Can You Eliminate 70% of ALL Illness?by Chris Lewis, MHwww.ChrisLewisMH.com

According to the National Institutes of Health, at least 70% of all illness and disease is either caused or contributed to by stress.

There are two kinds of stress, distress and eustress (pronounced "you-stress"). Distress is the kind that most people think of when they hear the word "stress." It's what you feel when you're overwhelmed or suffered a trauma of some kind. Eustress is what you feel when you're getting married, exercising intensely, or receiving a good kick in the rear from a caring friend or mentor. While distress is harmful, eustress can actually strengthen your immune system. Distress tears you down. Eustress motivates you and helps you to grow. If the only kind of stress you feel in life is eustress, consider yourself lucky!

If, however, you're getting a lot of distress, you'll need an antidote if you don't want to end up in the hospital!

The Antidote:

An escape from stress cancels out most, if not all of the physiological effects of that stress. The catch is that this escape must be used on a regular basis. When you're feeling the distress, take five in an empty bathroom stall (most people will never bother you there). Also, take a few very deep breaths, using your full lung capacity all the way in, and ALL the way out and consciously relax your muscles on the out breath. Do this about 20 times.

Also, leave work at work! Don't bring it home. For things you may have to take home, like your brief case, business cell phone, uniform, etc., have a spot where you can stash your business items until you need them tomorrow where they will be out of site for the evening. When you come home, bring all of yourself home. Before you arrive at home, pull into a parking lot and breathe deeply for 5 minutes. Allow yourself to change your focus from work to family before you walk in your front door.

Use EFT daily if you need to, you can even do it hourly! EFT, short for Emotional Freedom Technique is a safe and easy treatment for stress, negative emotions of all kinds. It involves tapping on acupuncture points with your fingers and works very quickly for most people. You can learn the technique at www.emofree.com.

Most of us keep items around our homes, offices and cars that remind us of stressful or traumatic times. This causes distress every time you see or even think about these items even if you're not aware of it at a conscious level!

I suggest you get rid of as many of these items as possible sell, donate, recycle, trash. If it's something you're not allowed to get rid of, then redecorate it, or place something more pleasant in front of it. If possible, do something to associate the item with a positive emotion invite someone you love to help you create a positive memory with it. The goal here is to get yourself to feel good whenever you see the item. Sometimes, it might be fitting to give an object a colorful farewell by burning or burrying it. This can be very powerful!

Need to get something off your mind? Put it on paper! Journaling is something most people have heard of but very few know how to do effectively. Here are a few pointers:

It doesn't matter what you write on, just pick something you'll enjoy, whether an actual journal or spiral bound notebook. Just start writing as much as you can about everything that's on your mind. Don't edit or censor. Don't worry about grammar or neatness. Just brain-vomit on the page! If you have something to write about that you want to destroy later, use a spare piece of printer paper. You might also want to keep a to-do list handy to write down tasks that occur to you during this process as well. That way you can give yourself permission to forget about these because the paper you're writing them on won't forget and you can go ahead and do them when the time is right.

That's it! You now have the power to neutralize the greatest single threat to your health, save thousands in medical costs, and flat-out enjoy your life more! Now it's up to you. These strategies will only work for you if you use them. So go ahead and print out this article right now, and tape or tack it somewhere conspicuous on or near your desk. Have you done that? Go ahead and do it now before you do anything else. Good. Now pick one of these four strategies that you are going to start using IMMEDIATELY. I would suggest you start with one of the easy ones like the five-minute escape or journaling to give yourself an easy success right off the bat. Then the good feelings you have from having successfully completed the first step will propel you into success in the other three areas.

...Now that you've gotten a good start, would you do me a favor? E-mail me at chris@chrislewismh.com and tell me how things have improved for you since you started using these strategies then give a copy of this article to a friend or coworker. You see, I believe that when you have some bit of knowledge that has the potential to do some good in the world, you also have the responsibility to share that knowledge with those who need it, someone is entrusting you with this important assignment, otherwise you would never have been made aware of this information.

'Till next time...

-- Chris Lewis, MHwww.chrislewismh.com