We have an acquaintance who has been very successful. She works directly for the CEO of her organization, has a great family with three children and is quite a socialite. Yet this super lady has a big problem. When she has business meetings or conferences far away, she will not hesitate to drive there 10 or even 15 hours to get there. If she goes on vacations, she might even drive two days with some family members and stay overnight on the way. It’s not that she doesn’t have the money to fly. Her company would gladly pay for her plane fare on business trips. No that’s not the reason, the reason is that she is totally terrified of flying.
 
Fear of flying is quite a common problem which many people experience, some more, some less. Interestingly I’ve met very few people who have a fear of driving a car. And I have never met anybody who’s afraid of riding in a train. In my book on stress management I talk about the various stages of the fear of flying, because I’ve worked with quite a few people to help them alleviate that issue. They are now comfortable flying and can even enjoy the trip.
 
Here’s one of the cases to show how the SciStress techniques can make life easier if someone suffers from a fear of flying. In my office set a large well-dressed gentleman, let’s call him Joe. He told me how he would deal with this extreme discomfort traveling by plane. If he had enough time in the airport, he would have a drink “to relax”. Often, he was on a tight schedule and didn’t have time for the drink. He had to walk on board feeling increasingly tense. He’d squeeze into the narrow 17-inch seat which many planes still have and buckled up immediately. Now came his mental exercise of “I’m strong, I can deal with this”. But underneath Joe would feel very uncomfortable. Joe had a very tough time using the word “anxious”, but that was what the feeling was, he admitted.
 
The brain is amazingly flexible and powerful. Therefore, I asked Joe to imagine that he had to go now to the airport for a 4-hour flight to Phoenix. You could see his discomfort as his face and posture changed. Now I taught him the basic SciStress technique. As he began to use it, he immediately began to relax and look more at ease. We went over the basics one more time. Now Joe felt comfortable enough to imagine going to the airport and walking up to the plane. At this point he told me he began to feel some dread. Again, I guided him to use the simple steps of basic SciStress.
 
In a few minutes Joe was ready to step into the plane and walk to his seat, in this imagined trip. I encouraged Joe to sit in the middle seat, which he hated obviously the most. Again, Joe used the technique a few times, maybe for five minutes. Now he could imagine the situation in reasonable ease. Nobody “likes” a middle seat. Now his plane rolled to the starting position. At this point there was a little discomfort to take care of. But now the engines roared, the plane accelerated on the runway, Joe could feel the vibrations of the takeoff. Even though this was just imagined, Joe could feel the sudden panic of leaving “solid ground”.
 
I worked with Joe to use the technique by himself to reduce the panic feeling and get to a point of comfort on this imagined trip. He said he was thinking as soon as the cabin staff would come with their carts, he would order a scotch. But even without the scotch he said he would be comfortable continuing his trip.
 
A few weeks later Joe reported on his progress. He had a short trip from Detroit to Washington, DC and everything went fine. He said he used SciStress briefly at home for a couple of minutes before he took off for the airport. He felt fine walking through the airport and getting on the plane, this time he had a real seat by the window. When the engines went to full power on takeoff, Joe said he again use the technique all the way down the runway.
 
Now he said came the real miracle, he felt totally comfortable being up in the air. He also said that SciStress helped him stay calm and focused in difficult business meetings. He liked the fact that he could use the technique discreetly without anybody else noticing a thing.
 
Like the fear of flying, the technique empowers people to help themselves with many other fears and anxieties and negative feelings of different types.
 
You can Use the Method to enhance an amazing number of areas of your life:

• Increase life energy and results – less inhibitors and stress, better focus and energy
• Improve communication – eliminates even fear of public speaking
• Strengthen relationships – take stress out of existing ones, open new possibilities
• Support family and work – get the communication and decisions you need
• Prevent and resolve conflict – deal with difficult situations, reduce having your ‘buttons pushed’
• Manage change and crisis – remove barriers to innovative thinking and decisive action
• Enhance health and wellbeing – health issues are aggravated or caused by stress
• Ease travel – less fatigue, jet lag, fear of flying; better sleep, adaptation to climates and cultures
• Improve physical performance – do better with exercise, sports, golf

 
This may sound too good to be true. However, the neuroscience of stress management shows why and how this is possible. You can read about these new powerful insights in the book “The Girl who Couldn’t Laugh: The Neuroscience of Stress Management” written in easy to understand language. And you can do so free of charge with Amazon’s “Look inside” feature to read the first few chapters:

A tastefully dressed woman in her late forties came up to me somewhat shyly during a meeting some time ago. She asked if I could help her with a problem. I told her that our techniques work for a lot of issues but there was no guarantee and that we’d have to explore it. She was very concerned that she would have to disclose the issue she wanted to work on. I assured her that was not necessary, and that we could work productively without my knowing what issue she was working on.
 
