Work Stress: Does Your Job Lack “Soul”?

Does your job lack soul? If yes, you probably feel stressed out and miserable a lot of the time, right? And you’re also probably not living the quality of life you deserve.

Well you’re not alone. Work has lost its soul for many people, including those in high paying jobs. Work without soul is work that lacks a loving connection to life. It’s work that involves little if any meaningful connection to other people.

The great Russian writer Dostoevsky explained why work without soul can be so distressing and demoralizing. He put it this way: “Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence.”

The shifting patterns of work brought on by globalization and outsourcing have left many people struggling with feeling overworked, underpaid and undervalued in meaningless jobs. As a result, many people are suffering from a combination of stress, anxiety and depression.

Unfortunately studies show that workplace stress can make your mind miserable and your body ill. It drives many serious problems, more so than any other life stressor, including money, marriage or family problems.

Levels Never Seen Before

Job stress is now at levels never seen before. Men and women are working longer and harder for less money and with less job security and less “job say so” than ever before.

Many people think that outsourcing to countries like India has left American and western European workers cheated while benefiting Indian workers tremendously. But a closer look tells a different story.

Indians working long hours answering telephone calls from America and Europe now show signs of chronic job stress: heart disease, insomnia, musculoskeletal pain and injury, depression and serious family problems.

Stress Hormones are the Culprit: People Just Wear Out

If your work places great demands on you, but offers you little or no control over when and how you do it, then find another job. Because “high demand, low control” work is the worst.

Any kind of ongoing job stress can wear you down and make you ill. But research shows that a high demand, low control work situation can flood your system with stress hormones every day.

What You Need to Do

You can help yourself tremendously if you learn how to do two things relating to stress hormones: 1) prevent them from leaking into your system on a regular basis and 2) flush them from your blood and tissues so they don’t linger and cause harm.

If you learn how to do these two things, you won’t have to be dependent on medications with side effects that take the joy out of your life. With the right “know how” and support, you can learn how to do it easily. Once you feel good and in control again, you can find ways to bring soul back into your work life.

Personal Growth and the Two Wolves

This story gives great insight into the real work of personal
growth and “Inner Fitness”

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle
that goes on inside people.  He said, ‘My son, the battle is
between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.

One is Evil.  It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false
pride,superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion and faith.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’

The old Cherokee simply replied,
‘The one you feed.’

Personal Growth: What God Told Amy and Jack

One day God couldn’t take Amy and Jack praying to Him any longer. They prayed everyday for so many things that it took God many hours just to listen to them. They wanted to sell their little grocery store in a small town and be able to move into the big city and be free from the constraints of their family, a family that lived in the same small town for five generations.

God came down and met with Jack and Amy. He told them, “I will grant you three wishes and three wishes only. After that, don’t bother me anymore. I’m busy.” They were thrilled but they were uncertain about exactly what to ask God for. Finally, they decided. For their first wish, they wanted to be so rich that they could leave and start a huge business in New York City while they lived at Trump Towers.

God granted them their wish. However, after a few months they grew homesick. And they were having a lot of complicated business problems; much of their money was at risk. Jack and Amy missed the simple life of their grocery store and the daily connection with their family. They were ready to call God for their second wish, but they were so shaky and uncertain about exactly what to ask for that they were beside themselves.

Amy woke up one morning with a brilliant idea. She told Jack and they called God. “Dearly beloved God”, they began, “we are so unsure, confused and stressed out about what to ask you for that we’ve decided that for our second wish we want you to tell us what to ask for—for our third wish.”

God laughed out loud. He said, “That’s easy. Ask for “Unshakable Certainty”, then you’ll be happy, fulfilled and satisfied no matter what.”

How much better would your life be if you were more clear, more steady and more secure about who you are, about your work, about your relationships, and about where your life is going?

How much different would your life be if you had Unshakable Certainty?

If you had Unshakable Certainty you would live much better than you could possibly live without it. With it, you would be comfortable with yourself in virtually all circumstances. You wouldn’t second guess yourself because you would know who you are well enough to understand and accept your own responses to life’s challenges.

Less Stress, Fear, Worry, Self-Doubt and Depression

Your inner trust and self-assurance would allow you to control or eliminate the nagging worries and apprehensions that trouble most people. Unshakable Certainty would give you the master key for a deeply satisfying life that could be well-lived, loved and understood.

With Unshakable Certainty, you wouldn’t have to battle with fear, self-doubt, worry, anxiety and depression. As a matter of fact, you would know how to deal with these and other negative states of mind skillfully without becoming identified with or defined by them. Your life could rest on the rock solid self-assurance, security and conviction that only Unshakable Certainty can bring.

The Power and Relief of Deep Self-Assurance

With Unshakable Certainty, you could create success in the world from the inside out, success based on your unique and personal vision. You wouldn’t burden yourself by dwelling on your failures and shortcomings; instead you would highlight and honor your strengths and successes, and your self-assurance would allow you to build on them.

Moreover, your successes wouldn’t be just about outside recognition, they would be about inner satisfaction, the kind that bring you the joy of accomplishing things that really mean something and matter to you. Your life and achievements would be pulled from up ahead by your purpose and dreams, instead of being pushed from behind by your fears and worries, or pushed from the side by popular opinion and social pressure.

With Unshakable Certainty you’d be confident that you could deal with whatever comes your way; you would handle people and new situations with ease. You would be able to stand free from guilt, doubt and insecurity, and you would feel good about what you are doing and where you are going. You’d be able to make the high quality choices required to live a high quality life.

Want to Be Happy When You Wake Up Most Every Day?

