Mindfulness Based Stress and Anxiety Management Tools: How Awareness, Relaxation Techniques, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Right Attitude Will Help You Live Peacefully and Happily Positive Psychology Coaching Series Copyright © 2015-2017 by Ian Tuhovsky Author’s blog: www.mindfulnessforsuccess.com Author’s Amazon profile: amazon.com/author/iantuhovsky Instagram profile: https://instagram.com/mindfulnessforsuccess All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author and the publishers. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet, or via any other means, without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Important The book is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice and treatment from your personal physician. Readers are advised to consult their own doctors or other qualified health professionals regarding the treatment of medical conditions. The author shall not be held liable or responsible for any misunderstanding or misuse of the information contained in this book. The information is not indeed to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. It’s important to remember that the author of this book is not a doctor/therapist/medical professional. Only opinions based upon his own personal experiences or research are cited. The author does not offer medical advice or prescribe any treatments. For any health or medical issues – you should be talking to your doctor first. Please be aware that every e-book and “short read” I publish is truly written by me, with thoroughly researched content 100% of the time. Unfortunately, there’s a huge number of low quality, cheaply outsourced spam titles on Kindle non-fiction market these days, created by various Internet marketing companies. I don’t tolerate these books. I want to provide you with high quality, so if you think that one of my books/short reads can be improved in some way, please contact me at: [email protected] I will be very happy to hear from you, because you are who I write my books for! Table of Contents: Introduction: A Few Words About Stress And Anxiety Chapter 1: Relaxation Techniques Diaphragmatic Breathing Countdown Affirmation Technique Jacobson’s Relaxation Technique Autogenic Technique Relaxation Response Visualizations and Affirmations Chapter 2: NLP Techniques To Make Stress And Anxiety Go Away Forever Circle of Excellence Neurokinestetic Method Timeline Therapy Technique Tapping (The EFT Technique) Engage Your Left Brain Reframing – a Solution for a ‘Bad Person’ in 4 Simple Steps Get Rid of Unwanted Thoughts Visualization Technique Mindfulness/Present Awareness and Meditation Mindfulness/Present Awareness Meditation Chapter 3: The Calming Power Of Good Sleep Power Naps How to nap effectively? Better Sleep at Night Pay Attention to the Sleep Phases The Art of Waking Up (Fully Energized) Chapter 4: The Right Attitude & Taking Action To Finally Get Rid Of Stress And Anxiety A Few Words about Consequences of Taking vs. Not Taking Real Action Money Time problems Work Relationships Health Engage in sports and physical activities! Eating a healthy diet Your mind is a sponge Find the humor in life The calming power of aromatherapy Clean and de-clutter Who Cares What They Think? Your Personal Mission Identify and Eliminate Your Stressors The Worry Tamer How to Change the Fact That You Can’t Change (The Zen Approach) Recommended Further Reading for You Conclusion About The Author Introduction: A Few Words About Stress And Anxiety Are you sick of being a victim of circumstance and your environment? Tired of being a slave to your emotions? Do you feel like stress has taken control of your happiness? Are you sick of me asking you questions? If you answered yes to anything but the last question, you have found the answer you are looking for in this read. This book contains a virtual toolbox that will enable you to remain calm in the chaos around you. You will learn techniques and the right attitude that you can use every day to manage the stress in your life. Stress encountered in life is inevitable; feeling stressed- out is not. In most cases, stress is totally useless in our lives. It makes it harder to cope with many situations that could be comfortable otherwise – job interviews, relationships, public appearances, stage- performing, quick pace of living, challenges that we fear to accept and crush. The body and mind are designed to under-go a certain amount of stress, which when kept in balance, is good for us. It allows us to maintain self-control, keep up with deadlines and adapt to change more efficiently. It keeps us on our toes and allows us to continually develop ourselves. Remaining stagnant in an ever-changing world would be harmful! On the other hand, too much stress can be debilitating, if not lethal. The substances in our body called catecholamines are responsible for the so called ‘good stress’. It helps us hustle, makes us feel optimistic, motivated, gives us initiative and keeps us at our peak performance. The ‘bad stress’, on the other hand, is when the stress hormone, cortisol, is released. It usually occurs during the ‘flight or fight’ response. It triggers the ‘protection mechanism’ and usually makes you feel tired, overwhelmed, bored, frustrated and impatient, which makes it rather hard to do anything constructive and move forward at a reasonable pace. The key is to maintain a lifelong balance. You need enough ‘good stress’ to stay motivated, yet at the same time, be able to relax when necessary and not be overstressed. Finding your own balance will allow you to live a life full of confidence with minimal insecurity. A relaxed countenance and a peaceful spirit are within reach. The art of mindfulness, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), relaxation techniques, the right attitude, and the smart strategies I’m going to tell you about will help you reach out and grasp them. Become one of the few, the proud… the 2% who decide to actively change their life. Minimizing your stress levels will allow for many things in your life:  You will be healthier. People with high stress levels are prone to metabolic syndromes or endocrine abnormalities, which can cause obesity and hypertension. You will minimize your chance of heart disease. Lowering your stress level will give your immune system a huge boost, preventing everything from allergies to cancer.  