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Now more than ever, scientific research is proving the primary role of stress in triggering or aggravating numerous physical and emotional afflictions. In the June 6, 1983 issue of Time Magazine, the cover story called stress "The Epidemic of the Eighties." It also said that stress is a prominent health issue. And one has to recognize that our world has become even more complicated and stressful in the last twenty-five years since that article was written.

Several surveys indicate that most adults feel that they are under a great deal of stress. Researchers in this domain estimate that 75 to 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians somehow have to do with stress.

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

Stress can cause and aggravate problems such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks. This is because of the ever growing sympathetic nervous system activity as well as a high level of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is co-morbid with weakened immune system resistance. Stress can be responsible for anxiety, depression, and its several impacts on one's organs.

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

"Tension" is defined 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 the word "depression" is defined as follows: "The condition of feeling sad or despondent"

The following definition is given for "clinical depression": "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."

We can nonetheless be sure that our thoughts are the chief source of our experience of stress, anxiety and depression. In other words, what we think about, and our attitudes and the way we view our experiences strongly influence what we feel. So if we can learn how to alter our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, we can be relieved of our stress, anxiety, and depression and replace them with a better state of being.

Since the beginning of time, people have searched for methods for releasing stress. The pharmaceutical industry seems to have a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has designed a wide array of anxiolytics from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize these pills for relief, please be sure to be aware of the side-effects by reading the fine print, which commonly include addiction and dependency. Unfortunately, these kinds of drugs try to cure the symptoms, instead of the cause. So as soon as one stops ingesting them, the symptoms can return.

A finer method to get rid of tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to try to cure the root cause, which as I said before, is usually our thought processes. Here is some good news. The main principle of hypnosis is relaxing. The AMA recognized hypnosis in 1958 as an effective method of treating stress and stress related symptoms. And unlike pills, there are categorically no negative side effects.

Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It's the daydream like temporary psychological state that we pass through as we are just about to fall asleep at night. And we pass through it again when we wake up again. There are lots of different ways we can guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, from progressive relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD's.

When we access a hypnotic state, we are able to interact with our unconscious mind, which is the seat 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 completely.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a recently developed kind of hypnotherapy, has many wonderful methods for releasing stress. Maybe the most effective technique is called the "swish" pattern - or the "flash" pattern. When you use the "swish" pattern, your unconscious will automatically use negative, stress producing mental pictures, as triggers for relaxing mental pictures. In other words, what generally makes you feel stress will now cause relaxation!

TO SUM THINGS UP Our thoughts can trigger depression, anxiety and tension. So if we change our attitude and the way we perceive our situation and our experiences, we can reduce these feelings at the root. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that make it possible to change our attitude and point of view to quickly reduce the root cause of these negative feelings.

Alan B. Densky is an NGH certified hypnotherapist. He offers a complete line of stress management NLP CDs, and advanced anxiety reduction CDs through his Neuro-VISION hypnotism website. You can visit his video hypnosis blog, and download a free MP3.