• Every day, stress disrupts individual lives at work, school and at home.
• Each year, as a result stress causes businesses, communities and the economy billions of dollars in lost time at work, reduced productivity and less creativity.
• Stress is behind 80% of all human disease. The word “dis-ease” even points to the relationship to stress.

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WHY Scientific Stress Management

• Reducing the burden of stress frees unimaginable energy.
• Eliminating the subtle inhibitors to performance allows people to be at their best.
• Freeing the body of the health sabotaging effects of stress lets it heal and thrive.

 
Stress drains energy
We feel stressed and our body instantly begins to work overtime. It gets ready for “fight or flight”. This preparation consumes enormous amounts of energy. The nervous system switches from parasympathetic mode, or relaxation, where we perform most effectively, to sympathetic mode or stress mode. The result is a whole combination of physical and mental changes to prepare for “a survival emergency”. This automatic response drains our energy and focuses away from our current tasks, from what we want to accomplish now.
 
Stress blocks performance
When our nervous system switches on the stress response and moves to sympathetic mode our performance immediately suffers. Our thinking becomes foggy as up to 70% of the blood flow is reduced to our thinking brain, the prefrontal lobes of the neocortex. The feeling of pressure and anxiety translates in a predisposition to react aggressively or defensively. Our muscles become tense and twitchy causing back aches, headaches and migraines. We tend to tunnel vision. We feel restless and irritable.
 
Stress sabotages health and well-being
The stress reaction causes a whole cocktail of physical changes. They are only useful when we are in a true life or death situation. Frequent stress reactions in normal life will cause increasingly detrimental effects to our health. Stress instantly increases blood pressure and heart rate. Ongoing levels of high stress will therefore predispose us for chronically high blood pressure and heart disease. It causes our liver to pump more glucose into the bloodstream which over time opens the door to diabetes.
 
Stress will slow down digestion causing indigestion and bloating. The stress hormone cortisol makes us grave sugar and fat. This inevitably leads to bad food choices and over-eating. Resulting obesity reduces lifespan and invites a whole new set of diseases. Long-term exposure to stress will even change the structures of our chromosomes. It will shorten telomeres and thereby accelerate aging.
 
 
HOW Can New Scientific Stress Management Help?
 
Modern stress management is faster and more effective than any conventional methods. It is based on the neuroscience. Better yet, these tools are easy to learn and easy to use. They can be applied anywhere and at any time. You can use them at work and at home, in the car or on the plane, during a stressful phone call or luncheon meeting. You will feel the effects clearly in a short time. These stress management tools can be applied to any problem physical or mental. Results last longer, often are permanent and can even prevent future stress. And it’s easy to train groups of people, large or small.
 
You are fast becoming skeptical. That’s very natural. How can so much be accomplished so quickly? How could the tools be helpful for so many kinds of problems? And how could such powerful tools be learned so easily?
 
Important questions. They deserve clear and unequivocal answers.

• Why are modern scientific stress management tools so amazingly effective?
• Because they aim directly at that part of the brain where the stress response is generated.

They virtually instantly calm the stress response in the exact location in the brain where it is generated. Therefore, the tools allow the nervous system to switch quickly from stress mode, sympathetic, to relaxation mode, parasympathetic.
 
Switching quickly to parasympathetic, relaxed mode, changes all the body’s and the brain’s functions. Instead of the toxic cocktail of stress reactions the nervous system switches to a symphony of positive changes. These changes counteract the negative effects of stress on performance, health and well-being.
 
 
WHAT Are the Tools to Make this Happen?
 
What is SciStress scientific stress management?
SciStress provides natural tools to quickly induce changes in neural functioning. They are based on rhythmic tapping on sensitive acupressure points on the body. This tapping generates electrical impulses which the nervous system immediately transmits to the stress centers of the brain. These rhythmic signals are not compatible with the typical survival signals which generate stress. Therefore, the stress centers switch off the survival alarm. The nervous system returns naturally to the parasympathetic relaxation mode of functioning.
 
What happens to the thinking brain and the rest of the body?
Immediately more blood and oxygen returns to our prefrontal lobes. Our thinking is clear again. Our memory becomes unfrozen. Tunnel vision recedes. Our focus broadens. Aggressive or defensive overreactions dissipate as adrenaline levels drop. Muscles relax and any tension induced headaches or backaches ease away. Blood pressure, blood sugar and pulse rate levels return to normal.
 
Do you have to tell everyone about your problems? Is this some kind of therapy?
Absolutely not. These powerful tools are used by each individual by themselves and for themselves. Even when you work with the tools in a group or with a coach your privacy can be fully maintained. Don’t you have to tell your coach or other people in a group what your stress inducing problems are? Again, absolutely not. Even when you work with a coach on very intensive stress issues you do not have to disclose what they are! The tools are perfect for effective self management.
 
