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Now more than ever, scientific research is proving the essential responsibility stress can have in triggering or aggravating many psychological and somatic disorders. A headline from a 1983 Time Magazine described stress as "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The article also claimed that stress is an extremely serious health problem. And one has to recognize that our world has become a lot more complicated and stressful in the past 25 years since that article was written.

Many surveys indicate that most adults feel that they are under a great deal of stress. Authorities in the field estimate that 75 - 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress related problems.

Most adults claim their stress is primarily due to their job. And stress levels have also soared in children as well as the elderly population for reasons including: Peer pressures that often lead to everything from cigarette smoking to drug and alcohol abuse; the dissolution of family and religious values and ties; increased crime rates; fear for personal safety; but also social isolation and loneliness.

Stress contributes to problems such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. This is because of the increased sympathetic nervous system activity along with a high level of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is co-morbid with impaired immune system resistance. Stress can be responsible for anxiety, depression, and its various effects on the body's organs.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "stress" as follows: "To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain"

"Tension" is defined as follows: "Mental, emotional, or nervous strain"

It defines "anxiety" as follows: "A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties"

And it defines "depression" as follows: "The condition of feeling sad or despondent"

It defines "clinical depression" as follows: "A psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death."

One thing is for sure, our mind is the first source of our experience of stress, anxiety and depression. Put differently, what we think about, and our attitudes and points of view about our experiences strongly influence our feelings. So if we can find a way to change our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, then we can get rid of our stress, anxiety, and depression and attain a better state of being.

Since the beginning of time, people have tried to find methods that would allow them to release stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has developed a wide array of tranquilizers from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to use drugs for relief, please be sure to pay attention to the fine print and learn about the side effects, which most of the time are, among others, addiction and dependency. Unfortunately, these sorts of drugs attempt to treat the symptoms, instead of the cause. So when one stops ingesting them, the symptoms can come back.

A better way of getting rid of tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on the root cause, which as I wrote previously, is most often our thought processes. Here is some good news. Hypnosis is all about relaxation. The AMA accepted hypnosis in 1958 as an effective method of treating stress and stress related symptoms. Moreover unlike pills, there are definitely no undesirable side effects.

Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It's the daydream like temporary psychological mindset that we go through as we're just about to fall asleep at night. And we go through it another time as we awaken again. There are hundreds of different ways that will help us guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, from step-by-step relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's.

When we get into a hypnotic state, we are able to interact with our unconscious mind, which is the center of our feelings. And it becomes easier to admit new ideas and points of view which can help us to get rid of anxiety, or even avoid it in the first place.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a modern type of hypnosis, offers various really good methods for eliminating stress. Maybe the most effective technique is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. After using this method, your unconscious will automatically use negative, stress triggering mental pictures, to create relaxing mental pictures. In other words, your stressors will automatically cause relaxation!

TO SUMMARIZE Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be caused by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and the way we feel about our situation and our experiences, we can get rid of these feelings at the source. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that we can use to help us change our attitude and point of view to easily get rid of the root cause of our negative feelings.