Stress Management Books - Feeling Good in Times of Crisis and Chaos
I have been a so called "sensitive reserved wimp" all my life, which makes me an expert in stress and fear.
Really, I learned that for a long time actually fear, stress and anxiety were the basic motivational factors in my life.
Since the early nineties, that didn't work for me anymore.
It became just too stressful, because the stimulation of fear, that came from the outside, became unbearable.
And now we have a publicly declared time of "global crisis", so, it becomes crucial to find solutions and make a conscious effort to be happy, not matter what, to even be able to function properly in everyday life.
I am not going to go into the theory about fear, science etc.
I believe the question that is interesting for everybody is: What works? (for me, and maybe for you?) I am going to introduce 4 different approaches, that I and many other people found effective, for different specific purposes around stress, anxiety and fear responses.
I like science, and technology, but "unscientific" isn't about science, but about religion, politics, power or "who is right", and that doesn't interest me so much.
"What works" is a different approach.
And "normality" or "main stream" also isn't the focus of this article.
I think normality is incurable anyways.
The focus is, "what works for many people" and what is the "playing field", the "connotations" to adapt to, that you can expect.
Nothing works for everybody.
So, if you feel attracted to any of those alternative methods for stress management, that I mentioned, feel free, to take a step to further explore them.
Look at my resource box below for more information.
Really, I learned that for a long time actually fear, stress and anxiety were the basic motivational factors in my life.
Since the early nineties, that didn't work for me anymore.
It became just too stressful, because the stimulation of fear, that came from the outside, became unbearable.
And now we have a publicly declared time of "global crisis", so, it becomes crucial to find solutions and make a conscious effort to be happy, not matter what, to even be able to function properly in everyday life.
I am not going to go into the theory about fear, science etc.
I believe the question that is interesting for everybody is: What works? (for me, and maybe for you?) I am going to introduce 4 different approaches, that I and many other people found effective, for different specific purposes around stress, anxiety and fear responses.
- Meridian tapping techniques or MTT, these are different "systems" that are actually not so very different, because they are all based on the Chinese energy meridian model and add some simple NLP related "talk" that addresses the problem.
It will be easy for you to relate to these methods, if you have some relation or openness to Chinese medicine, and their energy model.
I found these simple tools very effective and easy to use, the more, the more specific your fear or anxiety is, which confirms, what many other people experience.
The book I am recommending is by Silvia Hartmann, the bestseller about these techniques, a fun and interesting read.
- The Option Dialogue, which is a Socratic dialogue system, emphasizes that all fear is actually a rational response, based on a belief, that we hold.
And if we change that belief, the fear response changes as well.
This isn't as "main stream" as other systems, but is very effective and interesting for people, like me, who have done fear a lot in their lives, and want to change that on a fundamental level, and are open to a lot of self-enquiry.
Finding answers.
Not the answers of gurus and experts, but their own answers.
Since they are also the ones who have the fear.
Not the experts.
Very self-empowering.
The books I am recommending are two books by Barry Neil Kaufman, one is a short paperback, and the other is "the full program".
- Ho'oponopono is virtually the opposite in approach, philosophically, from what I call "Option" for short, because they say, help comes from the Divine, that created us and the problem is what they call "the data" in us, which conventional psychology calls "the unconscious".
They have very simple tools and techniques to "clean the data" that cause the problem, and if you are open to their basic philosophy of taking 100% responsibility, and accept the basic concept of a creator and the Divine, then maybe this is for you.
I find it very helpful, and I use it often, because as much as I like to explore myself, sometimes I just want to "let go and let god".
I am recommending several things here, books and free videos and other stuff. - Bach Flower Remedies, this is a relatively old "method", Edward Bach found these remedies almost a century ago, and they are very easy to find, every health food shop in America has them on stock, I believe, and this collection of 38 remedies, that Edward Bach found, has several remedies, that work specifically with fear and stress.
Good thing about it: For people who are used to "self-medicate" in case of stress, this is a way, that is efficient, (really, when I worked in a hard drug rehab as a physician, I turned around many emotional emergencies, just with a few drops of Bach Flowers) and easy to get hold of.
And they are all natural, chemical free.
Several books to recommend here, that teach you how to make the right choices and the background of this method.
I like science, and technology, but "unscientific" isn't about science, but about religion, politics, power or "who is right", and that doesn't interest me so much.
"What works" is a different approach.
And "normality" or "main stream" also isn't the focus of this article.
I think normality is incurable anyways.
The focus is, "what works for many people" and what is the "playing field", the "connotations" to adapt to, that you can expect.
Nothing works for everybody.
So, if you feel attracted to any of those alternative methods for stress management, that I mentioned, feel free, to take a step to further explore them.
Look at my resource box below for more information.