Unshakable Certainty would allow you to discover your special gifts and to take the sure and steady action necessary to develop them, action based on an accurate understanding of the forces at play within yourself and of the forces at play outside in the world around you. Self-assurance, deep conviction and integrity would allow you to live life on your own terms while making creative and meaningful decisions rooted in who you deeply are.

Your personal choices would then honor and express your own needs and interests—needs and interests you could guide with a compassionate concern for others and by a desire to make a difference in the world. You’d be able to create a life filled with freedom and with a sense of mission, a life that you’d be very happy to wake up to every day.

If you are shaky and uncertain in your life, one thing is for sure—it won’t be satisfying or a lot of fun. Here’s why. Your life will be made small by fear, self-doubt and hesitation. Without Unshakable Certainty, you’ll live in recurring doubt about who you are, about your work and relationships, and about what your life means and should be all about. Your life will feel a bit like something you just don’t have the manual or the tools to make work properly. You’ll spend your days caught in self talk, self-doubt and anxious hopes for relief and fears that relief won’t come.

Without Unshakable Certainty—It’s Almost Always Raining

You’ll experience conflict and confusion on a regular basis. In the morning you might feel OK about your marriage or your work and your approach to life only to have the sands shift by noon when you feel just as sure that your marriage is wrong or that you should have left your well-paying, but uninteresting job to do other more meaningful work. Then the next hour or day, you can feel completely different again; your values will tend to shift so much that you won’t be sure what to believe any longer. You can find yourself at the mercy of your last state of mind or of the last expert you listened to or book you read.

And as if all this wasn’t bad enough, without Unshakable Certainty, you’ll feel more stressed out, bored and bummed out, and as a result you’ll be more vulnerable to health problems that limit and that can even shorten your life. Shaky uncertainty generates a lot of chronic stress and unhappiness, an awful combination and one that causes illness and that claims many lives each year.

The Dream Killer—Self-Doubt

If you lack Unshakable Certainty, you’ll tend to avoid the risks of learning how to do what’s necessary to live a more exciting, more creative and more rewarding life—but it won’t be because you don’t want to. You’ll want a better life, but because you’ll doubt that your efforts to have one will be successful, you won’t act to create what you want. You may want badly to cross the street, but if you don’t believe and expect that your legs will get you there—you’re not going to take that first step. With shaky uncertainty clarity is not possible, and doubt and hesitation will leave you standing still while your life just drives by.

If you are shaky and uncertain, recurring moods of self-doubt, confusion and inner conflict, and the worry, indecision and resentment that come with these moods, will force you to play it safe. Like a big corporation that has its worried eyes glued on the short-term bottom line, we miss the big rewards that life can deliver if we live it as a long-term adventure—rather than as an occasion to avoid short-term risk.

Is Your Identity a Few Sizes Too Small?

Your biggest danger is that shaky uncertainty will keep you trapped in an identity and in a life that’s too small for who you truly are. Then you’ll become more like a passenger than a driver on the road of your life. You’ll do what you feel you should and must, not what you really want and love, and worse still, without deep self-assurance and conviction—you might never even discover what you truly want and love.

So how can you find Unshakable Certainty? What do you need to know to get free from stress, anxiety, and depression, stay healthy and live with the steady self-assurance and deep conviction?

MESICS® is an organization dedicated to helping as many people as possible find and live from Unshakable Certainty. M-E-S-I-C-S is an acronym for the Latin phrase: Mens Sana In Corpore Sano. It means “A Sound Mind in a Healthy Body”.

MESICS Training translates western scientific discoveries and eastern meditative and “Inner Fitness” wisdom into actionable knowledge. We bundle that actionable knowledge with powerful tools and expert support and training—so you can put that knowledge to work to protect your health and live your life with gusto as an adventure beyond stress and conditioned limits.

The first stop on your road to Unshakable Certainty is to connect to the Stress Free State and become familiar with it so you can find it when you need to. It will give you powerful relief from stress, worry, depression, insomnia and more. And it will give you the foundation for Unshakable Certainty.

We’ve developed a “Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack” with 6 proven and powerful techniques and exercises with crystal clear, step by step guided instructions on how to use them. (The Pack includes practices largely unknown in the west) They will connect you with the Stress Free State. The Pack will also

• Lead you into emotional clarity and peace, even in the middle of turmoil
• Leave you less stressed, less anxious and less depressed
• Give you more relaxed self-assurance
• Lower your toxic stress hormone levels
• Increase your anti-aging and well-being hormone levels
• Strengthen your heart and immune systems
• Let you sleep more like you used to
• Leave you more happy and more satisfied

The Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack will be available soon. To reserve your Pack now write me at drjim@MesicsTraining.com with the words “Reserve Pack” in the subject line.

Stress Relief: Ready for Your Game Plan?

Stress is not only uncomfortable-it puts your health and quality of life at risk. Research continues to pour in showing how stress ruins hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

But cutting edge research also shows that there’s simple, yet powerful ways to protect yourself from stress. All you have to do is understand what stress really is, what to do about it and how. With other words, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you have an effective stress relief game plan.

And the news gets even better–the same game plan that will help you beat stress will also help you develop the “inner fitness” and personal power and control that will leave you a lot more effective and more satisfied with your life.

A Simple Fact

The simple fact is that we’re not wired to live this way, a fact largely unrecognized or misunderstood by most people and most health professionals. Our lives are too fast paced and complex for our hard-wiring. As a result we’re awash in stress hormones, toxic chemicals that do their damage under the radar. They not only drive heart disease, cancer and diabetes as well as other serious illnesses, but they also make life miserable with chronic anxiety and depression.

