Dr. Fred Luskin, an associate professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and Dr. Kenneth Pelletier, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, have more than 40 years of clinical and research experience in the areas of stress management and developing emotional well-being. Over the past seven years they have developed a set of ten exercises to combat stress. They are convinced that "every time you practice one of the LifeSkills, you're either creating new or cementing already established connections in your brain and central nervous system. When you practice relaxation, for example, profound changes occur that affect your organs.
Because of the enormous amount of information we have to process in today's world, our minds operate primarily out of habit. That means we do the same thing over and over, in the same fashion, until we choose to do something differently. Each of these habits is mediated through the action of our nervous system. With the Stress Free program, people learn to tune their nervous system until it functions in harmony with their goals and values.
Among the ten easy-to-use skills are belly breathing, expressing appreciation, tensing and relaxing your muscles, smiling, and stopping doing what does not work. The toxins of stress cause all kinds of problems in our lives including stomach pain, headaches, mood swings, fatigue, depression, high-blood pressure, and even heart failure. This paperback is filled with usable psychological advice, scientific material on mind/body interactions, and stories of people who have tried the LifeSkills.
