Write down all of the events in your life that you feel are stressful. Take your time and include even the seemingly trivial ones. Write down how the stress shows itself for each of these events. If you’re not sure exactly how stress affects you then refer to the section on stress symptoms below.

There are two important ideas that you have to understand. If you combine them then you will have the power to eliminate any stressful situation.

• 1. You create the stress within yourself because a situation is unfamiliar or threatening and you are afraid of the outcome
• 2. What you create in your mind, your mind perceives as real.

Using these two basic ideas produces a 3 step technique to eliminate potential stressful situations:

Day and night your body runs on a time cycle that lasts about 90 minutes. Known as the ultradian rhythm, during the night this controls how deeply you sleep. During the day you will find that every 90 minutes or so (it can vary 75-120 minutes) you feel a little less energetic, perhaps a little sleepy. See the pages on Sleep and Insomnia for a more detailed account of ultradian rhythms.

Some people recommend taking power naps at these times during the day, but most people don’t have the luxury of being able to do this. However, you should be aware of it and allow yourself to relax a little and be a little less productive, in preparation of a more energetic and productive hour ahead of you.

It is best to consult a professional as certain oils should not be used on some people, especially if they are pregnant, suffer epilepsy, chronic illness or skin sensitivities.

Amoils Health Products

Any massage is good. Try to get a deep lymphatic drainage massage every now and then to help remove toxins from your system. Indian head massages are great for relieving stress.

A recent study into Swedish massage techniques at the Cedars-Sinai’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences showed beneficial changes in the body’s immune and endocrine response.

The study showed:

• The Swedish massage produced significant changes in lymphocytes ,(lymphocyte numbers and percentages white blood cells that play a large role in defending the body from disease.
• The massage caused a large decrease (effect size -.74) in Arginine Vasopressin (AVP) a hormone believed to play a role in aggressive behavior and linked to helping cause increases in the stress hormone cortisol.
• The Swedish massage caused a decrease in levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
• The Swedish massage caused a notable decrease in most cytokines produced by stimulated white blood cells.

Cedars-Sinai study

When you feel stress then you start to take shallow breaths in the upper chest. Your body is preparing itself to take avoiding action. Although not a cure for the causes of stress, overriding this breathing pattern will reduce the symptoms.

Any deep breathing exercise is beneficial but see the page on diaphragmatic breathing for a recommended method.

Relaxation, like breathing techniques, can reduce the symptoms but does not deal with the underlying causes. Use the technique on the self hypnosis page. This is an excellent way to relax both your body and your mind.

Incidentally, relaxation is not watching television, smoking or drinking.  These all tend to increase the stress, although, like drugs, the temporary relief from cravings can make you feel better for a short period, do not mistake that for relaxation.

A warm bath is a good idea.

This is especially important for blood sugar levels. If they are swinging up and down because of high sugar intake your mood will be too. It is in one of the low blood sugar level slumps that you are going to be very vulnerable to stress. NO sugar, cakes, sweets, biscuits, deserts. These are all stress inducing foods.

This is a very personal thing but whatever your fix, get a daily dose. Plan it. Add it to your diary or daily schedule. It stimulates all sorts of useful neurochemicals in your brain that make you feel happier and less stressed. Tell jokes, watch funny films or stand up comics, whatever suits you. laughter is very, very useful.

One note of caution. If you can, do not combine this with drinking. It is easy to link fun to drink, but, your body is quite stressed removing alcohol from your system. The mind and body are strongly linked. Do not fall prey to the old myth that a good stiff drink is relaxing.

Human contact is essential. Some misguided (in retrospect) experiments with orphaned babies many years ago had them brought up without any physical contact or affection from another human. The experiment had to be abruptly stopped, but too late to prevent several of them from shrivelling up and dying from grief and neglect. Western society does very little touching compared with other societies in the world and it appears to be reducing more and more.

Lots of good destressing substances like seratonin available for free here. It appears that giving to a responsive receiver is better for you than just receiving.

Know what you have control over in your life and what you do not have control over. If you have control use it. If you do not, then you have to accept this fact and plan accordingly. There is no point wasting energy trying to control something that you cannot. We all have to hand over the control for some things in our lives.

If you’re having problems releasing control and are constantly fighting it, then you need to realise that you are already constantly handing over control to someone very important. Your subconscious mind. When you go to sleep at night your subconscious controls your breathing, your heart rate, it is listening for any signs of danger though you are not consciously aware of it.

The best place for control is your subconscious because it manages things flawlessly. You need to get your conscious interfering mind out of the way. Hypnosis is the easiest way to do it. Conscious acceptance comes a close second place, or you can do it the hard way and battle it until you have to give in, with all the resulting damage to your self-esteem. Do not go into the realm of low self-esteem control addict.

Create a relaxing and calm anchor that you can use at stressful moments. See the page on Anchoring for a full explanation how to do this. It shouldn’t take you more than 10 or 15 minutes, though you may need to revisit it and build it up every now and then.

A lot of studies into brain wave activity have identified that under stress we tend to exhibit sustained levels of beta brain wave activity. Refer to the page onbrain waves for a full explanation and some useful free software if you feel inspired to try it out.

We all have internal voices that reflect our thoughts. If your internal voice sounds depressive or stressed then you can change it to a happy optimistic one. If you find it difficult, choose someone you know or a film character that has a positive effect on you when you hear their voice. Substitute their voice for your old internal voice. This can be quite an uplifting experience.

Make your work or home environment more pleasant. Change something. This gets you to focus on something outside of yourself over which you have control and can perfect to your own taste. Very therapeutic.

See the pages on Sleep and Insomnia. . Lack of quality sleep can be very stressful.

Research has shown that having a pet around you helps stimulate calm brainwave activity. The purring of a cat has been shown to be very effective in reducing heart attacks.

Really, just ask anyone with a dog.  You get fresh air and exercise and a play buddy.  Plenty of research into the benefits.  pet owners apparently live longer.

Designed to quickly relax your mind and body, 40 minutes of deep hypnotic relaxation can feel like the equivalent of several hours of quality sleep.

The main hypnotic recording teaches you to use relaxing memories, progressive muscle relaxation and breathing techniques to help you reduce stress at any time.

Discover how easily you can drift into a deep hypnotic trance. The more you do it, the deeper you go. If you have never experienced this, you really must, it is different to ordinary forms of relaxation.

3 Sessions lasting a total of 48 minutes:

Deep Calm (36m)
Power Nap (8m)
Quick Relaxation (4m)