As you might imagine, I wasn’t too happy Sunday reading a New York Times story with the headline, “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.”

All this time I thought I was enjoying myself, doing what I once did as a reporter — writing and meeting deadlines hoping that I would scoop the next reporter with an exclusive.

So I returned to what I loved, writing, but writing what I wanted to write, not covering a beat or every accident or murder that occurs on the street.

But there is a difference, I am working that 24/7 news cycle now and have been caught up in it for the past eight years. Now in between my days of reporting and my present hobby I was a Public Relations flack for the Pharmaceutical industry. Now, you want to talk about stress. But it’s amazing how time goes by when you think you are having fun, only to pick up the Sunday paper to find out you have taken up a hobby that might be killing you?

Things have become so stressful after reading this Times’ piece, that during the writing of this column, I reached for my Omron wrist blood pressure cuff and took my blood pressure, pulse and check for heart irregularities. My blood pressure was 106 over 61 with a pulse of 66 with no irregularities.

I’m always amazed at what these little gadgets can do.

However, after taking my blood pressure, which I consider a bit low, but they say that’s good, I thought perhaps I should stop drinking my gin and tonic and have a coke, because the system seems to need some stimulation.

Now having done a bit of medical writing in my day I dug deeper into this article, for after all where was this headline coming from? You mean people were actually dying? Did they do a double blind study? Where’s the credibility?

Well it didn’t take me long to find out it was a study of three persons. Nevertheless, two of the three died. That’s a high percentage, but I know you can’t come up with a ‘P’ value to make this small sample statistically significant.

This report would never make the New England Journal of Medicine, I quickly thought.

So I checked the article further to find out that a couple of weeks ago they held a funeral service in North Lauderdale, Fla., — that’s the State I blog from — who was a prolific blogger on technology and he died at the age of 60. Well, I got some comfort out of the fact that I’ve got 14 years on him.

Then there was another tech blogger who died of a massive coronary at the age of 50, well I got 24 years on him and as I mentioned the third blogger survived a heart attack and he was only 41, and I have 33 years on him.

Two of the three blogged on technology, well you’re not going to see that subject in this column.

Now the author of this piece was very comforting when he said “to be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic.”

But then they started talking to the living bloggers and the story really got bleak. One said, “I haven’t died yet,” and he was another one of those technology blogs. He said he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees.

“At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital or something else will happen,” he said.

You know there are all kinds of bloggers out there, everyone wants to find a niche and something that scores financially like Google.

For those the stress is there, but there are many others of us that do it because it is fun. I always said no matter the job, the hobby, the sport or the exercise, if it’s no longer fun stop doing it.

I wonder however, is my blood pressure too low?