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More than ever before scientific research is attesting the fundamental responsibility of stress in causing and aggravating various physical and emotional disorders. A headline from a 1983 Time Magazine labeled stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The article also claimed that stress is our main health issue. Indeed it is doubtless that today's world has become a lot more complicated and stressful over the past 25 years since that article was written. Many surveys show that almost everybody perceives themselves as being under a lot of stress. Authorities in this domain estimate that 75 - 90 percent of the visits to PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) are for stress related problems. Most people claim their stress is for the most part due to their job. And stress levels have also soared in children as well as the senior population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often lead to everything from smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the dissolution of family and religious values and ties; growing crime rates; threats to personal security; as well as social isolation and loneliness. Stress contributes to problems such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. This is due to the ever growing sympathetic nervous system activity along with a high level of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is often associated with weakened immune system resistance. Stress can cause anxiety, depression, and its several effects on the body's organs. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "stress" as follows: "To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain" The following definition is given for "tension": "Mental, emotional, or nervous strain" The following definition is given for "anxiety": "A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties" And the word "depression" is defined as follows: "The condition of feeling sad or despondent" It defines "clinical depression" as follows: "A psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death." We can be sure of one thing, our mind is the major reason for our feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. To put it into different words, what we think about, and our attitudes and the way we view our experiences strongly influence our feelings. So if we can discover how to alter our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, we can eliminate our feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression and attain a better state of being. People have always looked for methods for releasing stress. The pharmaceutical industry seems to have a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has created a wide array of sedatives from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize these pills for relief, please make sure that you read the fine print and learn about the side effects, which commonly are, among others, addiction and dependency. Unfortunately, these kinds of drugs attempt to cure the symptoms, instead of the cause. So as soon as one stops taking them, the symptoms can return. A finer method to eliminate tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to treat its actual cause, which as I said above, is usually our thought processes. Now, here is the good news. The very essence of hypnosis is relaxing. The AMA recognized hypnosis in 1958 as an effective method of treating stress and stress related symptoms. Moreover unlike pills, there are totally no negative side effects. Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It is the daydream like temporary psychological frame of mind that we experience as we are about to fall asleep in the evening. And we experience it another time when we awaken again. There are many different ways to guide ourselves into this state of tranquility, from step-by-step relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's. Once in a hypnotic state, we are able to communicate with our unconscious mind, which is the seat of our emotions. And it becomes easier to admit new points of view and ideas which will help us to reduce anxiety, or even prevent anxiety from occurring in the first place. NLP, which is a recently developed sort of hypnosis, offers a lot of wonderful methods for releasing stress. Maybe the technique that works best is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. After using this technique, your unconscious will automatically use bad, stress producing mental images, to generate relaxation producing mental images. Put differently, your stressors will automatically make you feel more relaxed! TO SUM THINGS UP Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be triggered by our thoughts. So if we change our attitude and the way we feel about our situation and our experiences, we can reduce these feelings at the root. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that make it possible to change our attitude and point of view to easily reduce the root cause of these negative feelings.
Article Source: http://www.mycontentbuilder.com
Alan B. Densky is an NGH certified hypnotherapist. He offers a complete line of stress elimination hypnotherapy CDs, and advanced stress elimination CDs through his Neuro-VISION hypnosis website. You can visit his self hypnosis blog, and download a free MP3.
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