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Now more than ever, research is confirming the essential responsibility of stress in causing and aggravating many psychological and somatic afflictions. In the June 6, 1983 issue of Time Magazine, the cover story called stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties.” The journalist also declared that stress is a prominent health problem. And it is unquestionable that our world has become a lot more complex and stressful in the past two decades since that article was written.

Many surveys indicate that almost everybody perceives themselves as being subject to a lot of stress. Authorities in this domain estimate that between 75 and 90 percent of the visits to PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) are related to stress.

Most people say that their job is the primary reason of their stress. The levels of stress have also soared in children and the senior population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often lead to everything from smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the loss of family and religious values and ties; growing crime rates; threats to personal safety; as well as social isolation and loneliness.

Stress is a factor of conditions such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks. This is due to the increased sympathetic nervous system activity along with the release of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress has been associated with impaired immune system resistance. Stress can be responsible for anxiety, depression, and its different effects on one’s organs.

“Stress” is defined as follows by the American Heritage Dictionary: “To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain”

The following definition is given for “tension”: “Mental, emotional, or nervous strain”

The word “anxiety” is defined as follows: “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”

“Clinical depression” is defined 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.”

One thing is for sure, our mind is the first reason for our feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. In other words, what we think about, and our attitudes and points of view about our experiences dictate our feelings. That way, if we can find a way to alter our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, we can be relieved of our feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression and replace them with a more positive state of being.

People have always sought out methods that would allow them to get rid of stress. The pharmaceutical industry seems to have a pill for everything. For that the industry has created a large array of anxiolytics from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize these pills for relief, please be sure to read the fine print and learn about the side effects, which commonly include addiction and dependency. Indeed these kinds of drugs attempt to cure the symptoms, but not the cause. So when one stops taking them, the symptoms can come back.

A more appropriate way of releasing tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on its actual cause, which as I wrote before, is most often our thought processes. There is some good news. The main principle of hypnosis is relaxing. The AMA recognized hypnosis in 1958 as an effective way to cure stress or stress related symptoms. However unlike pills, there are absolutely no negative side effects.

Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It’s the daydream like temporary psychological state that we experience as we’re just about to fall asleep at night. And we experience it once again as we awaken in the morning. There are hundreds of different ways that we can guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, from progressive relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD’s.

When we get into the hypnotic state, we can interact with our unconscious mind, which is the center of our emotions. And it becomes easier to accept new points of view and ideas that will help us to eliminate anxiety, or even avoid it completely.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP, which is a recently developed kind of hypnotherapy, has numerous excellent methods for dissipating stress. Maybe the most effective technique is called the “swish” pattern - or the “flash” pattern. After using this method, your unconscious will automatically use bad, stress producing mental pictures, to generate relaxation producing mental pictures. Put differently, what usually makes you feel stress will now make you feel more relaxed!

TO SUM UP Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be caused by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and point of view towards our situation and what we’ve experienced, we can eliminate these feelings at the root. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that make it possible to change our attitude and point of view to swiftly eliminate the root cause of our negative feelings.

Alan B. Densky is an NGH certified hypnotherapist. He offers a complete line of anxiety elimination hypnosis CDs, and advanced stress reduction CDs through his Neuro-VISION hypnosis website. You can visit his self hypnosis blog, and download a free MP3.

- Alan B. Densky, CH

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