Three SciStress attributes.
This is an interesting case because it demonstrates three important attributes of the SciStress work. First, since it is not “therapy”, we don’t need to know the issues in order to coach a client successfully. Secondly, we coach individuals on how to use the techniques most effectively for themselves. They learn the techniques and how to use them in a powerful way to solve their own issues. Thirdly, using the techniques on initial issues a client brings up is not always the most effective way to solve a problem, especially not permanently. In SciStress, we call this a level 2 issue. This requires finding a deeper second issue, which is the root cause. That root cause is usually a very stressful experience much earlier in life, which has been long forgotten, but is still stored in the subconscious long-term memory.
 
The Internet isn’t always the best source.
Now here is the story of Kathy, not her real name, but her real story! Kathy had learned a similar type of technique on the Internet. She had used it for several weeks on this issue, which she did not disclose to me. Now there are a lot of videos all over the Internet claiming to teach self-help techniques like EFT for example. Unfortunately, many of them are not very useful. Since the techniques appear to be very simple, “experts” out there can cause more confusion than help. In the worst cases they teach something wrong.
 
Kathy told me that what she learned from the videos did help her relax a bit, but the problem did not disappear. I took her through the basic SciStress technique and made sure she used it correctly. We tried SciStress on another issue, less stressful, as a test. Kathy was very successful alleviating that issue.
 
Going back to her original problem, Kathy was still very upset. Her stress level on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being the worst was 8 or 9. I could see her stress response in posture and facial expression. After a round of SciStress, Kathy was able to reduce her stress level by a few points, maybe to 5 or 6. Her main fear now was that the stress would come back later. I asked Kathy the key question: did she remember a similar feeling of stress earlier in her life, maybe much earlier.
 
Getting to the root cause.
Kathy’s face suddenly turned pale . I could see a full-scale stress response. Please understand, when we rediscover a long forgotten very stressful experiences, our old brain will trigger the nervous system to respond just like in the original stressful situation. We therefore will re-experience the memory in a similar way. Kathy clearly felt extremely stressed. I coached her to immediately go through the complete SciStress technique. After the first round she looked a bit more collected. We both knew that we had discovered the underlying root cause of her problem, and only she knew what that problem was.
 
I coached her through two more rounds of SciStress, guiding her to again focus as much as comfortable on the original experience, now just a stressful memory. After about 15- or 20-minutes Kathy’s face looked much more relaxed and there was even a brief smile. Thinking of her past stressful experience Kathy now rated her stress intensity at about 1 or 2. I asked Kathy to re-imagine the more recent situations which caused her to be upset or stressed and make those as bad as possible in her mind. We then used SciStress again on the stress those thoughts caused for her until she felt relaxed about that. Now she felt confident that she could manage those situations much better.
 
Using SciStress to strengthen positive expectations.
Here’s a great way to use the SciStress techniques to focus on positive outcomes. Importantly, we use that step only after we have reduced any major stress issues to low levels.
 
I guided Kathy to use the techniques on the previously stressful situation but to imagine the very positive outcome she wanted to achieve. She enjoyed that process and said it gave her a strong sense of hope and positive feelings about what she could do. I told her to use SciStress to help eliminate any remaining stress which might occur when she got into the situation again. She left feeling happy and full of energy.
 
We had completed her work successfully. With some coaching she had found the long-forgotten root cause of her current problems. She had reduced the stress level associated that root cause memory. She had activated positive expectations for the current situation. This is something only possible after reducing or eliminating the past root cause of the current stress.
 
A dark family secret.
Next time I saw Kathy she wanted to tell me what had happened. She wanted me to know how SciStress techniques and our coaching had helped her solve a big embarrassing problem in her life. She still was a little shy and hesitant about explaining the situation, but the sheer energy of having solved that big problem was visible and gave her courage. Kathy, a woman in her late 40s, had remarried about six months ago. She loved her new husband and they had a great sex life. That was very important to her. One big issue however was that she did not want her husband to touch her breasts. This was very difficult for him and very embarrassing for her. But she felt intensely uncomfortable each time he wanted to massage or kiss her in that location.
 
