In crazy times like this even the smallest things can drive people up the wall. It is similar to when you bend the branch and it is been near the limit the next level push will break it. Just like that most of us feel the constant stress of these difficult times. Our stress processing is already on high. Now any little additional problem will do it to us. That is especially true in interactions with other people. More so even with people who are close to us.
 
So what should we do? Getting really teed off and letting it all out? Letting the other person have it? Well, not so good. This would turn the situation into a nuclear event. Therefore,
 
Don’t blow up! Don’t vent!
 
Now I know this is easier said than done. What to do?
 
Tactics: “Fix it fast”
Take a deep breath. Count to 10, sometimes count longer.
Be forgiving. Realize the other person is just as stressed as you.
Apologize quickly. The faster the fire is put out, the less pain will it inflict.

That is one of the natural but very unfortunate side effects of the human survival mechanism. While police departments have thorough training to reduce this danger, there has been a history of a subset of officers acting in a racist manner. Under the additional stress of the coronavirus situation one white police officer in Minneapolis killed an African American citizen. The circumstances were such that the officer was arrested on charges of murder.
 
This was the spark which caused massive protests in many cities throughout the United States. No other industrialized country has such a history of citizens being shot by police or minorities being killed by white police officers. Therefore, already there exists a high level of fear and suspicion. Now minorities and other concerned citizens had their survival instincts activated for the massive protests around the country. And just as there are bad apples in the police force there were rotten apples and instigators amongst the protesters. They managed to turn many of the peaceful protests into apparent riots with arson and looting.
 
What if we could significantly reduce stress?
 
If law enforcement would have a simple powerful stress management technique, flexible enough to use on the job, even intense situations, could bad enforcement be reduced? Would officers be healthier and use better judgment?
 
If the minority communities had available a powerful tool to reduce their anxieties, improve their performance in school and at work, could they make a better life for themselves? Could they reduce the likelihood of discrimination?
 
The revolutionary StopStress and EFT rhythmic tapping techniques have been proven to reduce stress quickly and effectively. They can easily be taught to individuals, small and even large groups in person, with literature and on video. They are there for not just effective but very low cost to implement. Here is a promising opportunity to help a difficult profession, high-risk neighborhoods, and the community as a whole.
 
Call to action: if you see or know of opportunities to offer our StopStress techniques to organizations, please let us know!
 
Fair warning: it’s important to be informed as a citizen of what is going on. BUT limit your exposure to these difficult events. It is not unlike “secondhand smoke”. Too much of the images and rehashing the terrible events will pollute your subconscious memory and trigger additional stress we don’t need, especially not now.

​Join us Weekly Free Stress Reduction for You and Yours. You will practice this process together. We will answer your questions. You will feel better and more in control.

We have all more or less been locked up … ah sorry, we have been in “lockdown".

Last time we talked about how this goes on our nerves, causes big time stress and dislocation. Now that many states have begun to open up, how can we stay safe? When we are stressed we can’t make good decisions. Brain science tells us that. Therefore …
 
Do everything in your power to keep your stress down and your sanity up. Here is a partial list:

• Exercise, both aerobic such as walking, jogging, biking and resistance like doing weights.
• Nature, just being out has an important stress reduction effect, gardening, get out into the woods or park. This includes playing and being with your pets.

• Meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and other classical tools can do wonders for you.
• Connection to your family, friends through phone calls, social media, video chats.
• Eating healthy and keeping your weight low. There are lots of good suggestions available on websites. You may want to explore intermittent fasting. This may sound strange but in reality our psychophysiology has been built for that. Three meals a day is a recent invention, and it is not always healthy. Also, our body was never built for sugar, which is addictive and can be toxic to the liver.
• Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, and it is fun too. The positive effects can last for up to four hours. And …
• StopStress tapping works fast and powerfully. Use it three times a day, especially before sleeping to get a good night’s deep rest.

 
These are some ways to keep our spirits up and our immunity strong. Our judgment will be clear. Now we can take careful steps to open to some normalcy while staying safe and guarding our health.

Join us Weekly Free Stress Reduction for You and Yours. You will practice this process together. We will answer your questions. You will feel better and more in control.

Let’s tap the tension down.
Let’s practice the fastest and most effective stress release we know.
Let’s work together and stay sane and safe.

Michigan: 
Security guard shot, killed over face mask dispute
 
California: 
Target employee breaks arm in fight with shoppers who wouldn't wear mask

Being locked up in solitary confinement, the tension is building! There is an urge to get out. There is an urge to break the rules!
 
Unbelievable! Yes, here in Michigan the incredible happened. About a week ago the security guard requested that the customer put a mask on before entering the discount store. The customer pulled out a gun and shot the guard dead. A few days later the store clerk tried to stop a man entering the store without a mask. The man broke her arm.
 
Sadly, there are some fringe individuals who totally lose their minds and turn violent. Even in peace. Even in peace for Sweden, a mass shooting took place.

We all feel the tension which has been building in this completely unprecedented situation. How do we deal with it?
 
