Fitness Facts vs. Fitness Fictions

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 “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.

Anxiety and Panic “Attacks”

In the past year nearly 45 million Americans have suffered from so- called “anxiety disorders”, including anxiety and panic attacks, as well as phobias. That’s a lot of people—more than 15% of the U.S. population.

And it’s a lot of suffering. Anxiety leaves people chronically miserable. A severe panic attack leaves people in cold sweat terror dreading they are dying.  And phobias leave people painted into a corner of fear and nasty limitation.

Anxiety disorders have become such a problem in the last 30 or so years that they are now recognized as the #1 “mental health problem” for American women and second only to drug and alcohol abuse for men.

But to label anxiety a “disorder” or a “mental health problem” risks confusing the issue. And it risks shaming the sufferer and leaving them prey to the vultures who seek profit and power by defining life problems as medical conditions, so they can medicate as many people as possible.

Just why are fear, anxiety and phobias so prevalent today? Just what has gone on in the last two to three decades that’s given rise to so much fear and anxiety?  I’m very clear on the one word answer because I’ve spent many years researching the problem. It’s STRESS.

Stress is the chief cause of most anxiety, panic and social phobias. But stress is not just about feeling tense and wired. It’s about the triggering of our hard-wired “Fight or Flight Response”.  And it’s about the release of toxic hormones—drip, drip, drip—into our system. These hormones seep into our blood and tissues where, over time, they set up conditions for “attacks” of fear, anxiety and panic.

In the last 30 years we’ve gone through about 400 years of social and technological change.  It’s been hard for humans to adapt to such speed. In a nutshell, the stress problem is rooted in the fact that we’re not properly hard-wired for this fast paced, complicated and too often meaningless way of life. We’re wired for a time that is long gone.

Many people feel lost today. They feel lost having to cope with a life that often makes little sense, a life lacking in clear cues and clues about how to live. And not only are many people under unrelenting financial and work strain, but often their souls also must endure an unsatisfied longing for a loving connection to life and a meaningful connection to other people.

Anxiety, panic, phobias, depression, addiction and many degenerative diseases such a s heart disease and diabetes—are an outcome of the fact that we are chronically stressed out.

Consider what happens during an anxiety or a panic attack: Suddenly with little or no warning, an anxiety and panic attack sufferer’s heart starts pounding. They have trouble breathing, their chest aches, they start sweating and feel fearful that they’re losing control and they’re about to die—for no apparent reason.

They stand there shaking and trembling in terror, but they have no idea why. And as if this isn’t bad enough, they are left anticipating that all this will happen again—at any moment, a moment they have no control over.  This anticipatory worry releases more stress hormones and sets up conditions for a vicious cycle of recurring panic attacks.

Now imagine the following. Imagine that you are on a vacation in the Florida Everglades. You are out one early morning in a canoe with your expert guide. Suddenly, unexpectedly—you’re guide loses consciousness and falls over, capsizing your canoe. Then more trouble. Thirty yards away on shore there are two alligators.  They see you and enter the water. They are coming at you fast— to eat you for lunch. How would you feel?

Like this—your heart would be pounding, you’d have trouble breathing, your chest would ache and you’d be shaking and trembling in terror. You’d be thrown into a Fight or Flight Response where you’d have to fight or flee to survive—or die.

What happens to you in an anxiety or panic “attack” is amazingly similar to what happens to you in an alligator “attack”—except in the latter you know why. Stress hormones play the key role, hormones whose real purpose is to prepare you for a life or death struggle.

With this knowledge, it’s easier to understand why there are so many people experiencing “attacks” of fear, anxiety and panic, and we why so many people would rather stay at home where it feels safe.

The key to preventing and controlling anxiety and panic attacks is to lower your stress hormone levels and flush stress hormones out of your blood and tissues.  To learn more about this, you can download my “Little Black Book of Stress Relief Secrets” FREE at the top right of this page.

Don’t hesitate to get expert therapy for anxiety and panic—you can overcome them both.

MESICS Free Release Breathing™

Do This for Fast Stress Relief

You’re probably very busy a lot of the time and so even though you really want to lower your stress levels you can’t, especially during the day.

Here’s a method called MESICS “Free Release Breathing”.  It is a wonderful stress busting practice that’s easy to do, yet powerful. You will get results-fast.

You can do it pretty much anywhere and it doesn’t take long. And the more you do it, the more you will strengthen your “stress fighting muscle”.

MESICS Free Release Breathing is an important part of many of the advanced stress solution methods in our Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack.  You can also use it as a standalone practice.

Here’s how.

Read the brief instructions below over once. Get a clear picture of the practice, then return right here and do it.

