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The Personal Freedom Series
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Managing the Stress of Emotions Managing
stress is usually aimed at dealing with the particular stressors we
encounter in life. The problem is that many stressors cause our fight or
flight mechanism to kick in resulting in the release of many different
hormones which in turn can have deleterious effects on our bodies.
The true
and tried techniques are things such as: 1. Deep
breathing 2, Muscle
awareness exercises 3.
Autogenic training--sort of a self hypnosis aimed at relaxing muscles and
improving circulation to the extremities--hands and feet. 4.
Physical exercise 5. Yoga 6.
Meditation 7. Self
hypnosis These
techniques are aimed at relaxing the breadth, letting go of muscular
tension, improving blood circulation and so on. These techniques are the elementary school part of stress management and they should literally be taught in every elementary school. What about
the high school of stress management? Answer: Often times when we are
stressed, there is an emotional reaction. Emotional
reactions are not so easily dissipated. In fact the
emotions themselves become the stressor. Now this
is an important distinction because most stress management techniques
focus on dealing with the stressor that caused the emotion. The goal is to
alleviate the emotion by tackling the original stressor. But what if, it's
impractical to resolve the stressor? What if nothing can be done regarding
the stressor? Ok, let me
not be misunderstood. The stressor (any event) that results in an emotion
causes another stressor--the emotion. It can be
any emotion--anger, upset, frustration, uncertainty, boredom, confusion,
malaise, depression and so on. It could also be happiness, excitement,
joy, elation, and so on. Why are
these emotions stressors? Firstly it's not necessarily all emotions. For
instance, one might have no problem handling confusion, upset, anger, but
have a big problem with uncertainty.
Then, for instance, we might have no problem
handling our own anger, but be totally inept at handling anger in others.
But to
answer the question, it's because of our learned attitudes and beliefs we
acquired about these emotions. The end result is that we go to all
extremes to escape the emotion. Many people dilute the emotion with food,
smoking, or some other deleterious habit. Years ago
there was a book titled, The Angry Book, by Isaac Rubin MD (it's out of
print and I can't find it). The entire book was about how many people
create all kinds of aberrant behaviors to keep feeling anger. Dr. Rubin
believes it's the "sealers" (our beliefs) that say anger is bad for us
that keep us from dealing with the emotion. For instance: Don't be
angry--others will take advantage of you. Nice
people don't get angry. Anger will
raise your blood pressure. You'll say
something stupid. These are
just a few beliefs or attitudes about anger. Actually from my experience
in stress management counseling a similar book could be written about
every emotion--not just anger. And that's
just what I did in a matter of speaking with nearly a dozen Tapes/CD's for
Weight Loss Hypnosis and Self Help that cover a variety of emotions. The
goal with any emotion is to learn how to feel it and experience it. As any
emotion is experienced, it disappears and no longer evokes a stress
response within the body--in other words, you are "flat" with the emotion.
Richard Kuhns B.S.Ch.E., NGH certified is a prominent figure in the field of stress management and personal change with his best selling hypnosis and stress management cds at http://www.DStressDoc.com and http://www.PanicBusters.com. He aims to raise awareness as to how using basic stress management skills promote health. To find out more please visit http://www.dstressdoc.com/Emotional%20Health%20Series.htm
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©Copyright 2005 Stress Management Institute, Middletown, NJ all rights reserved.