Other stress experts have said it well:

“Stress hormones continue to wash through the system in high levels, never leaving….and so the stress response that once gave ancient people the speed and endurance to escape life-threatening dangers runs constantly in many modern people and never shuts down.”

Drs. Chrousos and Gold Senior National Institute of Health Scientists

“Chronic stress kills. People wear down. Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death ….”

Drs. Lyle H. Miller and Alma Dell Smith Senior Stress Researchers

The #1 Health and Quality of Life Problem in the Developed World

According to the World Health Organization, stress is the number one health problem in the industrialized world. So much so that the American Academy of Family Physicians reports that the majority of patient visits are for stress-related problems.

Studies also show that high levels of stress are more predictive of heart disease than are high cholesterol, smoking and obesity.

OK-now for the good news: You can control stress-if you learn how. Your first task is to understand what stress is.

You Must Learn to Flush

Stress is more than feeling tense and burnt out. It involves the release of toxic hormones into your body, hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. The simple fact is this: If stress hormones seep into and stay in your bloodstream and tissues, in time-they’ll make you miserable, ill and even kill you.

If you learn how to lower your stress hormone levels and how to flush them out of your blood and tissues, then-you’ll protect your health and quality of life and increase your chances of living long and well.

Saber Toothed Mind Tigers

You are wired with a survival response, known as the Fight or Flight Response. If 25,000 years ago we were sitting in a field and a saber tooth tiger wanted to make lunch out of us-you’d fight like hell or run like hell. If you survived, your Fight or Flight Response would end and stress hormones would flush out of your blood and tissues.

The problem today is not only that your life is very complicated; but that there are saber tooth tigers roaming around in your mind. And they trigger the Fight or Flight Response-unnecessarily.

Studies show that your mind and body are not two separate things-they are an interdependent unit-the mindbody. What you think and feel shows up in your body. If your mind perceives a situation as dangerous-it triggers the body’s Fight or Flight Response-whether or not it is actually dangerous. If you worry a lot about financial or other problems, your body can mistake your worry as evidence that you have the problem you’re worried about. And so it mistakenly puts your body on an emergency footing.

You’re Stress Relief Game Plan

You need a stress control game plan, one that allows you to do two things: 1) prevent and short-circuit the unnecessary release of toxic hormones, and 2) flush out hormones that do seep into your blood and tissues.

The plan needs to include making changes in your life that cause you predictable stress. This can range from changes such as leaving for work earlier and coming home later to avoid bad traffic, to leaving a bad job or a bad relationship. You must take control of your life-feeling in control is critical to managing stress. Even strong and powerful animals quickly die if they feel they have no control over their situation.

You also need to make sure you aren’t carrying baggage that leaves you prone to perceiving life situations as stressful. We all have baggage that can drag us into to fear and worry. My usually laid back yellow lab Tashi, taught me a lesson about perception and stress.

When she sees a medium or large size cardboard box, she goes nuts and barks up a storm as if the box were a dangerous enemy ready to attack her. The fact is that it’s often not life events that cause us stress-it’s the way we see life events that’s the problem. You need to work on seeing things more clearly.

Don’t think that sitting cross-legged and doing meditation is going to deal with your baggage, it won’t. Nor will yoga or any mindbody lite practices that don’t empower you to wrestle with your mind tigers so you can create the inner conditions for genuine calm and self-confidence.

We’ll be introducing the MESICS Method^TM in the next few weeks, a method that combines the best tools of both deep psychotherapy and deep meditation. You will LOVE this resource. It has helped many people beat stress and grow into their deepest possibilities. Here are two comments on the MESICS Method:

“The MESICS Method has become a way of life for me. It is a true, unfailing path from conditioned hell to authentic being. Like the welcome sight of my porch light after a long journey, the MESICS Method consistently guides me home to myself.”
Rita Heron, R.N., M.S.

“The MESICS Method turns even difficult moments into an adventure by enhancing self-knowledge. I welcome this deepening of my awareness. I marvel at just how good Jim is at what he does. His level of work is a rare find.”
Joanna Stull, R.N., M.A. LMHC

Do These Things

Tapping into your mindbody’s ability to restore itself should be part of your stress control game plan. Your mindbody has a built in resource meant to flush out stress hormones, rejuvenate your energy and keep you healthy-you just need to learn how to activate it.

When stressed, we tend to breathe shallow from our chest. You should breathe deeply from your diaphragm instead. By breathing this way and by relaxing your mind, you can short-circuit the Fight or Flight Response and save yourself a lot of trouble.

If you live on the surface of life without any connection to your real needs and deepest feelings-you’ll be primed for a lot of toxic stress. It’s important that you do what you want and love to do, things that really make your life worth living.

One thing worth doing is gaining control over your thoughts and feelings. If you can do this, a lot will fall into place. You not only will beat stress, but you’ll be able to dive much deeper into your life and enjoy the things that truly make life worth living. Training for this control is actually developing what we call “mind-side” and “inner” fitness.

The Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack

We’re working hard to provide you with high quality and well-tested resources to do all this. Soon we’ll make available our Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack, a Pack containing 6 of the most powerful stress relief techniques you’ll find anywhere. They’re derived from both the western psychology and medicine traditions as well as the eastern meditative and healing traditions. They come with crystal clear step by step written and guided audio instructions.

If you want to try it-there’s no risk. Everything we offer is backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. It should be available on the site soon. If you don’t see it, send me an e-mail and I’ll arrange for you to get it. drjim@MesicsTraining.com

225,000 Innocent American’s Killed Last Year – You Won’t Believe How…

The United States has the most expensive health care system in the world. But not only is it among the least effective, it’s also a killer.

Would you believe that doctors and hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America? Only cancer and heart disease take more lives annually (and stress drives both).