Take three Free Release Breaths as follows:

1. On your “in breath”-breathe in through your nose into your diaphragm * (see footnote)
2. On your “out breath”-breathe from your diaphragm out through your mouth. Just completely let go.
3. Don’t walk your breath out-just let it go completely “hhhaaaa”
4. On the out breath sigh if you are not in public- “hhhaaa”.
5. If you are in public-do it quietly or silently
6. Then tune yourself briefly to the calm, clear state at the end of your out breath. Rest there for about 7 seconds. Do not follow your thoughts.
7. Then repeat twice more.
8. Each time LET GO of any stressful thoughts that you’re distracted by and identified with.
9. As you practice and train, try to maintain your connection to the calm state at the end of your out breath for as long as possible
10. This will give you a taste of the “Stress Free State”

“Free Release Breathing” is so powerful because it promotes the activation of what’s called the “parasympathetic” component of your Involuntary Nervous System. Forget the strange words and think of it this way. When this part of your nervous system is in charge, your Stress Faucet turns off and stress chemicals stop leaking into your body.

That’s good, very good. It will ease your stress and your stress-hormone driven, anxiety and depression.

Again, at the end of your out breath, you will feel at ease, calm and clear. Tune yourself to this experience. Train, train, train with this method. Once you are familiar with it, you can use one or a few MESICS Free Release Breaths to reconnect to this calm, relaxed state of mind.

Then, when you’re in a stressful situation, you will be more resilient.

With repeated use, you will be able to find this relaxed state of mind more quickly and you will be able to stay connected to it longer and longer.

Use the MESICS Free Release Breathing practice regularly. If you like what it does for you, then you’ll LOVE what the Fast Acting Stress Relief Pack will do for you. It will not only give you fast stress relief but it will also put you in the driver’s seat and greatly enhance the quality of your life.

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* Do it so your diaphragm rises on your in breath and falls on your out breath. Your diaphragm is just below your breast bone and just above your upper abdomen. It’s a muscle the size of the palm of your hand, a muscle wrapped all the way around the bottom of your rib cage.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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[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.

Beware: Financial Stress Epidemic

Financial Stress is Contagious

Financial stress goes to the bone of our deepest worry–staying alive. Money represents survival. That’s why money is so important and why so many people are stressed out over finances.

Stress is contagious. In the same way that there can be a flu epidemic that infects many people-financial stress can spread rapidly among many thousands and even millions of people.

Right now we are in the midst of an outbreak of serious financial stress, an epidemic of financial stress fueled by a combination of real and dangerous conditions and the never-ending bad news media hysteria. The news media no longer just reports news. It seeks profits, profits that depend on ratings and ratings go up with sensational news broadcasts.

Unfortunately this creates real problems for us.

Because if the financial crisis doesn’t damage us, our chronic stress over it will. You see a part of your brain called the hypothalamus cannot tell the difference between financial worry and financial disaster.

The Media Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

For example, one financial trend forecaster, Gerald Celente’s, did an interview recently. He’s predicting a total worldwide financial collapse, a collapse worse than anything ever known. And he’s predicting violence in America over it.

It’s a tricky situation because no one really knows whether the roof is going to fall in from this financial crisis or not.

But at the level of runaway financial stress-it doesn’t matter. Because when large numbers of people are infected with stressful concerns, their minds can become enmeshed in a form of primitive and illogical thinking where it become impossible to distinguish fact from fiction.

Today many people are in this bind. They watch CNN blasting yet another financial collapse story, they read more of the same in the newspaper and on the internet, they go shopping to see prices rising again and then they go home and open their financial statements to see that they’ve lost even more money than they imagined. No wonder so many people are anxious, fearful and depressed.

It’s starting to feel like a meteor is heading to earth and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

Whenever I feel myself getting caught in media stress, I do a little MESICS Free Release BreathingTM and then if need be I use another technique to enter into the Stress Free State TM, a state of relaxed and aware calm and balance. When you move into the Stress Free State, stress hormones are flushed out of your blood and tissues.

I’ll show you how to do MESICS Free Release Breathing in just a few moments. But first, let me explain something important to you.

Your Fight or Flight Response prepares you to fight or flee from life threatening danger. It does so by releasing powerful chemicals, called stress hormones, into your system. But there’s a problem: The Fight or Flight Response is meant for short-term use only. If it’s on too often and too long it will damage your mind and body.

Studies show that when you’re stressed and stress hormones seep into your blood an tissues and linger there, you’re at risk for serious health problems as well as the misery of chronic anxiety and depression.

