Why Men Die Before Women and How to Prevent It: And How to Prevent It

By Philip Shore M.D. Ph.D. and Al J. Scaglione

Why Men Die Before Women and How to Prevent it contains all the exercises and principles that Al J. Scaglione used in his acting class for 25 years. Principals that today are being discovered such as "The Secret", Laughter Therapy, Fear Control, etc. Women live longer than men and Al J Scaglione shows men in simple exercises how to extend their lives, living fully and productive in their family and business life.

Dr. Phillip Shore, a Research Cardioligist and a Diabetes expert validates the principles of these eexercises and why they should be adopted and used on a daily basis. He tells the story of how he met Mr. Scaglione. His wife(a cancer survivor) worked in an Al J Scaglione workshop and Dr. Shore stated that the help he gave her in time of crisis was a major factor in beating this disease.

This book should be read by every man who wants good health and quality of life. It is also important for women to follow the principles also. This book contains the most revolutionary meditation ever developed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 26, 2006
• ISBN: 9781462820955

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Copyright © 2004, 2006 by Al J. Scaglione and Philip Shore M.D., Ph.D.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2004098542

ISBN 10:         Hardcover                          1-4134-6480-7

                       Softcover                            1-4134-6479-3

ISBN 13 :        Hardcover                          978-1-4134-6480-1

                       Softcover                            978-1-4134-6479-5

                       Ebook                                9781462820955

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Author’s Bio

This book is dedicated to the loving women and men in our lives, our parents, spouses and children who supported us in our efforts to develop the ideas and therapies contained in this book.

Summary: Why Men Die Before Women presents a revolutionary and new program that can powerfully and rapidly enhance and lengthen a man’s life. Al J. Scaglione, an acting teacher, shares his most intimate personal life experiences that led him to the creation of Laughnotherapy, Relaxnotherapy and the Self- Discovery Meditation. It is a new meditation that deals with emotions in a meditative state. Philip Shore, M.D., Ph.D., a medical expert in stress and its effects on health, reviews, explains and validates this program. Dr. Shore provides his unique insights on the relationship between emotional distress and disease. Through this blend of humanity and science comes a scientifically supported set of strategies and exercises to examine, accept, and change your life and thereby promote total mind-body health and happiness.

Chapter 1

From Whence We Came

I wasn’t a very healthy child growing up. I entered this world as a colicky baby and was plagued by a series of respiratory ailments, which literally prevented me from breathing through my nose. My mouth always hung open so that I could breathe. Two operations were required to alleviate the problem and restore nasal breathing.

I was considered the sensitive one of two boys in the family. When I was five years old, my mother, at the age of thirty-six, died of a heart attack on a train station in New York City. My father, having no one to care for us, put my brother and me into a military school in upstate New York. I would definitely learn the art of being a strong man. From that experience, I was forced to overcome my sensitivity. The death of my mother and being placed in a military school the next month devastated me.

My world was destroyed in just thirty days. To this day, I don’t think I’ve gotten over that trauma. I’ve learned to live with it and have gone through my feelings about it. But scars do remain. I cried and cried every day. The nuns told my father that he couldn’t come to see me until I stopped crying. It took almost four months to break me down and stop me from crying. The years spent at military school were ones of threats, physical abuse, and intimidation. Rulers, paddles, and tree branches were the tools of the day to train us to be disciplined, strong young men. I quickly learned how to be a good boy. I had a red ass to prove it.

The later years would continue to be as tough or even tougher. My father was determined to bring up two strong young men that would make him proud. Every label given to children today was mine. I was a latchkey kid and battered child at eight. My father’s only means of communicating his anger was through physical and emotional abuse. Relatives called my father tough and stern. His hands were freewheeling. Bloody noses, cracks across the face, and beatings with belts soon taught me never to express my feelings. I learned very fast that big boys don’t cry. I was playing the game well, never showing any emotions or ever shedding a tear. It was all bottled up inside. I was being a man.

