More than ever, scientific investigations are proving the fundamental responsibility played by stress in triggering or aggravating a lot of psychological and physical afflictions. In the June 6, 1983 issue of Time Magazine, the cover story called stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The article also declared that stress is a critical health issue. And it is doubtless that today's world has become even more complex and stressful in the last twenty-five years since that article was written.

A lot of surveys indicate that most adults have the impression of being subject to a lot of stress. Authorities in the field estimate that between 75 and 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians somehow have to do with stress.

Most people report that their job is the main 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 wearing away of religion and family values; growing crime rates; fear for personal security; and last but not least social isolation and loneliness.

Stress contributes to conditions such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. This is because of the augmented sympathetic nervous system activity and a flood of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is often associated with lower immune system resistance. Stress can be responsible for anxiety, depression, and its several impacts on the body's organs.
"Stress" is defined as follows by the American Heritage Dictionary:
"To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain"

The same dictionary defines "tension" as follows:
"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"

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."

We can nonetheless be sure that our mind is the chief cause of our feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. To put it into different words, what we think about, and our attitudes and points of view about our experiences strongly influence our feelings. That way, if we can learn to change our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, we can get rid of our stress, anxiety, and depression and replace them with a better state of being.

Since the beginning of time, people have tried methods for releasing stress. The pharmaceutical industry seems to have a drug for everything. For that the industry has developed a large line of tranquilizers from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to use these pills for relief, please be sure to be 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, but not the cause. So if one stops taking them, the symptoms can return.

A more intelligent method to eliminate tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to treat the root cause, which as I wrote above, is usually our thought processes. There 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 anxiolytics, there are absolutely no undesirable side effects.

Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It is the daydream like temporary psychological frame of mind that we feel as we are just about to fall asleep at night. And we feel it another time as we awaken again. There are hundreds of different ways to guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, from progressive relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's.

Once in a hypnotic state, we can communicate with our unconscious mind, which is the seat of our emotions. And one can more easily accept new ideas and points of view that will help us to dissipate anxiety, or even avoid it completely.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP, which is a recently developed form of hypnosis, has various outstanding methods for eliminating stress. Perhaps the technique that works best is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. When you use this technique, your unconscious will automatically use negative, stress producing mental pictures, to generate tranquilizing mental pictures. Put differently, what generally makes you feel stress will automatically make you feel more relaxed!

TO SUM UP
Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be activated by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and the way we feel about our situation and our experiences, we can dissipate these feelings at the source. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that we can use to help us change our attitude and point of view to easily dissipate the source of our negative feelings.

Alan B. Densky is an NGH certified hypnotherapist. He offers a complete line of stress elimination hypnotherapy CDs, and advanced anxiety reduction CDs through his