How can this be? Aren’t doctors the ones to call and aren’t hospitals the places to go when we’re ill? Perhaps so-but as medical research indicates-we do so at considerable risk.

Dr. Barbara Starfield of the John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health published her research findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), findings that show clearly that America’s health care system can be dangerous to our health. Here’s how dangerous: 12,000 people die annually from unnecessary surgery; 27,000 people from hospital errors; 80,000 from hospital infections, and 106,000 people from drug side-effects. This sad state of affairs costs the American taxpayer $77 billion annually.

Drug Side Effects Are A Scandal

You’ve seen the TV ads right, for drugs for make believe diseases like “erectile dysfunction”. At the end of the ad there’s sweet music in the background while someone tells you if you have an erection for more than four hours go to your nearest hospital. More seriously, listen to the side effect warning for drugs that include liver failure, heart failure and stroke, among others. Well these “side effects” as they are euphemistically called-actually happen. And they do kill people in significant numbers.

The drug side-effect deaths are especially scandalous because drug companies throw a ton of money around to gain influence over doctors, universities and even the FDA. They do this to make even more money selling Americans drugs, dangerous drugs they often don’t really need.

According to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the drug review process does not ensure that harmful medications won’t be approved for public consumption. The approval review for new drugs cannot be trusted when the reviewers are being paid by the companies making the drugs. These same companies spend billions of dollars marketing and promoting their drugs to physicians, physicians who too often fall prey to the marketing hype or to the financial rewards they get from a company for prescribing its drugs.

Greed and Manipulative Marketing

The drug company Pfizer, for example, was forced to pay $425 million plus in 2004 to settle unfair marketing charges. Pfizer marketed the drug Neurontin, by, among other things, flying medical doctors to high end resorts and paying other physicians to ghostwrite articles hyping the drug.

Even more worrisome is that Dr. Starfield cautions us that her findings are very conservative because they involve numbers from “in hospital” patients only. Moreover, her figures are “death only” statistics; they don’t include a tally of people who’ve been harmed or disabled, in or out of the hospital, while under medical care.

Protect Yourself-Take Action

The good news is that you can take steps to protect yourself from becoming a health care statistic. First you need to stop thinking of your physician as Yoda-as some all knowing being whose advice you can passively follow. Many physicians are outraged at what’s going on in medical care today, and they are in the front lines to change things. Such physicians welcome patients willing to actively inform themselves. The internet offers good sources to gather information about our medical concerns. A useful one is the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section at http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/.

Many hospital deaths typically result from errors of commission, things that should not have been done but were done; or errors of omission, things that should have been done but weren’t done. Hospital workers are typically overworked and so prone to make errors.

Make Sure You Have an Advocate When You Move Into the “Sick Care System”

It’s a good idea to have a friend or family member serve as your advocate while you’re in a hospital, an advocate who stays with you and protects you against errors by asking firm questions and settling for nothing less than good answers. You and your advocate should also work to make sure you get in and out of a hospital as quickly as possible. The best way to avoid hospital based infections, infections that are especially strong and dangerous, is to get out of a hospital quickly.

The fact is that we don’t have a health care system-we have a sick care system. We get tested and treated only after we’re ill. The system does little to help us prevent illnesses before they happen. And very often we get too much very expensive testing and potentially dangerous treatment, including drug treatment.

You should know why you’re being tested and for what, and you should understand the reasons and risks for any treatment prescribed to you.

Here’s Your Best Protection

Your best protection against doctor and hospital errors is to stay healthy. Don’t imagine your doctor will be able to help you at all times, and don’t follow her like a sheep. Be active in safeguarding your health. You probably won’t live long and well unless you do.

Most importantly, you need to learn how to get free from stress.

As the World Health Organization declared, stress is the #1 health problem in the entire developed world. Stress hormones put you at great risk. They drive heart disease, including sudden death and stroke, as well as cancer, diabetes and other serious illnesses. Stress hormones also trigger anxiety and depression. Because your doctor gets most of her information from drug company reps, there’s a good chance you’ll get drugged for stress related problems including anxiety and depression. Most physicians were not trained in the mindbody science needed to understand and relieve stress. Job stress can be especially dangerous.

Research also shows that you’ll stay much healthier if you walk for 20-30 minutes at least 4 times a week. It’s also important to avoid eating too many refined carbohydrate foods loaded with chemicals to enhance taste and extend shelf life. Ditto high saturated fat meats filled with growth hormones, antibiotics and fillers.

One of the most important predictors of health and well-being, and so of minimizing doctor and hospital based risks to our health, is to be happy doing what we truly want and love to do. Make the effort to avoid settling for less.

Vitamin D: What You Need to Know

Many studies show that Vitamin D3 has remarkable abilities to prevent illnesses and promote your health and well-being. As, preeminent medical scientist Dr. Paul Rosch put it in his January 2009 Health and Stress Newsletter:

“There are well over two dozen diseases that have been linked with a lack of Vitamin D or have been shown to improve with appropriate Vitamin D supplementation.”

You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Vitamin D3

Most of us have inadequate vitamin D levels. This is a concern because the best way to deal with health problems is to prevent them. Unfortunately, we have a for profit sick care system, not a health care system. The money is in treating illnesses after they develop, not in preventing them before hand. Of our 2.2 trillion dollar health budget, little more than 2% goes toward prevention. More about this in another article, for now let’s consider your Vitamin D3 needs.

If you’re in the sun regularly, chances are good that your vitamin D3 levels are OK. Just ten minutes in the sun without heavy sunscreen gives you about 10,000 IU’s of vitamin D3. But if you’re not in the sun regularly, you may need to take a Vitamin D supplement to get your blood levels up. Authoritative estimates for adequate supplementation are 5000 IU’s a day for people who have no significant sun exposure.