As Dr. Paul Rosch, President of the American Institute of Stress put it, Stress

“…is a heavy contributor to heart disease, cancer, respiratory distress, lupus and many other life threatening illnesses.”

Stress hormones are indeed bad news. Drs. Lyle H. Miller and Alma Dell Smith, two Senior Stress researchers said it in a nutshell: “Chronic stress kills. People wear down. Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death….”

Do This: MESICS Free Release Breathing

Take 3 deep “Free Release Breaths”. This strategy is drawn from a MESICS® [1] Training routine.

• Breathe deeply into your diaphragm-it’s just under your breastbone and above your upper abdomen
• Pause for a slight moment
• Breathe out from your diaphragm-
  • but don’t walk your breath out-just freely release it. HHHAAAAA.
  • Pause for a count of two-then repeat

Notice that at the end of the out breath there’s a calm, relaxed state. Tune yourself to that and let your stressful thoughts go. Don’t go after them or spin them or feed them. Just let them be. They will go away. Yes, they will return. When they do, just do the same thing.

The 3 Free Release Breaths are a preliminary technique to help shut down your Fight or Flight response. If you can learn to let your thoughts go-it will stay shut down more often. Learn how to develop the presence of mind to not jump on every train of thought that pulls into your station.

Financial Worries Are Not Facts

Stressful thoughts and feelings about money are often not accurate or true. But when you’re caught in contagious financial stress, they will present themselves to you as if they were absolute fact. Yes you may have money problems, even severe ones-but that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t survive.

Please don’t think I underestimate the hardship of serious financial trouble, I don’t. But even if you’re bearing a heavy burden -you’ll be a lot better off if stress hormones aren’t running around in your system.

If you’ve been foreclosed or close to it or if you’ve watched your life savings shrink along with the value of your home. All the more reason you need to safeguard your well-being so you can get on the other side of this hardship.

If you learn how to stand free from stressful financial worry, you won’t get poisoned by toxic stress hormones. Learning how to do this is a form of mindfulness and what we call “Inner Fitness”. Inner fitness will strengthen your ability to avoid identifying with your worries. If you do identify with your worries, you’ll mistake them for facts and pay a steep price.

Develop a Prejudice Toward Action-Act NOW

STOP listening to, watching or reading sensational news stories about financial doom. If you’re facing chronic financial stress, learn how to develop an action plan that will empower you to feel in control. Seek help doing that-from reliable sources.

Expect financial worries in the form of negative thoughts and feelings. Expect to feel fear, anxiety, depression, self-doubt and self-blame. These are natural. But learn how to stand free from them and not buy into them at levels that cause you hopeless despair and panic.

If You Pray, Pray for This

The more action you take, the more control you’ll feel and the more control you feel, the more action you’ll take. If you pray, don’t pray for money to drop out of the sky-pray for the patience, confidence and strength to get through this and to make the money you need.

Think positively, but positive thinking alone is not enough. You must marry it to decisive action. Or else you’ll be waiting for a bus that doesn’t come.

Get angry if you have too. But make it a healthy anger-let it become fuel for you to take charge and act. Healthy anger can free you up and push you into a new way and a new day.

Consider working with a capable stress expert and a financial advisor you can trust.

Take the Long View

See your financial woes as a temporary challenge not as a final defeat. Don’t just think short term-think up ahead. And take things one day at a time. Again, get expert help-don’t move off in an unknown direction on your own.

And beware of people who don’t know enough to really help you. Or people who’ll want take advantage of your situation. Make sure you can trust someone before you give them any money and don’t pay anyone a large sum in advance.

If you have a lot of debt, or are at risk for foreclosure, then consider contacting The National Foundation for Credit Counseling: www.nfcc.org

This Too Shall Pass

Keep in mind that “This Too Shall Pass”.

Be thankful for the little things and for any support you can count on from people who care about you. The philosopher Nietzsche said it well when he noted: “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.

While that’s not always the case, it most often is. Necessity can be the mother of invention. By meeting the challenge of financial stress, you’ll master new learning and open up new possibilities in your life.

Your thoughts and feelings define your reality, so avoid news media that sensationalize the financial crisis by blasting you with it from every doom and gloom angle possible.

Again, studies show that we’re very susceptible to the opinions those around us. So take a holiday from opinions that breed more and more fear and worry in your life. Just focus on today and tomorrow.

I invite you to download my new book, “The Little Black Book of Stress Relief Secrets”. It’s Free for a limited time-get it on the home page. It will give you much of what you need to know and do.

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[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 Training™ translates scientific discoveries into actionable knowledge and combines it with powerful tools and expert support—so you can put that knowledge to work to conquer stress and live long and well.

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