a nice bottle of wine.”

Audrey Dougherty thinks along the same lines. Actually, she has two ways of relieving stress. The first that came to mind was watching a movie.

But then she brightened, and added with a grin, “or I have a glass of wine and sit on the back porch and watch nature.”

Food, wine and trees as stress relievers. Sounds pretty good to me.

Kelly Neuer deals with stress through “reading for pleasure,” she said. “Reading takes me to another place.”

I forgot to check the title of her book, because I was distracted when she added “and doing bikram yoga.” She said this was a great stress reliever: meditative, relaxing, reflecting, and quiet. Also hot, because you do it in a room heated to about 100 degrees.

Auburn visitor Darrell Shouse, from Cloverdale, also uses exercise to combat stress. He lifts weights, practices yoga, and swims. “The yoga relaxes me,” he said. “And weightlifting takes my mind away,” he said

“It takes me out of my stresses.”

So does swimming, he added. “I find it calming and relaxing to glide through the water.”

I find it calming and relaxing to consider that nobody I talked to used any technology to deal with 21st-century stress. It gives me hope.

I hope you’re enjoying your Labor Day weekend. Take a deep breath and relax.

Susan Rushton’s column appears in the Auburn Journal every other Sunday. Her e-mail address is Rushton@cebridge.net.