One out of every 8 adult Americans belongs to a health club. The majority of club members assume that their health and fitness club knows a good deal about health and fitness. But the truth is that most health clubs don’t.

Most health club programs are based on marketing science—not fitness or health science. There’s a conspicuous lack of evidence that their fitness and health routines actually lead to the claims made for them. Part of the problem is that fitness, health and fitness certifications are very big business.

There’s more than 17,000 health Clubs in America today and their median income is over $5 million dollars annually. Fitness certification is not regulated and the evidence is strong that certification is mostly geared toward making money for those doing the certification—not toward training trainers in valid and reliable fitness and health science.

OK what are some of the facts about fitness and health that we can trust? There’s no doubt that a sedentary way of life can leave us at risk for one or another chronic illness and a shortened life. And exercise helps reduce stress. It’s safe to say that a fit and active way of life can protect us against illness and so can keep us alive longer. The question is—just what exactly is fitness? And beyond that—just what do we do, for how long and at what intensity— to get and stay fit.

Research done by Dr. Steve Blair from the highly regarded Cooper Institute found that most health benefits result not from strenuous workouts—but from mild exercise. For example, there are few health gains to be made by doing much more than walking briskly for 30 minutes five or more days a week. We can break things up and do two periods of fifteen minutes or three of ten. And we can substitute walking with biking or swimming etc. The key is frequency and regularity—we have to do it often to reap the health benefits from mild exercise.

The positive health claims associated with weight training, like those associated with intense physical workouts, can be overstated and oversold. Lifting weights does help maintain muscle mass as we age, but research has shown that the claims that weight training improves our metabolism or prevents osteoporosis are not based on solid evidence.

Most important to long term fitness is musculoskeletal alignment. Our joints, muscles and bones need to be properly aligned, if we are to avoid getting into trouble as we age. Lifting weights and doing cardio exercise in the wrong postural alignment can cause serious problems, problems that often don’t show up for years. If we want to maintain our independence in later life, if we want to move around without pain or restriction, if we want to walk without a cane or without our grandchildren pulling us around in a cart—we need to train for musculoskeletal alignment and flexibility and then practice it regularly—not just when we’re in the gym.

We tend to think that fitness means “body-side” fitness only. But thanks to medical and mindbody science we now know better. The mind and body are an interdependent unit and as the ancient Greek Olympians knew well—true fitness is a “sound mind in a healthy body”. Our rapidly growing scientific knowledge of how important the mind is to the health of the body has not entered into the public arena as yet. What are touted as mindbody programs in the majority of health and fitness clubs are only mindbody lite—if that.

Again—you can stick the name “mindbody” on this or that fitness program or health regimen, but naming it so doesn’t make it so. Most so-called mindbody fitness routines are not very mindbody at all. They have a thin veneer of mindbody paint on the surface of what are still essentially body fitness routines, routines based on views that no longer adequately define what fitness is.

The body-only vision of health and fitness is incomplete. It’s rapidly becoming an obsolete point of view, one displaced by new knowledge. We need to deeply revision our view of fitness according to this knowledge, so we wake up to a view of fitness that truly empowers us to live long and well. Mindbody lite has to give way to the real thing, because, from a true mindbody science standpoint, very little of mindbody lite is truly representative of the profound mindbody science discoveries.

When we look at the development of the past and present fitness equation in the history of Western Civilization an amazing fact stares us in the face: — the mind is missing. That is, except when we visit the Ancient Greeks.

The Greeks were concerned about the strength endurance and flexibility of the body. But they were also concerned about the strength, endurance and flexibility of the mind. And their knowledge about fitness was that the connection between mind and body could be harmoniously cultivated and developed into a state of Kalokagathia, an attainment that was more than the sum of its parts.

Kalokagathia was associated with the idea of arête—an ultimate view of human fitness—of being whole, fully functioning and optimally fit. Being fit meant being the very best you could be—reaching your highest potential.

Much time, expense and effort have gone into directly researching physical fitness and in developing the speed, strength, endurance, and flexibility instruction and technologies to develop physical fitness based on that research.

Unfortunately, very little time, expense and effort have gone into researching and developing a direct knowledge base for the mind side of fitness.

Yet new knowledge demonstrates the inherent and undeniable connection between the body and mind as well as the tremendous power the mind has to influence the body. This new knowledge points the way to not only how to train for mind-side or inner fitness but also how important fitness of the mind is for fitness of the body.

The “mind-side” of fitness is a kind of critically important aspect of  ”Inner  Fitness”. If we’re riddled with insecurity, and worry, if we’re plagued by self-doubt, confusion and uncertainty, then we’re more prone to high levels of stress, unhappiness and illness. And research has shown that high levels of stress are more dangerous to our health than not being physically fit.

To be truly fit we need to develop strength, stamina and flexibility in mind as well as body. We need to address more than our waist and muscle size—we need to focus on what really matters in life. Questions such as am I living deeply? Is my life an adventure that moves me or like a movie someone else seems to have written? Have I discovered what I truly want and love or am I just doing what I feel I should or must?

These concerns will be included in the next generation of fitness and health programs now becoming visible on the horizon, programs based on reliable knowledge about what it means to be truly fit.