We may feel the urge to get out. We may feel the urge to break the rules. No one likes restrictions like we have to live with now. No one has lived with them for such a long time. No one knows for sure when it will end.

Part 1 of a Series
Survival Brain: Emotion, Mind and Behavior
Elements of a New Psychology

​My Successful Journey to Effective Stress Management
 
Welcome to the first step in exploring the human survival brain and how it makes stress management more effective. This is the beginning of a series of blog articles with the goal to create a better understanding of the human mind and the resulting behavior. Let me briefly explain why I am writing these articles.
 
Childhood trauma 
As a young child I grew up in a war zone. With that came a fair amount of early childhood trauma. As a result, my life wasn’t always easy. I kept searching for ways to ease the inner blocks and irritation which I really didn’t understand. Yet I succeeded in getting a wide-ranging engineering education which included ergonomics and process optimization. I built a career around improving business processes. My passion was to find the root cause of the situation and with that foundation find improvements which made a real difference.
 
After my retirement from this, my first career, I looked for ways to work on improving health and well-being, in part to continue searching for solutions for myself. Then in 2005 some friends convinced me to take a look at some new natural techniques, which they told me could work miracles. The techniques were called EFT for emotional freedom techniques. My rational engineering mind screamed “nonsense”. But I had to support my friends and watch a video demonstration together with them. What I saw seemed incredible and implausible. The simple rhythmic tapping on some acupressure points helped Vietnam veterans heal their PTSD within a few hours. These veterans had been hospitalized due to the severity of their PTSD for ten or more years.
 
Unbelievable but real 
I couldn’t quite believe what I saw but the people in the video seemed real and sincere. What else could I do now? I had to learn and try out the techniques myself. And despite my deep skepticism, the techniques really worked. My whole adult life I had looked for ways to get rid of this deep stress I was living with. Many of the things I had learned helped me better deal with the stress and the problems it created. But none of these earlier methods seemed to get to the core. But these techniques did! After five or six weeks of using them every day I felt like a new person.
 
Ever since then I’ve worked with the techniques myself and taught them to many individuals and groups. I improved the basic techniques and made them more usable in daily life. But one thing kept bothering me.

​Why did this deceptively simple set of techniques have such a profound effect on virtually all problems a human being could experience, both emotional and physical?

​Neuroscience to the rescue 
The official explanation by the founders of the techniques and the leading experts (footnote or reference) kept me in doubt. That explanation of acupressure energy meridians and the idea of an “energy psychology”, though innovative, somehow didn’t completely satisfy me. Based on suggestions from my mentor, Dawson Church, I looked into the three-brain theory of the early neuroscientist Paul MacLean. His discoveries set me on a path which seemed promising. Could neuroscience provide the root cause and explanation why these techniques had such profound and wide-ranging effects?
 
The four other neuroscientists who helped me the most in this exploration were Robert Sapolsky, Hans Selye, Joseph Ledoux and Neil Shubin.

• Robert Sapolsky’s work with stress and primates was an eye-opener. I learned about stress and how much we share with our primate ancestors.
• Hans Selye defined stress as the direct response to a threat of survival. That could explain why stress reduction has a profound impact.
• Joseph Ledoux introduced me to the “emotional brain”. The interaction with the other two brain regions strengthened the case for the three-brain theory of Paul MacLean.
• Neil Shubin provided the root causes for human brain architecture. His work showed how much human physiology is based on early evolution of animal life.

 
Now I had a strong theoretical understanding how the human neurophysiology came about. I gained a deep appreciation of why survival is the primary and most powerful driver of our behavior and existence. I knew now that stress is a direct result of our brain’s survival response and signals that it “thinks” our survival is in some way endangered. Using this scientific understanding together with my practical work experience, I finally discovered how the tapping techniques work and why they have such universally profound impact.
 
Future blogs about these discoveries 
This series of blog articles will be written with the help of my wife, a professor of mental health psychiatric nursing, who is my scientific advisor. Together we will address:

1. The Ancient Brain, how Homo sapiens obtained it, how it functions as a survival computer and what this means for our understanding of survival, stress and behavior.
2. The case for a New Psychology based on the root cause of the functioning of the three evolutionary components of the brain, the instinctive or reptilian brain, the emotional or limbic brain, and the thinking brain or neocortex.
3. The Rhythmic Tapping Technology provides important tools in two areas. First as a powerful research tool, to demonstrate the precise mechanism of the survival stress response. The second function is as a healing tool. It reduces unwanted stress directly and can be used to reprogram traumatic stress memories in the archaic brain.

 
These new concepts may sound a bit theoretical. But we will make these scientific explanations easy and fun to read. We’ll strive to relate them to personal wellbeing, reducing unwanted stress to feel better and be healthier than ever before.
 
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: If you or someone you love has a deep stress issue to resolve, we would be happy to help. Our coaching has been highly effective for many people reducing stress in most situations. Check out our free initial consultation. As part of the coaching we train clients in the techniques. Then they are empowered to help themselves anytime and anyplace. You may also want to recommend our self-help book, which explains the brain science in easy terms and teaches the complete techniques.