This issue had not come up with her first husband whom she had married right out of high school. Maybe he was used to her sensitivity or didn’t care. Anyhow, it was a big problem for them now. With her new husband it never occurred to her why she felt that way. Being coached to look for similar feelings in her earlier life, suddenly a deeply embarrassing and painful memory came up. Her dad, whom she loved dearly, started touching her breasts when they started to develop at about age 10 or 11. He did that when she went to bed, and mom was not there. He did it several times fondling and massaging her nipples and checking the size of her breasts. At the time she felt terribly embarrassed and deeply confused.
 
Kathy said her father never made any other sexual advances. And he stopped touching her breasts after maybe half a dozen occurrences. But since then she always felt very uncomfortable with someone else touching her breasts. Now she knew the root cause of the experience and she had eliminated the stress level of that memory. She reported that she could now enjoy the intimate time with her husband without feeling that old stress reaction. Both Kathy and her new husband were delighted.
 
SciStress coaching can empower a client to solve problems.
We saw that with targeted coaching individuals can solve difficult and complex issues without the coach knowing about the issue. This case also demonstrates that sometimes an experienced coach is necessary to help a client solve an issue by finding the root cause of the current problem. And another not uncommon phenomenon is shown by Kathy’s situation. In many cases individuals do not want to disclose the issues they want to work on. But once the issue has been resolved and they are free of the stress relating to it, they become very eager to talk about the original issue. Clients often even feel an urge to tell about it because they are so excited to be free of the difficulties it had caused in their lives.
 
Want to experience similar transformations?
If you or someone you love have issues to resolve, we would be happy to help. Our coaching may not “fix” all problems, but we have helped many people reduce stress in most situations. Check out our free initial consultation. They also will learn the techniques to help themselves any time and any place. You may recommend our book, which explains the brain science in easy to understand terms and teaches the techniques in detail.

With warm regards,                    Fred & Judy
 
Fred George Sauer, MS, MS Eng., Chief Stress Coach, Performance & Productivity Specialist
Judith Lynch-Sauer, PhD, RN, Scientific Advisor, Clinical Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing
 
PS: Create a daily routine of managing stress. Check Appendix 2 of the book for quick help with stress.

Hi SciStress friends, Judy here. Today we need a woman’s voice. A few weeks ago, I read an article about menopause in the newspaper. This reminded me of the story of a good friend of ours. Some time ago, we talked with her on the phone and she didn’t sound quite all right. Finally, she admitted she was suffering  from severe hot flashes. She was going through menopause. Would she be open to try something new. I guess she was desperate. So I asked Fred to tap with her over the phone. The amazing thing was that in less than 10 minutes her hot flashes were completely gone!
 
Hot flashes gone in 10 minutes, would it last?
We talked to her recently again. Our friend told us that using the SciStress tapping technique helped her tremendously. Each time the uncomfortable feelings started return, she would immediately use the technique. It worked every time. And on top of it the hot flashes would occur less frequently. Her whole menopause transition became much more comfortable.
 
How could such a simple technique be so effective and work so quickly? I have to speculate a little here. In my career as a mental health nursing professor I’ve read a good amount of research. But for the Meridian Tapping Techniques, or MTT for short, on which SciStress is based there is good research, but nothing on menopause. Therefore, I think the mechanism based on my knowledge of human physiology is as follows.
 
How could it work?
SciStress tapping directly calms the old part of your brain and helps to switch the autonomic nervous system from stress mode to relaxation. Now I was very lucky and did not have any problems with my menopause. But a lot of women are not so fortunate. They have hot flashes and all other kinds of symptoms of the hormonal changes. My thought is that for those women the hormonal changes cause a stress reaction in the nervous system. Using SciStress techniques reduces the stress reaction and therefore reduces their discomfort with menopause symptoms.
 
You can try it with any “female” discomfort.
We have had clients tell us that SciStress techniques also help with some discomfort they have with their regular period. That could be the same or a similar mechanism. Anyway, if you have any discomfort with either menopause or monthly periods be sure to try the techniques. And please, please, please send me a quick email and let me know whether SciStress did work for you, Judy@SciStress.com.
 