If you want to learn the art and science of Mind-Side Fitness and “Inner Fitness”, so you can:

• enter the Stress Free State at will, a state of calm, clear, and self-assured awareness
• lower your stress hormone levels and flush stress hormones from your blood and tissues
• break free from a conditioned surface identity that’s too small for who you truly are
• connect to your deeper identity and do more of what you truly want and love
• avoid premature aging and cognitive decline
• have more focus and more energy
• enjoy higher quality relationships and work that means something to you

then contact me now at DrManganiello@comcast.net. You will experience an array of positive changes very quickly.

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? I’ve written a book that shows you exactly how different.

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 7 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

• Connect you with the foundation of Unshakable Certainty
• 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

Our passion is putting knowledge and tools in people’s hands that will make their lives better, longer, deeper and more enjoyable.

Unshakable Certainty changes everything for the better.

If you want the Pack at no risk to you, and if you want to learn the art and science of developing Unshakable Certainty, then contact me now at DrManganiello@comcast.net.

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

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.

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.

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 lower your stress hormone levels and flush stress hormones out of your system.

Then and only then will the part of your brain that keeps you awake and alert be properly deactivated–so your sleep machinery can work like it’s supposed to. That’s the bottom line.

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.

If you want to learn how to lower your stress hormone levels and flush stress hormones out of your blood and tissues so you can sleep like a baby again–then check this out now.

If you are like most people, then life will indeed send you your fair share of difficulties and situations that you can’t understand or change on your own. Trying to figure out and resolve some of your problems alone can be like trying to pick up a board you’re standing on.

That’s when psychotherapy can be incredibly valuable. Therapy can be a powerful way to get your life on track, reduce stress, solve problems and improve your health and well-being. But is it for you? Should you seek help from a psychotherapist?

MAKING THE DECISION CAN BE COMPLICATED

Making the decision to see a therapist can be difficult for a number of reasons. Let’s consider some of them together.

First, many people feel a loss of self-worth over the prospect of seeing a therapist. That’s not uncommon, especially in our culture. More than a few of us have bought into false and heroic notions about what it means to be a healthy or strong person, notions that view psychological stress and problems as signs of weakness. These ideas are nonsense—but they can be powerful nonsense.

Never assume that your psychological stress, problems or yearnings are evidence that you are lacking in any way. In truth, your difficulties can be a healthy signal that something important within you is calling for your attention. It takes intelligence, courage and character to respond to those calls.

The fact is that if we deny and avoid our emotional pain, we’ll pay a stiff price. Because if we deny our emotions, they can make us ill. And if we try to avoid our problems, they begin to set limits on what can actually happen in our life. Would you want to waste part of your life stuck in a self-image that’s too small for who you truly are?

Studies show that people who experience a successful psychotherapy not only feel better emotionally—they also have less stress and fewer life and health problems.

The same is true, by the way, for people who develop the capacity, through training, to work on their own psychology. This falls into the category of what we call “Mind-side Fitness”. More about that another time. For now, let’s get back to therapy.

If you do decide to go into therapy, you have to choose a therapist, a choice that can be a difficult task. Some suggestions: Do your best to play an active role in finding a good therapist. Become as well informed as possible. Don’t just passively accept someone else’s referral.

WHAT TO DO IN YOUR FIRST MEETINGS WITH A THERAPIST

During the initial therapy meetings, plan to learn a number of important things about your therapist. Because of your past passive roles with professionals, you might feel awkward making inquiries about a therapist’s education, training and experience. You should raise questions anyway.

If you ask questions respectfully, then a therapist should be willing and able to answer them easily. If she or he takes offense, then you know right away that you need to move on. And a therapist should be able to offer you a clear and brief answer to the question: what is psychotherapy?

There is no one correct answer. But really good therapists can usually tell you in plain English what therapy means to them. These therapists have digested their education and training into a personal vision of therapy that is well thought out, vital and alive.

It’s not a bad idea to ask if a therapist own therapy has been part of her training. Don’t ask for any details, just whether or not they’ve been in therapy. A therapists own experience in therapy is a critical part of her training. It’s hard to help someone get to a place you haven’t been to yourself.

QUESTIONS AND ISSUES YOU SHOULD CONSIDER

After you meet with a therapist, ask yourself these questions: What does it feel like to be with and talk to this person? Can I understand what they’re saying? Do I feel that what I have to say is understood in the way I meant it? Do I learn something of value during therapy sessions?

Many psychotherapy experiences begin with focused objectives in mind. For example, you may want to deal with stress or negotiate life changes such as a divorce, a marriage or a change in career. Therapy can also be an experience of uncovering and mastering habitual tendencies that leave you vulnerable to stress and recurring problems at work and in your relationships.

For some people, psychotherapy can go on for long periods as the work of therapy moves beyond the resolution of problems. Like lobsters shedding their shells that become too small to contain their growth, deep therapy involves you in the work of disengaging from your surface conditioning so that you can grow into more of who you deeply are.

You need to give a therapist the authority to work on your behalf. At times, they may challenge you to face things that are disagreeable. That’s part of what you pay them for. But they should be caring and respectful when they challenge you.

And you should never treat a therapist as an authority figure that you can’t question or challenge. And under no circumstances should you feel pressured to accept interpretations, directives or instructions that you don’t understand.

The word psychotherapy originally meant “healing of the soul or psyche”. At its best, therapy is a process of tending to and caring for our inner life. The goal is to create a “sound mind in a healthy body” and so enjoy a life that can be well lived, loved and understood.

At its best, therapy can be an exciting and courageous adventure of personal growth.