How to Determine If You Need Vitamin D

The best way to determine your needs for Vitamin D is to get a reliable blood test. Then assess your needs accordingly. And then retest to evaluate whether your plan for supplementation is working or if it needs to be modified. There are different schools of thought on how to supplement with vitamin D3. Let your blood levels inform your decisions-not just other’s opinions.

Of the many tests available, the most accurate is to assess 25 hydroxyvitamin D or 25 (OH) D blood levels. Many medical scientists and other nutritional experts consider the so-called “normal” 20-50 ng/ml level to be too low. They consider 50-65 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) level to be optimal with levels under 32 being worrisome and levels below 20 indicating an extreme deficiency.

A Look at the Power of Vitamin D3

Studies show that Vitamin D impacts the following areas.

Cancer-the further away from the equator, the greater the cancer rates. Leading Vitamin D expert Dr. William Grant estimates that if D3 levels were higher, 2 million cancer deaths per year could be prevented.

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)-low levels of vitamin D double risk of heart attack and premature death.

Autoimmune Diseases-Rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 Diabetes and multiple Sclerosis are all more prevalent in people with deficient vitamin D levels.

High Blood Pressure and Stroke-decreased Vitamin D stimulates parathyroid hormone which raises blood pressure and vitamin D inhibits mechanisms that raise blood pressure.

Depression-reduced sunlight exposure and depression go hand in hand and studies show that increased Vitamin D blood levels reduce the incidence of depression in older adults.

Diabetes-A Finnish study showed that children who took vitamin D supplements in childhood had 10 times less incidence of diabetes as adults.

Susceptibility to Infection-Vitamin D produces 200 plus antimicrobial peptides that fight infections.

Here’s What to Look for in a Vitamin D Supplement

Buy high quality vitamin D3 supplements from a reputable manufacturer. Avoid commercial pharmacy brands unless you’re certain of what you are getting. Beware of supplements loaded with D2 (ergocalciferol) rather than D3 (cholecalciferol), the active form. Look for the words “D3 cholecalciferol” on the label.

Stress Relief: The “Pack” is Coming

Most of us are hungry to connect to who we deeply are, a connection often made difficult by our family and cultural conditioning. Conditioning sets limits that can keep us trapped in an identity that often swims in a sea of stress hormones-because it’s too small for who we truly are. And living in confinement is very stressful indeed.

Stress Ruins Lives

Valuing and preserving our health and well-being are important parts of a life lived with love, courage, wisdom and passion. As the Buddha said: “Health is the greatest gift”, a gift that we should not take for granted. We need to take care of our health because it’s a priceless asset.

We harvest the greatest treasures of a well-lived, loved, and understood life in the last third of our journey here. To be around for that harvest, we need to know how to safeguard our health and well-being and if we’re serious about doing that-then understanding and controlling stress needs to be at the top of our “things to do” list. Stress ruins lives.

“Chronic stress kills. People wear down. Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death….

Drs. Lyle H. Miller, and Alma Dell Smith, Senior Stress Researchers

Stress related illnesses cause more deaths yearly than deaths resulting from all other causes combined. Our health care system is really a disease care system, so it doesn’t work to prevent stress related illnesses before they occur-it treats them only after they arise.

This is What Stress is Really About

Stress is a biochemical event that involves powerful hormones: cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine. When our “inner pharmacy” releases these stress hormones into our body too often or for too long, they become toxic poisons that can make us anxious, depressed and ill. They can even kill us.

The World Health Organization now recognizes stress as the number one health problem in industrialized nations. And as Dr. Paul Rosch, world renowned medical scientist and president of the American Institute of Stress, noted ”

“Stress is taking a terrible toll on the nation’s health and economy. It is a heavy contributor to heart disease, cancer, respiratory distress, lupus and many other life threatening illnesses.”

Studies show that two-thirds of the visits to primary care medical physicians in this country are driven by stress. More than 100 million people are taking weekly medication to manage stress, medication which is for most people unnecessary and which can cause serious side effects and addiction.

Consider this: An article published in the Journal of the American Medical, Association, written by public health expert Dr. Barbara Starfield, identified doctors and hospitals as the third leading cause of death in America.

The Anatomy of Stress

What causes stress? Many things, including, real or perceived, job, family and financial pressures. Our mind and body are an interdependent unit: the mindbody. If we worry too much about financial catastrophe, for example, the primitive part of our brain can misinterpret our worry as actual financial failure and then stress hormones will be released as part of an “emergency alert” reaction.

There are two switches on our body’s involuntary nervous system: one is for ordinary housekeeping chores; the other is for emergency situations.

The ordinary housekeeping switch controls the normal processes of our body such as breathing, digestion and metabolism. The emergency switch is designed to enable us to survive in the face life threatening emergencies by triggering our body’s “stress response,” also known as the “Fight or Flight Response.”

When the emergency switch triggers, powerful hormones flow into our body through a process set in motion by our reactive brain. Our reactive brain cues the master gland of our endocrine system that we are in danger and then another phase of the Fight or Flight Response is set into motion.

What’s Your View?

An often overlooked, but critical, factor in understanding and controlling stress related illness is to address our perceptual tendencies to view life situations as stressful. The way we see things determines our “view.” View defines reality. If we tend to view life events as stressful, they will be.

Stress provoking perceptual tendencies can result from unhealed past wounds or if we are not honoring what we truly want and love in life.