And what about the guys?
By the way, guys obviously don’t have menopause as such. Although there some changes for middle aged men too when their natural hormone levels drop. Because of this, some experts do talk about a "male menopause". But Fred reminds me that when guys feel uncomfortable it is often related to just plain stress. Any feeling of discomfort has some kind of relationship to stress. Therefore, you gentlemen can use SciStress any time to make your life smoother and more comfortable.
 
Let us know if you want any personal support or coaching. We may be able to help you with whatever bothers you. And you can get our book which explains everything on Amazon.
 
Warm regards,      Judy

Judith Lynch-Sauer, PhD, RN, Scientific Advisor, Clinical Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing
Fred George Sauer, MS, MS Eng., Chief Stress Coach, Performance & Productivity Specialist
 
PS: Create a daily routine of managing stress. Check Appendix 2 of the book for quick help with stress.

Grandfathers are often the most beloved people in a young person’s life. Memories of our grandparents are powerful and formative at the beginning of our lives. In our recent SciStress work we had the privilege to work with two women. In each case it turned out that a nearly forgotten memory with their grandfathers had a major emotional impact on their lives.
 
Early childhood trauma and a beloved grandfather.
Memories of grandfathers are most commonly happy, sweet and joyful. In both of these cases, however, a particular memory turned out to be the reason for a severe childhood trauma. How could this be?

The science of stress in action
In SciStress, scientific stress management, we know that the reason for stress in our current lives is often found in past traumatic memories. These memories sit in the more ancient parts of our brain, the old brain. Each time they get triggered through circumstances in our current life we experience stress. These older parts of our brain are subconscious. Therefore, we do not remember the old memories easily. We do not have to be aware of those memories in order for them to be triggered. If current circumstances trigger them, they will cause us stress now. Our task in SciStress is to help uncover these memories and remember the feelings of the situation. At that point it is easy to use the SciStress techniques to reduce emotional intensity of the memories. Once the emotional intensity is reduced, the memories will not be triggered. Stress in our lives is reduced.

The story of one woman and her grandfather
A few weeks ago, we worked with Jenny, not her real name to protect her privacy. Jenny wanted to work with us because she felt often anxious and worried about her five-year-old daughter and other family situations. That anxiousness sometimes would turn into frustration and helplessness about her beloved child. The whole situation was very stressful for her.

 
How could this happen? What could she do about it?
After finding out more about Jenny’s situation we instructed her in the basic SciStress technique. This is the usual first step. To learn and use the technique always relaxes the client and makes them more comfortable. This then opens the door for more in depth detective work. What are the traumatic memories which lie beneath the current stressful reactions? What is the root cause of her issues? We asked Jenny when in her past she had these strong feelings of being anxious, worried, even helpless.
 
Jenny’s traumatic experience.
When Jenny was about seven or eight years old her beloved grandfather was in the hospital. She visited him often. Grandpa had stomach cancer and his health was rapidly deteriorating. Jenny remembered him there in his hospital bed with wires and tubes and instruments all around him. She saw the doctors and nurses who cared for him. Yet grandpa became weaker and sicker every day. She was deeply worried about him. As his health deteriorated further, she became very angry that all the doctors and nurses and instruments could not help her grandpa. Soon grandpa died. Jenny was deeply hurt and feeling helpless. Why could all these doctors and nurses and other hospital workers not save her grandpa?
 
Memories trigger the same emotions from 30 years ago.
Jenny, now in her 30s, began to cry. She tried to suppress her tears to no avail. She re-experienced the same raw feelings she had as a young girl in that traumatic situation. Without being aware of it, some of the same feelings were triggered by the old brain each time she was worried about her young child or other family members.
 
Now it was time for her to use the techniques she just learned to defuse the emotional charge these old memories would trigger. While fully experiencing these emotions, we told Jenny to use the techniques repeatedly. Soon her tears stopped. Her face became calmer. We checked with her. The memory was still painful but not so overwhelming anymore.
 
When the negative memory is defused, positive memories can return.
After using the techniques for about 20 minutes repeatedly Jenny’s face changed completely. Now she looked calm and even a happy smile briefly crossed her face. We asked again how she felt. She said she just remembered a happy time with her grandfather when he played with her. We asked her to close her eyes and hold that happy memory in her mind, to feel it intensely. Jenny had just experienced two phenomena which are very typical when using the SciStress techniques in connection with old traumatic memories.

1. SciStress techniques will reduce negative emotional intensity of past experiences without fail.
2. When the negative feelings of memories are reduced, the memories of positive experiences will begin to come through spontaneously.

