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More than ever, research is confirming the fundamental responsibility stress can have in causing and aggravating a lot of physical and emotional afflictions. A cover story from a 1983 Time Magazine called stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." The journalist also claimed that stress is our critical health issue. And one has to acknowledge that the world has become a lot more complicated and stressful over the past two decades since that article was published.

Several surveys show that most adults are under the impression of being subject to a lot of stress. Authorities in this domain estimate that 75 - 90 percent of the visits to primary care doctors are related to stress.

Most people claim that their job is the primary cause of their stress. Stress levels have also soared in children and the elderly population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often push people to everything from cigarette smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the loss of family and religious values and ties; growing crime rates; threats to personal security; but also social isolation and loneliness.

Stress can be responsible for conditions such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks. This is because of the augmented 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 numerous effects on one's organs.

"Stress" is defined as follows by the American Heritage Dictionary: "To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain"

The same dictionary defines "tension" as follows: "Mental, emotional, or nervous strain"

The following is the definition of "anxiety": "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."

What we can be sure of is that our mind is the first reason for our experience of stress, anxiety and depression. We could also say that, what we think about, and our attitudes and the way we view our experiences strongly influence what we feel. So if we can discover how to change our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, then we can get rid of our stress, anxiety, and depression and change them for a better state of being.

Since the beginning of time, people have searched for methods that would allow them to eliminate stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has produced a large line of sedatives from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize drugs for relief, please make sure that you read the fine print and learn about the side effects, which usually are, among others, addiction and dependency. Indeed these kinds of drugs attempt to treat the symptoms, but not the cause. So as soon as one stops taking them, the symptoms can return.

A smarter way of releasing tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on the root cause, which as I said before, is generally our thought processes. Now, here is the good news. Hypnosis is all about relaxing. The AMA accepted hypnosis in 1958 as an effective method of treating stress or stress related symptoms. Moreover unlike drugs, there are definitely no bad side effects.

When you enter the state of hypnosis, you are in the Alpha level of consciousness. It's the daydream like temporary psychological frame of mind which we experience as we're just about to fall asleep in the evening. And we experience it again as we awaken in the morning. There are several different ways to guide ourselves into this state of tranquility, from progressive relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's.

When we access a hypnotic state, we can interact with our unconscious mind, which is the center of our feelings. And one can more easily admit new points of view and ideas that can help us to reduce anxiety, or even avoid it in the first place.

NLP, which is a recently developed sort of hypnosis, has several great methods for dissipating stress. Perhaps the most effective technique is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. When you use this technique, your unconscious will automatically use bad, stress producing mental pictures, to create tranquilizing mental pictures. Otherwise stated, your stressors will automatically make you feel more relaxed!

TO SUMMARIZE Our thoughts can activate depression, anxiety and tension. So if we change our attitude and point of view towards our situation and our experiences, we can reduce these feelings at the source. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that make it possible to change our attitude and point of view to easily reduce the root cause of our negative feelings.