Obviously, in a coaching or training situation you can talk about what issues cause your stress. An experienced coach may then be able to help relate your experience to that of others and how they solved it. In a team situation you may help other team members by discussing your stress issues. However, this is always your personal choice. You do not have to disclose your issues in order to apply the techniques successfully. You alone make this choice.
 
 
Outcomes: Results of Scientific Research
 
A significant body of research is available. This is true in spite of a lack of funding for these new techniques by either institutions or government. This research shows consistent and fast improvements in anxieties. Anxieties inhibit performance. Here are some related outcomes:

• Eliminate the fear of public speaking and test anxiety
• Improve communication skills and academic performance
• Reduce mental and psychological distress
• Manage occupational stress

 
Further areas of effectiveness identified by research:

• PTSD which affects veterans but also victims of accidents and abuse
• Food cravings and unhealthy eating
• Even addictions, e.g. smoking, and relief with mental health problems

 
Outcomes: Case Studies and Practical Experience
 
Over 8000 case studies have been recorded demonstrating the effectiveness of the tapping techniques in virtually any problem area, any distress and even many diseases. A few example are:

• Overwhelm and burnout
• Anxieties and phobias
• Fear of failure, fear of success or “feeling like a fraud”
• Poor decision making

 
Again, how can this be possible? Because the rhythmic tapping signals are transmitted directly to the stress causing survival functions of the subconscious part of the brain. That part of the brain initiates the “fight or flight” survival response. If that fight or flight response is mild, feelings of stress and discomfort are also mild, sometimes barely noticeable. Yet even these light reactions surreptitiously affect performance and well-being. If this survival response is powerful, then the feelings of distress, pain and discomfort are also powerful, at times overwhelming. In those instances we cannot function successfully or in the extreme cannot function at all.
 
What is the the most central and powerful element of brain and nervous system? It’s the survival function! It affects everything in body and mind. We wouldn’t have survived as a species without it. Therefore, the ability to calm this response will also affect everything in body and mind!
 
 
The Vision for a Healthy, Thriving Organization
 
How can such easy to use natural tools help an organization, small or large, be healthy and thriving? Because when the cells of the body are healthy the whole body becomes healthy. Because when the employees of an organization are healthy and function at their best the whole organization is healthier and functions optimally.
 
Imagine the health of your employees steadily improving as they manage their stress levels with ease. They can reduce any stress during their day-to-day work without taking more than a few minutes. Imagine overwhelm, burnout, and resistance to change gently receding week after week. Imagine absenteeism and healthcare costs steadily decreasing month after month.
 
Imagine the performance of your team steadily increasing. As your team members and employees continuously reduce the inhibitors to their performance with ease, what will that mean for your organization? Can you see enthusiasm rising? Can you see results improving while your employees stress level drops. Can you see the instances of “dis-stress” gently transforming to positive “eu-stress”? Can you envision the freed up energy and creativity?
 
Imagine your management team further improving their focus, their communication amongst themselves and their employees, and their performance without increasing pressure and stress. Imagine how this can make their lives at home with families and friends better. Imagine the possibilities to bring this to your schools, your civic organizations and into your communities.
 
How can we make this vision a reality together?
 
There is research and the vast body of experience with individuals. There is an even greater opportunity bringing these powerful tools into organizations. What is missing now is the research to prove and quantify the results in organizations.
 
If you want to be part of leading this effort, if you want to help prove the results in your organization we urge you to contact SciStress. Together we can lay out simple low cost and low risk pilot studies. We can demonstrate and quantify the benefits for your organization and your team. Your risks are minimal:

• You contribute only your time and that of the research participants. At a minimum everyone will learn powerful stress management techniques to use for themselves. Yet there is so much more to gain.
• We will contribute our time, experience and expertise pro bono. Our only requirement is that we publish the results of the studies.

 
Your SciStress Team stands ready to move forward together!
 
Fred George Sauer, MS, MS Eng, Stress Management Coach, Business Process Improvement & Productivity Specialist, Author
Judith Lynch-Sauer, PhD, RN, Clinical Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing

Hey, what has the New Year to do with the one to 80 advantage? Advantage over what?
 
Okay! This has something to do with New Year’s resolutions. It has also something to do with how your mind works.

The new year just started and very likely you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions. The new year seems to you like a great opportunity to make a new start and do better this year than last.
 
Now here is it where you can improve your chances to be successful by a factor of 80. Sounds pretty unbelievable, right?
 
How can you make your chances to succeed 80 times greater? Naturally you have some doubts. And yet there is research and practical experience which shows there is a workable system to do it.

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Want to find out more? Then read on.
 