 
Jenny’s experiences demonstrate again how our old brain processes survival information. It stores the memories of past stressful experiences to help protect us in the future, to help us survive. Stress is the natural response of the old brain when it feels threatened or in danger in some way.

A few weeks later, Jenny wrote to tell us that the image of her grandfather in the hospital is now free from any feelings of helplessness and that she feels more at ease and calm in general. This confirms our typical expectation that results of a client's tapping work often are permanent.

Debbie’s story, another traumatic experience with grandfather
Debbie is the leading nursing practitioner in a world-class cancer treatment and research clinic. For over 20 years she has worked with and cared for patients with the most serious cancers. She feels a lot of pressure and stress which lead frequently to migraine headaches. Her work is naturally very stressful. Her responsibilities for human beings who may be close to death is enormous. It appears natural that she would often feel overwhelmed with migraines. Yet Debbie tells us that other people working with her are able to deal with the same stresses more effectively and without apparent impact on their health. Is there another root cause in Debbie’s situation?
 
Finding the root cause step-by-step.
Debbie identified her first layer of stress as the sadness and grief of the loss of her dad. She laughed and admired her dad. He had died just a few months ago. She reduced the stress of this loss while learning and practicing her new techniques. Now we could explore deeper levels of stress with her. We asked her to look for memories where she felt great responsibility and pressure.
 
Difficult decisions: What to study in college?
Debbie’s dad was a carpenter. Her parents wanted her to go to college. She would be the first one in her family to get a college degree. Debbie felt tremendous responsibility for what she should study. Her first love was to become an interior designer. But she was afraid she couldn’t succeed because she had difficulty drawing houses and blueprints. Fearing that she couldn’t succeed as an interior designer she decided to study nursing.
 
She became an excellent student with outstanding grades. Later she went on to get a master’s degree in nursing. But the memory of that decision process and the responsibility she had felt for her dad and her family was still keenly present. There was still a strong stress value attached to this memory. We now used SciStress techniques to reduce the stress value of that memory. Now Debbie could think back to that situation without feeling the pressure of her responsibilities. Was this the root cause for her current feelings of pressure? Was there something else in her life earlier than that?
 
Grandfather explaining death to a five-year-old.
Yes, it didn’t take Debbie very long to remember very heavy stressful experience when she was five years old. One of Debbie’s aunts had died. She was now in the funeral home with the rest of her family. There were her brother and sister and other kids. Now her grandfather would gather all the children around him to help them understand what was happening. He wanted to help them understand death. But for five-year-old Debbie this was a very difficult traumatic experience. She felt a lot of pressure with all the grieving relatives around her. And now trying to understand the finality of death in her little child’s brain caused a sense of overwhelming responsibility.
 
When Debbie remembered this experience now, it still created an overwhelming level of stress. Could this early experience in her life have subconsciously guided her to work in a high responsibility position with people who could not always survive? In any case this memory clearly had the characteristics of the root cause for high stress response to difficult situations around illness and death. We coached Debbie to use the SciStress technique repeatedly to reduce the difficult feelings which were attached to her grandfather teaching about death in that funeral home many decades ago.
 
In a relatively short time Debbie was able to reduce the intensity of this traumatic memory step-by-step. Now when she checks the memory, she could still remember the scene in the funeral home, but the stressfulness of the situation was gone, the heavy sense of responsibility for a little girl to understand death was much reduced. After a little more work around the situation Debbie felt ready to leave and look forward to her responsibilities in the clinic without threat.

The root cause of our reactions to stressful situations 
The stories of the two women you just read about demonstrate how our old brain makes us react with more or less stress to situation. Similar situations may appear easy and even joyful to many people. For example, Jenny’s situation of raising a five-year-old little girl is joyful and fun for many mothers. The root cause of Jenny’s reaction of worry and anger was an earlier experience her old survival brain held onto. In Debbie’s case, the important high-responsibility job would cause great satisfaction and rewards for many people helping patients with a difficult life-threatening illness. Certainly, both situations can be very stressful, but the extreme stress reactions of Jenny and Debbie were clearly related to these early memories which triggered survival responses in the old brain.
 
Want to experience the same transformations?
If you or some of your loved ones have experiences like that, we would be happy to help. Our coaching may not solve all problems, but we can help people reduce stress in many situations. They also will learn techniques to help themselves any time and any place. You may recommend our book, which explains the brain science in easy to understand terms and teaches the techniques in detail.
 