So your own personal growth, as well as your related efforts to safeguard your health, oblige you to become a serious student of your conditioned “views”, of your conditioned patterns of perception. It can be hard to see ourselves clearly and to accept what we see. That’s why this level of inner work needs is best done from a deeply relaxed and self-assured state of mind. From what we call “The Stress Free State”.

The Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack

After more than 30 years of work in the best of the western and eastern science and well-being traditions, I created a powerful resource to break free from toxic stress-”The Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack”.

The Pack includes 6 of the most powerful stress relief techniques you’ll find anywhere. They’re derived from the best of western mindbody and medical science and the eastern meditation and healing traditions. The Pack includes a crystal clear manual and 18 audios that set up and guide you step by step through each practice so you get its powerful benefits.

“The Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack” also will create the positive conditions within your mind and body that bring inner balance, well-being and longevity. The Pack trains you to live from the Stress Free State,^TM a state of relaxed calm, awareness and self-assurance, a state that flushes stress hormones out of your blood and leaves you feeling renewed and in balance.

Working Without “Soul”

Americans suffer from a great deal of work related stress. We work three months longer than the Germans every year and one month longer than the Japanese. And we sleep 90 minutes less a night than did our grandparents.

But it’s not just working too long that causes Americans work stress. For many of Americans, their work lack “soul”. It lacks soul in the sense that it lacks a loving connection to life itself and to other people. We do what we feel that we “should do or must do” instead of what we “want and love to do”. This is a set up for stress and the health problems associated with what I call the-not-such-a-good-life.

These are tough times and in the short term we have to pay the bills. But we shouldn’t forget a long term vision for our work.

As Confucius told us:

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

And as the Buddha added:

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart, give yourself to it.”

The fact is that our soul, our inner life, aches at “just for money” work that lacks depth and meaning. Such work has no connection to all-important “inner spark” that can only be found within our deepest nature. We need to connect to our deepest nature, find our inner spark and set our life ablaze with what we want and love.

When you discover, stabilize and live from the “Stress Free State”, you’ll be able to find your inner spark and set your life on fire.

Get the “Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack” now and start moving into the Stress Free State.

If the Pack is not available on the site yet, then send me an e-mail at drjim@MesicsTraining.com and I’ll make sure you’ll get access to it.

An Investment That Really Pays Off—Guaranteed

You may be searching high and low for something you can invest in that could really pay off big time. Well this is one of the trickiest investment environments we’ve ever been in. But here’s a sure thing with 100% upside and no downside.

Invest in actionable knowledge about stress.

Stress is the developed world’s #1 health and quality of life problem, according to the World Health Organization. And the more I learn and the more I open my eyes-the more I think that they’ve underestimated the problem.

I liken today’s stress epidemic to the black plague. This epidemic is probably the only thing that the media understates. Studies show that stress hormones drive heart disease, cancer, diabetes, anxiety, depression and much more. We KNOW this to be true, but we continue to act as if it isn’t.

Consider what other stress experts have said:

“Chronic stress kills. People wear down. Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death….

Drs. Lyle H. Miller, and Alma Dell Smith, Senior Stress Researchers

… overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones — can disrupt almost all your body’s processes, increasing your risk of obesity, insomnia, digestive problems, heart disease, depression, memory impairment, physical illnesses and other complications.

Mayo Clinic Staff

Stress can cause some of our most common killers – cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. Stress-related diseases include depression, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, reproductive dysfunction, and the worsening of diabetes.

The Endocrine Society

“Women with high daytime stress hormone levels had reduced immunity associated with higher mortality, especially breast cancer mortality.”

David Spiegel, MD,
Stanford University Study Director

The facts about stress beg for disclosure, they are not known to the general public. The truth is that we’re not wired properly for this way of life. The speed and complexity of the way we live are doing a job on us. Studies show that up to 9 out of 10 visits to doctors are for stress related problems.

Stress isn’t just about sitting in traffic too long, financial worries and family problems. Part of our stress problem is that we don’t do enough of what we truly want and love. And our work too often lacks a loving connection to life and to other people.

It also doesn’t help today that many doctors have been transformed into drug delivery systems. That’s just one reason why doctors and hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America.

The one thing that really stresses me out is knowing that there’s a real solution to the problems of stress. A solution that will protect you and not only keep you out of harm’s way, but also save your family a lot of heartache and give you a great chance to enjoy a long, well-lived and well-loved life.

But to get that solution, you have to invest some of your time and energy in acquiring knowledge about stress. So let’s get on with it. Pony up some time and energy and let’s start growing you some real wealth.

Let me make it easy for you to get started. I’ll give you my new book Free. “The Little Black Book of Stress Relief Secrets” is right now available on the home page-for a limited time-at no charge.

Read the book and you’ll be ready for some next steps, steps that will make a huge difference in your life. “The Little Black Book of Stress Relief Secrets” will give you the real skinny on stress and some powerful tools to begin to control it.

Knowledge is power, power to control your destiny. Now that’s real wealth.

Pick up the book now. I wrote it for you. Let me know what it does for you and please let me know of any suggestions for future editions. Your feedback helps me create the best possible matierials for others.

Stress and Infertility

Are you and your partner having trouble getting pregnant? Are you especially discouraged and frustrated because tests show that your eggs and sperm are healthy and viable and that you should be able to conceive a child-but you can’t?

That’s a painful dilemma to be in-and you’re not alone, many couples share your problem. These couples should be able to conceive a child, but again and again, they fail to do so, even with the help of a good infertility clinic.

The Bad News

What most couples will never learn from their infertility clinic is that the real culprit is STRESS. Studies show that healthy people with fertility problems have high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood. When you’re stressed cortisol releases into your blood and cortisol interferes with conception.

