Stress And Anxiety - Modern Ways To Overcome Them So You Can Relax
Now more than ever, scientific studies are proving the essential role stress can play in triggering or aggravating various psychological and somatic afflictions. An article in a 1983 issue of Time Magazine labeled stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties.” The article also claimed that stress is our prominent health problem. And one has to acknowledge that our world has become a lot more complex and stressful in the past two decades since that article was written.
A lot of surveys show that almost everybody feels that they are under a lot of stress. Researchers in the field estimate that between 75 and 90 percent of the visits to primary care doctors are for stress related issues.
Most adults claim their stress is mainly due to their job. And stress levels have also soared in children and the elderly population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often push people to everything from cigarette smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the wearing away of religion and family values; increased 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, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks. This is because of the ever growing sympathetic nervous system activity and the release of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is co-morbid with lower immune system resistance. Stress can cause anxiety, depression, and its different 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 is the definition of “tension” from the same dictionary:
“Mental, emotional, or nervous strain”
The following is the definition of “anxiety”:
“A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties”
And it defines “depression” as follows:
“The condition of feeling sad or despondent”
The following is the definition of “clinical depression”:
“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.”
One thing is for sure, our thoughts are the primary reason for our feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. We could also say that, what we think about, and our attitudes and the way we view our experiences strongly influence our feelings. That way, if we can learn to alter our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, then we can be relieved of our stress, anxiety, and depression and replace them with a better state of being.
Since the beginning of time, people have looked for methods that would allow them to release stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a drug for everything. And to that end the industry has created a wide array of anxiolytics from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize drugs for relief, please make sure that you are aware of the side-effects by reading the fine print, which most of the time include addiction and dependency. Indeed these sorts of drugs aim at treating the symptoms, rather than the cause. So as soon as one stops taking them, the symptoms can return.
A more appropriate method to release tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on its actual cause, which as I wrote before, is most often our thought processes. Here is some good news. Hypnosis is all about relaxation. The AMA recognized hypnosis in 1958 as an effective method of treating stress and stress related symptoms. But unlike pills, there are totally no undesirable side effects.
Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It is the daydream like temporary psychological frame of mind which we feel as we’re about to fall asleep in the evening. And we feel it again as we awaken again. There are several different ways that will help us guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, from step-by-step relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD’s.
When we access a hypnotic state, we can communicate with our unconscious mind, which is the seat of our emotions. And it becomes easier to accept new ideas and points of view which will help us to reduce anxiety, or even prevent it from occurring in the first place.
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a modern form of hypnosis, has many outstanding methods for eliminating stress. Perhaps the most effective technique is called the “swish” pattern - or the “flash” pattern. When you use the “swish” pattern, your unconscious will automatically use bad, stress producing mental images, to generate relaxing mental images. Otherwise stated, what usually makes you feel stress will automatically cause relaxation!
TO SUM UP
Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be prompted by our thoughts. So if we change our attitude and the way we resent our situation and our experiences, we can reduce these feelings at the root. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that allow us to change our attitude and point of view to easily reduce the root cause of these negative feelings.