Warm regards,                    Fred & Judy
 
Fred George Sauer, MS, MS Eng., Chief Stress Coach, Performance & Productivity Specialist
Judith Lynch-Sauer, PhD, RN, Scientific Advisor, Clinical Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing
 
PS: Create a daily routine of managing stress. Check Appendix 2 of the book for quick help with stress.

Last week was one of the worst weeks of my life. One disaster after another hit me. What was going on? Were the stars aligned against me? I guess the Italians knew that kind of thing. The word disaster comes from Renaissance Italian: ‘dis’ meaning against and ‘astro’ meaning star. Therefore, when the stars are aligned against you, it must be an ill-starred experience, a dis-aster. I didn’t just have one disaster, no, I had to deal with 5 disasters in this awful week! Find out about the “happy ending” of it all and 3 natural ways to help with stress at the very end of this article!
 
How did this ill-starred week begin?
 
Disaster 1: Poison Ivy!
Sunday afternoon I’m working in the yard removing some invasive vines from my pine trees. There is normally some poison ivy around them. This year we had a very rainy spring. Therefore, the poison ivy grew into a big monster. I thought I was careful to stay away from it. But somehow, I did get it on the left leg. I used anti-itch spray, which works better than calamine lotion. Yet the itching continued during the night and was quite annoying… Stress starts building.
 
Disaster 2: Car Died.
Monday morning, I wanted to run an errand. I jumped into my Fusion which always runs smoothly. I have had it for nearly 3 years and it never gives me trouble. This Monday morning it is totally dead. No lights, no engine crank, nothing! A jumpstart didn’t work. A battery charger couldn’t make it run. The tow truck managed to get it started and I could drive it to the dealership. Their repair shop was overloaded already. They told me it might take several days till they could look at it. But they would do their best for a good customer like me.
 
Why was it really bad news? Not having my car for a few days was really bad. Why? Because Saturday we had planned to drive to northern Michigan for a one-week family vacation. We had rented a nice big cottage. Thursday evening one of my sons with wife and two kids would arrive. We needed the two cars. With an itching leg and one car in the repair shop... Stress is climbing higher.
 
Disaster 3: Water Leak.
We live in the township. There is no city water. Therefore, each home gets its water out of their own well about 100 feet deep. We hadn’t noticed that the water pressure from our well was steadily going down. But Tuesday morning it was very obvious. I changed the main water filter. It was full of rust and silt, much worse than usual. However, the new clean filter did not help. The pressure stayed very low. I called the experts. They told me there must be a leak in the pipes between the pump at the bottom of the well and our home. They would send an expert Wednesday morning. Itchy leg, car in the shop, and now uncertain water pressure in the house and family arriving tomorrow night. My back started hurting, my neck got stiff… The stress barometer now at storm level.
 
Disaster 4: Pipe Stuck, Budget Blown!
Wednesday morning a heavy truck arrived. Phil, a seasoned guy, climbed out and shook my hand inspiring confidence. My stress came down a bit. Phil backed his truck close to the well. He moved the crane to pull up the pipes. But first he had to undo a buried lock 6 feet down below the ground. That lock was frozen. Phil tried and tried again. 90% of the time his tricks would work. We had the unlucky 10%. They didn’t work this time. Phil called his office. This was the news: they had to come the next day with a backhoe and dig a 10-foot hole to cut the lock and pull the pipes and pump deep in the well and find the leak. If the lock was frozen, there was no guarantee the pipes and pump would come out easily even with all that effort. And just to add some salt to the wounds, the cost would rise a few thousand dollars every time. And so rose my stress barometer. This was an emotional hurricane: an itching leg, my back out, no car, no guarantee of water flowing, only a guarantee of a huge repair bill... Stress up to the stratosphere.
 
Thursday morning three big trucks arrived right on time. First Phil with his truck and crane rig, next a truck pulling a large air compressor. And a third truck pulling a flatbed trailer with a huge backhoe. Phil shows me an estimate of many thousands of dollars. That’s what it takes to fix the well if all goes to plan. If not, it could be more. In less than half an hour the hole is dug. They cut the frozen lock. They pull up the pipes together with the pump. There is a hole which rusted through some 40 feet below.  Now Phil is happy, all will go as planned. My stress is lowered just a bit. My budget blown, but we may have water when the kids arrive tonight.
 