You will be able to improve all of your relationships. Being stressed out takes away from the energy that you put into others. Also, people close to you may be having to walk on eggshells due to high stress levels. You will be a much more pleasant and attractive person to be around.  Stress can keep you from accomplishing your goals. Without distractions and energy displacement caused by stress, you will be free and clear to achieve that which you desire.  You will definitely sleep better, which will improve your overall temperament, not to mention work performance and health. I was always stressed to the max. When I was young, I was called a worry-wart and told that I would have a heart-attack, ulcer or be bald by the age of 16. Being called “Debbie-downer” in high school is NO fun for a 17 year old boy. I was consistently anxious and worried about what everyone thought throughout my young adult years. I looked ten years older than I do now, and that was so long ago! Bags and dark circles under the eyes were ever-present on my sleep deprived face. Countless hours of sleep were lost due to worrying. My blood pressure was through the roof and I was at risk of a stroke, simply because I was stressed out. My health was poor. I was an accident waiting to happen. Not to mention, I was alone and miserable. Who wants to be around someone known as ‘Type A’ (that is what they called me at work)? I was stressed out, dangerously underweight and waiting to be the newest member of the “I Have Heart Disease” club, until I started practicing relaxation techniques, meditation, mindfulness and NLP tools regularly, every single day. The important thing here is how you feel about the whole ‘stress and anxiety management’ topic. When I write about stress reduction, I’m not talking about some kind of TV-magazine or everything-for-a-dime- store-type relaxation ideas. Those provide little attempts to sort of calm people down and make them feel a little bit better to make them work a little bit longer, but without need of taking any action or real effort themselves. I’m referring to the idea of genuine inner transformation of how you relate to yourself, to your life, to your body, to other people and to all the events around you (that’s what the “Positive Psychology Coaching Series” books are all about). I’m giving you effective tools that will help you regain control of your mind, body and emotions, as well as give you the right attitude, which is the only way to access the deep inner peace and big calm to live the life of balance and deep satisfaction. I think that, often, when we don’t take proper action to change our lives for better and to find the balance for ourselves, we just ‘go with the flow’ or follow the crowds, and that’s when society entrains us into severe imbalances that can sometimes be unbelievably addictive and toxic - looking wonderful at the surface but draining your blood without you even noticing at deeper level, until it’s too late and you hit rock bottom. Then, your doc prescribes you ‘happy pills’ which, of course, will magically solve all of your problems overnight, will never make you obese, sleepy, cut-out from the reality, dull or addicted to them. They are always for free, waiting for you to shove down your throat and never mind the side effects. The United States is the world leader in heart disease, stress and obesity1 (many times caused by stress2). Heart disease is the number one killer in the US, according to the Center for Disease Control, and stress is directly related to heart disease.3 Heart disease kills about 1 million US men and women every year; the equivalent of a ‘9-11’ type tragedy happening every day, all year round. Notice that in our society everyone knows that, for example, cigarettes can cause cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, gum problems, heart problems; or that too much alcohol can also be extremely harmful to your liver, brain, entire psychology and nervous system. In the meantime, stress is somehow still considered as something that “has always been around” and “it’s just the way it is”. A couple of years ago, at University of California, San Francisco, Elissa S. Epel, Ph.D., did a study looking at the so called telomeres4 (repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromosome, which, in the most simple words, protect your organs from getting cancer), which are necessary for every single cell division in our body that divides5. It turns out that long-term chronic stress can accelerate the 1 Adam T. C., Empel E. S. Stress eating and the reward system. 2 Spruill T.M. Chronic psychosocial stress and hypertension. Curr Hypertens Rep, 2010; 12(1), 10-16. 5. Kyrou I., Tsigos C. Hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal axis, cytokines and metabolic syndrome. Obesity and Metabolism, 2006; 2, 116-126. 3 Lambert G, Schlaich M, Lambert E, Dawood T, Esler M. Stress reactivity and its association with increased cardiovascular risk: a role for the sympathetic nervous system? Hypertension, 2010; 55(6):e20. 4 http://www.news-medical.net/health/Telomere-What-are-Telomeres.aspx 5 http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/cellbio/shay-wright/intro/facts/sw_facts.html