As I entered my teens, physical ailments continued to plague my body. I once again was getting very sick, starting with a nervous stomach and ulcers. I developed tics in my neck and rigid shoulders, which made my body writhe in pain. I would pass out in tense situations. I landed on the floor out-cold on many occasions, not knowing why. My dad had a habit of yelling at me when I got sick. I couldn’t even get a cold without his screaming at me. I learned not to complain. Frightened that he would beat me, I saved my money and went to see a local physician, who was my friend’s uncle. My symptom was that I couldn’t catch my breath. The doctor told me it was all in my mind. Embarrassed, I learned to live with it and never again expressed to anyone the day-to-day hell I was living.

In college, I was a whopping 138 pounds. At six feet tall, I was called Thumbtack because I was so skinny. I had learned to live with all my maladies. My only release or escape was alcohol and smoking. I started drinking in college, and it increased, as I got older. I started drinking heavily so I could get my body to relax. There was no drug use in my circle of friends in the late fifties. Alcohol was my drug of choice because it was accepted. I remember running for president of my fraternity. There was a faction in the fraternity who opposed me because of my nervous tics. What kind of president would I make, standing there making a speech with my tics, looking like a freak? Needless to say, I lost the election.

After college, and into my mid-twenties, I ignored my ailments and accepted them as just part of who I was. I had developed neuritis in my back, and I was given Novocain to relieve the pain. For my nervous stomach, the doctor prescribed Miltown (the sixties version of Valium) and enzymes to digest my food. I continued to drink very heavily while taking these medications because the tranquilizers were not enough. The only feelings I could display were anger and laughter. All the other emotions seemed bottled up and never expressed. Fear became my partner and walked side by side with me. I was terrified of everyone and everything. I would walk across the street to avoid people because I was too frightened to even say hello. Picking up a phone was terror for me.

My lifelong ambition was to become a pop singer. I had an uncle who was a pretty famous singer, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I studied singing (hoping to gain confidence), against my father’s wishes. My father was very jealous of my uncle’s success. One day he found my music books under the front seat of the car and beat the living hell out of me.

After that, I was terrified to get up in front of people and sing. In the back of my mind, I was terrified that my father would see me and beat me up again. But I pushed on and on. I don’t know why. I just had to. I remember auditioning for the then-famous Copacabana floorshow. I needed three Jack Daniels and two Miltowns just to get up onstage. Another time I was doing a show, and I was so nervous that when the band started playing, I couldn’t sing. Nothing came out. For about a quarter of the song, I stood there and just mouthed the words. I was humiliated. Surprisingly, when I finished my set, I came offstage and the stage manager apologized for the microphone going dead. I meekly looked at him and said it was fine.

At the age of twenty-five, when I had a severe case of bronchitis, I refused to listen to my doctor and stop smoking. My coughing became so intense that I ended up in the hospital with a collapsed lung. I developed pleurisy and pneumonia with a half pint of water in my lung. I was pretty sick and was given the last rites. A caring nurse saved my life. I wouldn’t eat anything but sweets, so she went around the hospital, collecting all the leftover desserts. She took great care of me. I survived and went home. About a year later, I was having dinner at my brother’s home. His father- in-law curiously watched me swallowing an array of different medications. Amazed, he said, What are you going to do when you’re forty? It felt like being hit over the head with a baseball bat. This was the only way I knew how to survive. He recommended a chiropractor in Brooklyn, New York. I laughed, but later, when I thought about it, I had absolutely nothing to lose. I tried the chiropractor. Alternative medicine seemed quite appealing since the medications weren’t working. I went faithfully to the chiropractor three times a week. My back started feeling better. The neuritis was easing up slowly but surely. I stopped drinking coffee, and in about nine or ten months, I stopped taking Miltown. My tics lessened. I still, however, was keeping my feelings bottled up. I literally did not know how to release them.

