More than ever before scientific investigations are attesting the fundamental role stress can play in triggering or aggravating various psychological and physical disorders. A cover story in a 1983 issue of Time Magazine labeled stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The article also mentioned that stress is our leading health issue. Indeed it is doubtless that today's world has become a lot more complicated and stressful over the last twenty-five years since that article was written.

Many surveys show that almost everybody perceives themselves as being under a great deal of stress. Authorities in the field estimate that around 75 to 90 percent of all visits to PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) are related to stress.

Most adults claim their stress is primarily due to their job. Stress levels have also grown in children and the senior population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often lead 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; but also social isolation and loneliness.

Stress is a factor of problems such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks. This is because of the increased sympathetic nervous system activity along with a high level of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is co-morbid with defective immune system resistance. Stress can be responsible for anxiety, depression, and its different effects on one's organs.

The following definition for "stress" can be found in the American Heritage Dictionary: "To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain"

"Tension" is defined 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 following is the definition of "depression": "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, 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 main cause of our experience of stress, anxiety and depression. Put differently, what we think about, and our attitudes and points of view about our experiences dictate what we feel. 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 more positive state of being.

People have always tried to find methods for eliminating stress. The pharmaceutical industry seems to have a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has created a wide line of sedatives 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 usually are, among others, addiction and dependency. Unfortunately, these types of drugs aim at treating the symptoms, instead of the cause. So when one stops ingesting them, the symptoms can return.

A smarter way of eliminating tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to try to cure its actual cause, which as I wrote before, is generally our thought processes. There is good news. Hypnosis is all about relaxing. The AMA accepted hypnosis in 1958 as an effective way to cure stress or stress related symptoms. However unlike drugs, there are definitely no bad side effects.

When you are in hypnosis, you are in the Alpha level of consciousness. It's the daydream like temporary psychological mindset that we feel as we are about to fall asleep in the evening. And we feel it again as we awaken again. There are several different ways we can guide ourselves into this condition of tranquility, from step-by-step relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's.

Once in a hypnotic state, we are able to communicate with our unconscious mind, which is the center of our feelings. And one can more easily accept new points of view and ideas which will help us to reduce anxiety, or even prevent anxiety from occurring in the first place.

NLP, which is a recently developed type of hypnotherapy, has a lot of wonderful techniques for releasing 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 bad, stress triggering mental images, as triggers for tranquilizing mental images. In other words, what usually makes you feel stress will automatically trigger relaxation!

TO SUMMARIZE Our thoughts can cause depression, anxiety and tension. So by changing our attitude and the way we feel about our situation and our experiences, we can reduce these feelings at the root. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that we can use to help us change our attitude and point of view to rapidly reduce the main cause of these negative feelings.

(c) Copyright 2007 By Alan B. Densky, CH. All rights reserved.  Reprinted with permission.

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