What is this system? What can make it 80 times more likely for you to achieve your goals for the new year? There are basically 2 steps:
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1. Write down your goals. This has a couple of advantages. One it forces you to be clearer about what you want to achieve. Writing it down makes it more concrete. Secondly, you can post that piece of paper with your goals at a convenient place to remind you often. Both research and practice show that this will make it 10 times more likely for you to achieve your goals.
   
2. Read your goals out aloud at least once every single day – until they  become reality! I’m sure reading them a couple of times won’t hurt either. Reading them aloud will not just remind you of your goals, it will help your subconscious mind to give your goals an increasingly high-priority. The research shows that this will make it 8 times more likely to achieve your goals over just having your goals written down.
   

 
So here is the math of success: 10 times 8 and voila here is 80! When you write down your goals and read them at least once every day out loud your chances for success improve 80 times. That is 80 times over just thinking about some goals for the New Year and not writing them down or reading them out regularly.
 
What do you think? Is such an advantage worth a little daily effort???
 
Here are 2 more tricks to make your goal setting work even more effective. The key here is that it is the subconscious part of your mind which will do most of the work for you. Therefore, you have to make your goals easy and convincing for your subconscious:
 
Make your goal a powerful statement – “Affirmation”

• First, here are some rules which make your subconscious understand what you want.
  
• Your subconscious cares only about YOU. Therefore make your goal an affirmation statement about you (I, myself, me)
• Use the present tense. The subconscious knows only the now, no past or future.
• Make it a positive statement. The subconscious ignores negatives, e.g. in “don’t smoke” it hears only “smoke”.
• Short and emotional phrases stick in your subconscious much easier.

Example: I love an exciting well-paying job (it’s “me”, in the present, positive and emotional).
 
Picture your goal vividly – “Vision Board”
Pictures go directly to your subconscious and stick there. Your goals automatically get support. A fun and easy way to do this is with a “Vision Board”. Find photos and artwork from magazines, the web or newspapers which make you feel good and represent your goals in some exciting way. Take these pictures and clue or tape them to a bulletin board. Hang the board at a place which gives you some privacy but also where you can see it easily and frequently. 
A workshop participant in Germany told me she did this for several years each New Year and each time succeeded achieving at least 80% of her goals.
 
OK, now get going to start your New Year out with a powerful initiative. That’s how you get control.
 
To your SUCCESS!   Fred George Sauer

The holidays are coming. That's exciting, so much fun and joy! And yet this can also be one of the most stressful times of the year. Stress can suddenly jump up right in front of you where you least expect it. ​Something important doesn't work the way you planned, somebody who has hurt you shows up suddenly, or worse nothing happens and you are all alone. We'll talk about a few of these to get you well prepared.

Let's not forget that for most people the holidays are a wonderful experience. There is excitement, anticipation and preparation. Even if there are some big stresses with the season, much of the time it can be a great experience. And just as well one single bad thing can ruin it. So what is this thing with good stress - bad stress?
 
Hans Selye, the Austrian-Canadian genius, researched and defined stress. He talked about eustress and distress. Everybody knows what distress is all about. It's something which makes you feel bad, unhappy, scared or angry. A lot of distress will even make you sick. Eustress is just the opposite. "Eu" comes from Greek and means good. So eustress literally means good stress. With good stress you feel excited, challenged, motivated and fulfilled. So for the holidays you want the good stress and not the bad.
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​You want the good stress, the excitement, the good feelings with family and friends. It's important to know that bad stress comes from your old brain. The big problem with the old brain is that you don't have direct control over it. That part of your brain sits deep down in your skull below your thinking brain. It pretty much does what it wants.

Its function is to keep you safe, but that was created for very different circumstances. Your old brain was created for you to survive as a hunter and gatherer tens of thousands of years ago. It can't change quickly enough for modern life. But it is your old brain which runs your decisions, your feelings and your automatic reactions in your life.
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To keep you safe the old brain "thinks" that any change is dangerous.  It basically tells you to keep things the same. It actually doesn't think. Your old brain is subconscious and has no logic.

First and foremost the nature of old brain programs say, "you have survived this far, therefore we don't want to change anything." This is the main reason that even the unfortunate things you do in your life are so difficult to change. That's true for example for too much eating, drinking, smoking, etc. and worse!
 
The second thing your old brain does, it keeps score of all the bad things which ever happened to you. It actually controls our long-term memory.

E.g., your dad or teacher criticized you, somebody hit you, treated you badly, anything like that will be recorded. Here are two examples of how this works.
 
Say your mom made each holiday perfect. Everything was beautiful and every detail was perfection, for example from Thanksgiving turkey to table settings, from guest list to menu and drinks. Perhaps she didn't go to work and had the time or she ran herself ragged to make it perfect. Perhaps now you are the working parent already stretched to the limit.