I was sitting in a friend’s office one day, and a publicity agent was there. He asked me if I was an actor. I said no. He said I should be and invited me to observe an acting class. I had nothing to lose, so I went. The teacher had a small class, and I watched the individual students do exercises on the stage. I was introduced to the teacher after the class and was shocked when he invited me to join the class. So the next week I went to class. I was terrified. The first time I got up onstage, I was frozen in fear. The teacher looked at me and told me to take a deep breath. I tried to, and the next thing I remembered, there was the teacher standing over me. I had passed out.

But some crazy thing inside me made me keep returning to the class. Another evening, as I was standing onstage ready to work, I looked at the audience, and tears rolled down my face. I had no words, just tears. I was crying so profusely that the teacher asked one of the students to get some tissues. The student came back with a roll of toilet paper. As he walked toward the teacher, he didn’t notice that the toilet paper was creating a trail. The teacher handed me the toilet paper, and just the scene of me standing there crying my guts out, using a roll of toilet paper with a trail that led out the door, was too much for the class to behold. They started laughing. A shocked teacher looked at the class and noticed the toilet paper, and he started laughing. I was incensed. Then I looked at the toilet paper, and I started laughing hysterically. I didn’t realize until years later that the roll of tissue paper leading out the door was a metaphor. It was the missing tissue for the missing tears when I had learned not to cry. The acting class had become a therapeutic release for me.

The next six months were spent crying each and every time I got onstage. Tears flowed that I had buried deep inside me for over twenty years. But along with the tears came fear and anxiety attacks. I couldn’t pick up a telephone to make a business call. I was terrified to be alone and was still drinking heavily. But it was the release of these tears that started me on a quest that has been at the forefront of my life for the past thirty years. I had wanted more. Although the crying made me feel better, it wasn’t enough. I never knew what it felt like to relax without booze. I wanted that feeling of relaxation so badly. My body craved it.

A fellow actor recommended a book, Betrayal of the Body, by Dr. Alexander Lowen. I read it and totally related to the problems described in the book and wanted to meet the author. He also lived in New York City, so it was not hard to find him. I contacted his office and soon began therapy with one of his associates. My shell was hard to crack because I had enough defenses for an army. I remember the first time I went to a group encounter. I looked around the room and thought that these people were really screwed up. What the hell am I doing here? One of the patients in the group remarked at how closed off I was. I was in a total state of denial and defended myself to the utmost. I tried all their tools, but to no avail. I just could not express my feelings. However, that night, sitting by a fireplace in the lounge, a strange thing happened. As I blankly stared at the fire, a tear surfaced. And then another tear came and another. For hours I just sat there, crying softly, watching the fire. I saw my life flash before me with all of the pain, the hurt, and the terror. The next morning I walked into the session, sat down in the circle, looked at everyone, and said, Help me. One of the therapists came over and sat next to me. She held my hand, and I started sobbing.

Bioenergetics therapy, developed by Alexander Lowen, helped me start to find the real me. After four years as a patient, I started assisting my therapist in running her group therapy sessions and took over when she was not available. My acting teacher approached me about possibly becoming a teacher at his studio. He wanted me to start a class and he would monitor it and when he felt I was ready, I would begin teaching at his studio. I rented space in a studio in Carnegie Hall and soon had a flourishing class. A therapist of one of my students was so impressed with the results of one of his problem patients that he asked me to run his group. I told him I wasn’t a therapist and joked about it that evening in a group session. My therapist remarked that she thought I had a great insight into people and would make an excellent therapist. I went home that evening and mentioned it to my wife who has a masters both in guidance and counseling and special education. Her feelings were that I would make an excellent therapist. So the following month, I began to train as a therapist. I did so for two years and after assisting in a group, I soon started running my own group. A therapeutic group utilizing intensive therapy (as we called it, the New York Community for Intensive Therapy) was formed, and I was elected vice-president and spokesman for the organization. I became an intricate part of the NYCIT and soon had a thriving practice. It was