The car repair shop calls. They scratch their heads. My car starts fine without a flaw. I should pick it up and drive it for a day or two to test. How this could happen no one knows. I drive the car home like nothing ever happened. Meanwhile a new well pump has been fitted to new pipes. These pipes are plastic and won’t rust. Pump and pipes go down the well. The backhoe fills the hole, then smoothes the earth. The air compressor blows the dirty water out of the well. At 4pm the pump starts pumping. Now all looks good. I can relax.
 
The kids arrive as scheduled. My car is running. The pump is pumping. The house is full of happy sounds... The stress goes down.
 
Disaster 5: No Electricity.
Friday evening. Stress levels now are muted. A heavy rainstorm had just dumped a pile of water. I start to make a light dinner. My wife is off to the airport to pick up her 2 sisters scheduled to arrive at the airport roughly at the same time. One coming from the West Coast, her flight on time. The other flight from the East Coast was delayed an hour and a half due to the storms here in Michigan. Judy got the California sister in her car. I had the dinner ready. A new storm blew in. This one had more wind and lightning. A strangely sounding gust shook our house. 10 seconds later all was quiet and pitch black. The power gone. Wind and rain beating on the siding… Feeling no stress, just acting on survival in the mess.
 
What next? Get a few flashlights. Set up half a dozen candles for a “candlelight dinner”. Call Judy to forewarn her. Then call my son with wife at dinner at a nearby restaurant. No happy sounds just sighs of quiet acceptance. Now I had to run to the airport to get the sister from New York. The rain so dense, I could hardly see. Crawling along the freeway I still beat the arrival of the flight delayed from New York City. Back home the house now full, eight of us without electricity, no water, in humid heat without the air conditioning. The next morning, we had planned to leave and go up North… This evening a glass of wine for everyone by candlelight was all the stress reduction I could muster.
 
What else could go wrong this awful week? The power company gave us an estimate to have electricity restored by 3 o’clock next afternoon, long after we should be gone. Before bedtime, my son helped me start an old generator we hadn’t used in many years. My mom had bought it for us over 20 years ago when she was horrified that our little kids might be stuck without power. A miracle this evening, we got it to work. Now we had water to shower and brush teeth, some lights and the refrigerator running to save the food. After an hour we bedded down to sleep in the dark house, the noisy generator turned back off… I didn’t even think of stress.
 
The morning after a restless night, still no power. We packed the cars and took off just before noon. The home secured as best we could, still no power. By the time we reached Bay City the temperature was up to 95°. Then suddenly in less than 40 miles the sky turned black and temperatures dropped down to 71°. Another vicious storm drove rain across the highway and buffeted the car from left to right. But we drove on carefully. Two hours later, we finally arrived at the cottage.
 
Finally, Recovery and a “Happy Ending”
 
Arriving at this beautiful cottage, the rain suddenly stopped. A cool breeze from the lake welcomed us. The others arrived as well. The cottage was full of happy family. Here we had lights and water, cooked a splendid dinner and made a fire at the beach. The air was fresh, the clouds had left, the lake looked beautiful, the nightmare finally was over.

An important lesson from this is that during very stressful situations we easily forget to take care of ourselves. Even “stress experts” will forget to do their stress management routines. There are, however, a few very natural things which help a quick recovery from stressful times.

1. Being in Nature is one powerful stress antidote. Even medical research supports what we can often experience. For us the beauty of the trees, lake and beach around the cottage brought that calming joyous influence.
   
   
2. Exercise and Physical Activity allow our body and mind to quickly normalize and recover. Again doctors support what we can all experience. We took energetic walks in the area and barefoot along the beach, we took a kayak and paddled into the wind and waves, and we dove in and swam.
    
3. A Different Location can be helpful to reduce stress. Why? Because the old location will constantly remind us of the situations which were so stressful. Being in a different place allows our nerves to settle without being reminded all the time of what went wrong before.

 
For all those reasons and by being together as a family we all had a great time. The stars were back in good alignment. Disasters handled. We came back refreshed and “stress-free”.
 
Enjoy your summer stress-free! We wish you peace and smooth sailing!
 
Warm regards,                    Fred & Judy
 
Fred George Sauer, MS, MS Eng., Chief Stress Coach, Performance & Productivity Specialist
Judith Lynch-Sauer, PhD, RN, Scientific Advisor, Clinical Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing
 
PS: Create a daily routine of managing stress. Check Appendix 2 of the book for quick help with stress.