Be honest, having her example can you relax and have a simpler holiday? Can you now change, make dinner easy, use paper plates and buy the turkey already cooked? You see this sounds so simple but is not easy. This would be logical for you to do and yet your old brain has no logic and says no. It just wants you to do things the same way your family has always done. 

Or let’s look at something worse … On holidays your family home was not a happy place. There might be tension, opinionated righteousness, then sharp words, too much alcohol and verbal fights. And some of you may even have experienced violence. Unfortunately your old brain thinks that is okay. You did survive and thus the old brain programs say that all that happened is important to help you survive now again. Those subconscious programs need a lot of effort and commitment from you to change. You might need help from people experienced in such work, well qualified and familiar with modern techniques which help you fast.

This is important. Take inventory. Write it down. What do you want? What worked well, what did you like in holidays of past? What did you see others do that was both easy and was fun? What else would feel good and make it fun for you and yours?

To get control over old brain impulses it is important you start with what you want and what you like!

Again, it is your old brain. As you move to write, get your paper or tablet - hey, not ancient stone tablet - your old brain gets activated and starts to pay attention. Actually, the stone tablet was only half a joke; to carve it into stone really would get your old brain really involved. So write down what you like. Write down some features of the happy past. That will give both your thinking brain and your old brain focus. Your emotions will be positive and strong.
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Now think of things you don't want, past events on holidays which led to pain. Next think of ways to plan your holidays which will make sure these don’t recur. Write down specific ways for each problem not to happen again. Some examples:

• get festive paper plates to make the cleanup easy
• prepare a simple healthy meal or order it already prepared
• serve beer and wine and not the whiskey, have some sparkling water for the thirst, this way your guests won't get rowdy
• prepare ideas for small talk (F.O.R.D. = Family, Occupation, Recreation and Dreams) and stay clear of politics if necessary
• set people's expectations in advance and let them know just why you make the change.

 
Now cross off each item on the list that you don’t want.
Your old brain wants some action, so crossing it out makes it more real.

This will tell your subconscious it's not needed anymore. Next read out loud all the good things you are planning. Again your old brain hears it and will change with greater ease.

Why is your old brain so powerful? Why does it make you do things you don't really want anymore? Why are you not even aware of it?

• Because it is your survival function, you wouldn't live without it.
• Because it is suspicious of each change, it doesn't want you to try something new, that could be “dangerous”.
• Because it is deep down below your conscious mind, your logical thinking cannot reach it easily.

 
Old wisdom: "If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got."

How does your old brain stop you from trying something new? It will cause stress! And stress will pull a lot of blood automatically (up to 70%) from your new brain where all your thinking happens. Your thinking brain has no more oxygen, you feel fogged up, anxious and not clear. Actually, we wrote a special report with all 10 dangers caused by stress, click here and get it free.

Your brain is fogged up, no clear thinking, procrastination, indecision.

That is what happens without oxygen in your "new" brain, the only place where you have logic and can think. What can you do? How do you get oxygen and blood where you now need it most?

There is a simple answer your old brain likes.

Get out and move! Take a brisk walk, go to the gym, do your favorite workout! Get breathing deeply, work up some sweat. Now your blood flows full of oxygen. Your thinking brain works well again. Clarity, energy and focus have returned. Now you can make new decisions and take new actions with success.
 
This is the best time to make new plans, be well prepared and now create your holidays to be refreshing, full of fun. Leave out the drudgery, complexities and stress. KISS, Keep It Simple Smart one,
 
Make your holidays simple, easy, fun. Create new memories for your old brain to be proud of!

Best wishes for a great Thanksgiving and all the coming holidays from your still not totally stress-free stress coach,
 
Fred George Sauer

 In July we had planned a Focus Group to find out what participants would think about our SciStress training and what results they could achieve in a short time. We concentrated what normally would be a full day’s training into 2 ½ hours. I felt that was a challenge. Also, everyone had indicated in a pre-survey that they were quite skeptical to begin with.
 
So I was pleasantly surprised how much we could pack into that short a time. I was even more surprised about the results our participants could achieve. Now take a look at the brief videos to find out what some of them had to say after the training.

What are other participants saying? You can watch the rest of the videos here.
 
Want to get the same results for yourself?
Here is how you can find out! You can learn the SciStress Techniques and why they are so easy and work so well from the book "The Girl Who Couldn't Laugh: The Neuroscience of Stress Management."
This book tells you how your mind really works, how it creates problems for you at times, and how you can manage those problems more easily. We make that bit of science easy and fun to understand. We do that with personal stories of people’s experiences. It’s a journey of discovery into your own mind.
>> Learn More

 
Enjoy the journey!

Your stress coach,  Fred George Sauer