Anxiety And Stress - Use NLP To Eliminate Them And Relax

Now more than ever, scientific surveys are confirming the fundamental responsibility played by stress in triggering or aggravating many physical and emotional afflictions. A cover story from a 1983 Time Magazine labeled stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The article also claimed that stress is a considerable health problem. Indeed one has to recognize that our world has become more and more complicated and stressful in the last 25 years since that article was published.

Several surveys indicate that almost everybody has the impression of being subject to a great deal of stress. Researchers in the field estimate that between 75 and 90 percent of all visits to PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) are related to stress.

Most adults say that their job is the main cause of their stress. And stress levels have also increased in children and the elderly population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often lead to everything from cigarette smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the loss of religion and family values; increased crime rates; fear for personal safety; as well as social isolation and loneliness.

Stress is a factor of problems such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. This is due to the increased sympathetic nervous system activity as well as the release of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is corollary of lower immune system resistance. Stress can cause anxiety, depression, and its varied effects 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"

It defines "tension" as follows:
"Mental, emotional, or nervous strain"

It defines "anxiety" 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"

The following definition is given for "clinical depression":
"A psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia and sleeplessness, 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 source 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 dictate our feelings. So if we can discover how 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 sought out methods for eliminating stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has created a large array of sedatives from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize these pills for relief, please make sure that you are aware of the side effects by reading the fine print, which commonly include addiction and dependency. Indeed these types of drugs aim at curing the symptoms, instead of the cause. So when one stops taking them, the symptoms can come back.

A more intelligent way of eliminating tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on its actual cause, which as I said previously, is most often our thought processes. There is some good news. Hypnosis is all about relaxing. The AMA accepted hypnosis in 1958 as an effective method of treating stress and stress related symptoms. Moreover unlike anxiolytics, there are no bad side effects.

When you enter the state of hypnosis, you are in the Alpha level of consciousness. It is the daydream like temporary psychological state, which we go through as we are just about to fall asleep at night. And we go through it again as we wake up in the morning. There are a lot of different ways we can guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, 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 center of our emotions. And it becomes easier to accept new points of view and ideas, which will help us to reduce anxiety, or even avoid it in the first place.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP, which is a modern form of hypnotherapy, offers different excellent techniques for getting rid of stress. Maybe the technique that works best is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. After using the "swish" pattern, your unconscious will automatically use negative, stress triggering mental images, to create tranquilizing mental images. Put differently, your stressors will automatically cause relaxation!

TO SUM THINGS UP
Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be activated by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and the way we perceive our situation and what we've been through, we can reduce these feelings at the source. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that make it possible to change our attitude and point of view to easily reduce the main cause of these negative feelings.

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