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One Tip

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One Tip To Reduce Stress STRESS Stress is your body's way of responding to any kind of demand. It can be caused by both positive and negative experiences. In 1966 Dr. Richard S. Lazarus defined stress something like:  T he condition or feeling experienced when you  perceive  that demands exceed your personal resources.  Stress is a normal part of life. When you feel stressed by something going on around you, your body reacts by releasing chemicals into the blood. The amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This area of the brain functions like a command center, communicating with the rest of the body through the nervous system so that the person has the energy to "fight or flee". This is called the "stress response." Let's try experiencing the "stress response" by just thinking of a stressful event. I bet you can imagine something in your mind some demand or stres...

Stuck

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PERCEPTION IS REALITY I had a new intake with a male patient the other day.  He was about 45 and had been battling a "porn addiction" for most of his life. He had been to several counselors, attended 12-step support groups, visited with clergy, etc. He claimed: " Nothing works! " I said to myself- here I go again. After 40 years of this same old rhetoric I'm not sure I have the energy to reeducate him and teach him the truth about his core self - who he really is and what he is really capable of doing. Clearly many of the interventions he has tried simply reinforced his "thinking errors" - " I'm an addict. I can't stop." "I have a disease. I have to learn to live with it." "I'm no good." "I've tried everything." "Nothing works."  This is a common vicious cycle. 😪 DAILY LIVING As you go about living, your self-talk influences your behavior and the way you interact with others...

Five to Survive

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TYPHOON! And the XIII World Boy Scout Jamboree in Japan had just begun. Sitting in our tents at the foot of Mt. Fuji on Asagiri Heights, most of us, heard the mobile loudspeakers begin to blaze: “Prepare for evacuation. All sub-camps requiring evacuation , get ready. Buses are on the way.” 16,000 Scouts had to be evacuated for 48 hours. It was the summer of 1971. I had just turned 17. Our camp had to be evacuated. They asked for a couple of volunteers to remain behind to watch our equipment. I volunteered. The Rain Came We were joking around in the tent as a little river of water began to run through. We decided we’d better go out and dig a trench around the tent to direct the water elsewhere. By now the clou ds were gray, the wind was blowing and the rain was a down pour. How could we have forgotten to dig the trench around our tent? We were scouts! Scouts are always prepared right? Well, not this time and not for a typhoon. STORMS OF LIFE   I’m convinced, a...