More than ever before research is proving the fundamental responsibility played by stress in triggering or aggravating a lot of physical and emotional afflictions. In the June 6, 1983 issue of Time Magazine, the cover story called stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The article also claimed that stress is a major health issue. Indeed there is no doubt whatsoever that our world has become even more complex and stressful in the past two decades since that article was published.

Numerous surveys indicate that most adults perceive themselves as being subject to a lot of stress. Authorities in the field estimate that 75 to 90 percent of the visits to primary care doctors are for stress related problems.

Most adults say their stress is for the most part due to their job. The levels of stress 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 family and religious values and ties; growing crime rates; fear for personal safety; and last but not least social isolation and loneliness.

Stress can cause and aggravate problems 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 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 various impacts on the body's organs.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "stress" as follows:
"To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain"

The same dictionary defines "tension" as follows:
"Mental, emotional, or nervous strain"

The following is the definition of "anxiety":
"A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties"

And the following is the definition of "depression":
"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."

What we can be sure of is that our thoughts are the major cause of our experience of stress, anxiety and depression. In other words, what we think about, and our attitudes and the way we view our experiences create our feelings. So if we can learn how to alter our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, we can release our feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression and change them for a better state of being.

Since the beginning of time, people have tried to find methods that would allow them to eliminate stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a drug for everything. For that the industry has developed a large line of anxiolytics from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize these pills for relief, please make sure that you pay attention to the fine print and learn about the side effects, which often are, among others, addiction and dependency. Indeed these types of drugs aim at treating the symptoms, instead of the cause. So as soon as one stops taking them, the symptoms can come back.

A smarter method to get rid of tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to treat its actual cause, which as I said previously, is most often our thought processes. There is the good news. The heart of hypnosis is relaxing. The AMA recognized hypnosis in 1958 as an effective way to cure stress and stress related symptoms. And unlike anxiolytics, there are categorically no negative side effects.

When you enter hypnosis, you are in the Alpha level of consciousness. It's the daydream like temporary psychological frame of mind which we feel as we're just about to fall asleep in the evening. And we feel it again when we awaken again. There are many different ways we can guide ourselves into this state of tranquility, from step-by-step relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's.

Once in the hypnotic state, we can interact with our unconscious mind, which is the seat of our emotions. And one can more easily admit new points of view and ideas which will help us to eliminate anxiety, or even prevent anxiety from occurring in the first place.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a new sort of hypnosis, has many great techniques for dissipating stress. Perhaps the most effective technique is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. When you use the "flash" pattern, your unconscious will automatically use negative, stress triggering mental pictures, to generate relaxing mental pictures. In other words, what generally makes you feel stress will automatically make you feel more relaxed!

TO SUM UP
Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be triggered by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and the way we perceive our situation and our experiences, we can eliminate these feelings at the root. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that allow us to change our attitude and point of view to rapidly eliminate the root cause of our negative feelings.