And it doesn’t help that the frustration of your not being able to get pregnant creates more and more stress for you and your partner. You’ll need to solve the stress/infertility problem on your own, because most infertility clinics don’t understand or account for it adequately, if at all.

Here’s How Stress Hormones Cause Infertility

Stress hormones like cortisol do three things that prevent conception. They interfere with ovulation, egg implantation and sperm production. Consider the following:

1. Ovulation- stress hormones mess up the timing of a woman’s ovulation. For example, a woman will have difficulty getting pregnant, if she ovulates too close to her period.

2. Egg implantation-a woman may successfully create a fertilized egg, but stress hormones can prevent that egg from implanting properly

3. Sperm production-stress hormones interfere with a man’s testosterone production, which causes his sperm count to plummet to levels that prevent conception

Unfortunately, infertility doctors and staff often underestimate how stressful infertility can be. Consider what Dr. Alice Domar, professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School has had to say. When asked “How stressful is infertility?”-Dr. Domar replied:

“In a word: very. Research has shown that women with infertility have the same levels of anxiety and depression as do women with cancer, heart disease, and HIV+ status. Infertility can be very lonely.”

Many infertility clinics don’t know enough mindbody science to really understand the role of stress in infertility or to train couples how to reduce their stress and stress hormone levels. And so the stress levels go up with each failed attempt along with the chances for repeated failure. A vicious cycle gets set up whereby

• A couple can’t get pregnant because of stress,
• which causes more stress
• which causes more failed attempts
• which causes more stress
• and so on and on and on.

Well-intentioned infertility staffs too often tell their patients: “Just relax”. But according to infertility expert Dr. Sandra Berga, chair of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory University in Atlanta -such advice not only doesn’t work, it can be maddening.

You can’t just relax if you don’t know how to. There’s an art and science to reducing stress and stress hormone blood levels. It’s fairly easy to learn and do, if you have the right knowledge, tools and training support.

The Good News

The good news is that you may indeed succeed in having a baby, after you learn how to reduce your stress levels. If you and your partner’s problems conceiving are not strictly biological, then lowering your stress levels should be at the top of your things to do list, because you will improve your chances of getting pregnant considerably.

Your mind and body are not separate. They’re an interdependent unit – the mindbody. And so, what you think and feel affects every cell in your body. The foundation of your stress-related infertility problems is that your mind triggers the release of stress hormones.

Don’t feel that this means you are lacking in some way. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is entirely an unconscious event. You don’t do it. It happens to you.

Yours and your partner’s fears and worries over conceiving a child trigger stressful states of mind, including fear, worry and depression. A part of your brain then makes a mistake that sets in motion your body’s “Fight or Flight Response”. Stress hormones then pour into your blood, to prepare you to fight or flee from life threatening danger.

This “communication error” is responsible for your stress-related infertility problems.

Here’s What You Need to Do

You need to learn how to correct this communication error, so you’re not floating in stress hormones while you try to conceive a child.

Good news. The same mindbody situation responsible for your infertility problem offers you the solution. With the right knowledge and tools, you can make sure that stress hormones don’t ruin your chances for having a baby.

You need to learn how to do the following two things:

1. Stop/reduce the unnecessary release of stress hormones into your body
2. Flush stress hormones out of your system as quickly and thoroughly as possible
   • So they don’t seep into and linger in your blood, tissues and cell

Once you learn how to do these two things, you’ll then improve

• Egg and sperm production, and your chances for
• Implanting a fertilized egg

Ask your doctor if she or he knows a good stress expert you and your partner could consult with. Ask friends and family as well. You are welcome to download “The Little Black Book of Stress Relief Secrets”, which is Free for a limited time.

One thing is very important for you and your partner to do immediately. Stop giving yourselves a hard time. If you can relate to your situation with friendship and generosity toward each other-then that in itself will cut your stress and improve your chances for conception.

Stress and the Insomnia Nightmare

Did you know that insomnia puts you at risk for serious health problems as well as for chronic anxiety and depression? Not getting a full night’s sleep now and then is common. But if you have chronic trouble getting to and staying asleep you need to do something about it.

But what exactly should you do? Sleep medications provide temporary relief, but not only are they habit forming, they also don’t really give you the kind of sleep you need.

Recent studies have given us a clear idea about what causes insomnia and so real solutions are possible. We’ll consider these studies just up ahead, but before we do, let’s take a closer look at the sleep problems that plague and put millions of people in jeopardy.

No Wonder We’re Tired

The fact is we sleep on average 90 minutes a night less than did our great grandparents. That’s 540 hours less sleep a year than they enjoyed. And we sleep a full two hours less than most people did 150 years ago.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re sleep deprived, you get sick more often? There’s a connection-insomnia leaves you more susceptible to infections because it weakens your immune system. Studies show that when you don’t get enough sleep, the number of the natural killer cells in your peripheral blood system goes down. And the fewer natural killer cells available in your blood, the more susceptible you are to infection.

The evidence is mounting: Getting less sleep than you were “designed for” disrupts the finely balanced system that not only keeps you healthy and energized, but that also sustains your life. For example, not getting enough sleep upsets your hormonal equilibrium and creates conditions similar to early diabetes and rapid aging.

Insomnia and Stress

The rise in insomnia problems has accompanied the rise in stress levels worldwide. The World Health Organization declared stress the #1 health and quality of life in the developed world. Consider this: In these same developed countries, the average night’s sleep has gone from 9 hours to 7.5 hours in the last hundred years. And today many people get far less than 7.5 hours.

If you want sleep better and longer, you need to reduce your stress.

Keep in mind that stress is not just about feeling wired and tired. It’s about the release of stress chemicals into your system, chemicals also known as hormones, such as cortisol and epinephrine.

Here’s the essence of the stress-insomnia story. You’re hard-wired for what’s known as “The Fight or Flight Response”, a survival mechanism that energizes you to fight or flee in the face of life threatening danger. The problem is your hard-wiring is not designed for the complexity and speed of life today.

We’re all too often on edge about work, money and relationships. We’re overscheduled, overworked and bombarded by bad news media reports 24/7. As a result your Fight or Flight Response triggers too often and stress hormones leak into your blood and tissues and linger there. And so your adrenal glands become overactive and depleted. Then you can’t sleep because parts of your mind and body are prepared to run or fight for survival, not lie down and go nighty night.

As Drs. Chrousos and Gold, two Senior National Institute of Health Scientists put it:

“In our modern society, stress…hormones continue to wash through the system in high levels, never leaving. Stress leads to serious health problems”.

And one of these problems is surely insomnia. Let’s look more closely.

Overactive and Tired Adrenals are the Culprit

Studies show that people with chronic insomnia have increased levels of stress hormones in their blood. People who regularly have trouble getting to and staying asleep suffer from persistent around the clock activation of their body’s Fight or Flight Response system with chronically overactive and worn out adrenal glands.

This adrenal gland hyperarousal is a risk factor for both medical and psychological illness and problems. It requires reversal, not medication.

Consider this study reported in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. A group of people with insomnia were compared to a group with no insomnia. Blood was collected ever 30 minutes from members of both groups over a period of 24 hours. The findings: The levels of stress hormones cortisol and ACTH were significantly higher in the insomnia group.

Moreover, the findings were that people with the most severe sleep disturbances secreted the highest amount of stress hormones-especially at night.

In the words of the principal scientist, Dr. Vgontzas.

“This means that insomniacs are experiencing hormonal changes in their bodies, which prevents them from sleeping.”

The study also concluded that increased production of stress hormones in the 24 hour wake/sleep cycle also increases risk for depression, high blood pressure, obesity and osteoporosis.

You Must Deal With the Source of the Problem, Not the Symptom

Too often medical physicians prescribe medication for insomnia. That misses the point. The source of the problem needs to be addressed. And the source is

• stress,
• overactive adrenal glands and
• stress hormones.

The good news is there is a solution. You can sleep well again-if you learn how to do three things:

1. Prevent the unnecessary triggering of your “Fight or Flight Response

2. Support and restore your adrenal glands

3. Flush stress hormones out of your blood and tissues.

You can do this with the right knowledge, tools and training.

When stress hormones get released too often and when they are not cleared out-they seep into your blood and tissues. Once they seep in, it’s hard to flush them out, unless you know how.

Try This Now

Let me share a brief preliminary technique with you here. It’s common as a beginning to many of our MESICS©[1] Training Routines. It’s MESICS Free Release Breathing^TM. This breathing will help shut down your Fight or Flight Response and trigger a stress reducing mechanism in your body. Here’s how you do it.

Take three Free Release Breaths as follows:

• On your “in breath”-breathe in through your nose into your diaphragm

• On your “out breath”-breathe from your diaphragm out through your mouth. Just completely let go

• Don’t walk your breath out-just let it go completely “hhhaaaa”

• On the out breath sigh if you are not in public- “hhhaaa”

• If you are in public-do it quietly and discreetly

• Then tune yourself briefly to the calm, clear state at the end of your out breath. Rest there for about 7 seconds. Then repeat twice more.

• Try to maintain your connection to the calm state at the end of your out breath for as long as possible

This will give you a taste of what we call the “Stress Free State”

“Free Release Breathing” is so powerful because it helps trigger the part of your nervous system that stops the release of stress hormones.

Again, at the end of your out breath, you will feel at ease, calm and clear. Tune yourself to this experience. Once you are familiar with this practice, you can use it to reconnect to this calm, relaxed state of mind. Then, when you’re in a stressful situation, you will be able to deal with it quickly.

The Ultimate Solution to the Insomnia Problem

The ultimate solution to insomnia and to all other stress driven problems is to be able to access the Stress Free State at will. The goal is to stop your overactive adrenals from releasing stress hormones.

And so the following recommendations are merely provisional. They don’t address the source of the problem. But they can be helpful nevertheless.

• Instead of sleep medication, try a natural relaxant such as Gaba. You can find it in a health food store or on the internet.

• Try a Gaba supplement along with a calcium/magnesium supplement 30 minutes before bedtime

• Develop a good exercise program-this will reduce your stress, quiet your adrenals and help you sleep

• Learn techniques to stop worrying-once worry gets you in its grip-it will trigger your Fight or Flight Response-in error. (use the Free Release Breathing and let go of worrisome thoughts). Excessive worry and fretting can keep you drenched in stress hormones

• Don’t drink caffeine after 1 pm

• Don’t eat a lot before you go to bed

• Learn some effective relaxation exercises and techniques, including breathing, meditation and/or yoga

Most importantly–develop a plan to learn how to 1) support and restore your adrenal glands, 2) short-circuit the unnecessary triggering of your Fight or Flight Response and 3) flush stress hormones out of your blood and tissues.

It may sound real complicated, but it isn’t. And it’s well worth the effort. You will sleep well again and live a whole lot better and longer.

---

[1] M-E-S-I-C-S is an acronym for the Latin phrase: Mens Sana In Corpore Sano. It means “A Sound Mind in a Healthy Body”. MESICS® translates scientific discoveries into actionable knowledge and combines it with powerful tools and expert support and training-so you can put that knowledge to work for your health and well-being.

Next Page »