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Stress Treatments

What Are Some Treatments for Stress?

Dr. Diane® Brain Health divides stress treatments into two categories: Internal and External. There are many internal and external stress treatments. Internal methods you can do on your own and external methods require outside help. If you have a method that works for you, then great. For those of you who have not found a method that works, or if you would like additional methods to use, here are internal and external methods for dealing with the symptoms of stress.

Internal Treatments

  • Art
  • Distraction
  • Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT) / Thought Field Therapy (TFT)
  • Exercise: walking, Yoga, Tai Chi, etc.
  • Fidgeting
  • Heart Rate Variability Breathing
  • Humor
  • Hypnosis
  • Meditation
  • Music: Singing, dancing, drumming
  • Nutrition
  • Prayer
  • Progressive Relaxation
  • Thinking about something else
  • Visualization

Creating art is an internal method that calms an overactive Limbic system. This is also true of humor. Heart Rate Variability Breathing, on the other hand, requires some external devices to give you the proper feedback. One of the best is through HeartMath Inner Balance.

Exercise, whether it is active sports, or recreational activity such as yoga, Tai Chi, Reiki, and/or QiGong, produces a calming effect on the brain without any external tools. Clara Diebold is a Reiki Master and is a part of the Brain Health Team.

Hypnosis is the natural ability to detach from a current situation. Once you have learned how to do it, you will have an effective method for alleviating anxiety. Worldwide, prayer and/or mediation are two other calming methods.

Visualization Techniques

You may prefer using visualization, distraction or breathing techniques as stress treatments, if so, Dr. Joseph Cautella, Ph.D. (professor of Psychology at Boston College) developed the Cautella’s Self Control Triad. Dr. Diane® had the privilege and honor of being trained by Dr. Cautella.

A brief explanation of Cautella’s method:

You learn to stop thinking by saying, “Stop,” and then take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale out of your mouth. As you do this you picture your entire body covered with water, then picturing a squeegee, you visualize the squeegee removing the water from the top of your head down to your toes. You keep doing this until you feel calmer, and then you imagine a calm relaxing scene.

Energy Psychology

For many people fidgeting with their clothing, hair, or other objects can be very calming. Singing, dancing, making rhythmic sounds, tapping, or drumming is also very effective. If you like drumming or tapping, there is a form of Energy Psychology called Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT) and/or Thought Field Therapy (TFT), which encourages you to tap specific acupressure points in a specific pattern and alleviate anxiety.

Energy Medicine

Founded and developed by Donna Eden and Dr. David Feinstein, energy medicine heals the body by activating and/or restoring its natural healing energies that have become weak or out of balance. Energy medicine uses techniques from healing methods such as acupuncture and yoga to kinesiology and Qi Gong. These different approaches work well against the symptoms of stress, PCS and PTSD. Dr. Diane® is a certified practitioner for all these methods.

Dr. Diane® Brain Health

Our integrative team of brain health experts are trained in conventional, complementary and alternative specialties. This team, using the 5 Prong Approach, will provide you with a customized treatment program for Stress, because Dr. Diane® sees each person as a unique individual and knows that one method does not fit everyone.

External Treatments

  • Acupuncture
  • Aroma Therapy
  • Biofeedback
  • Brainspotting
  • Cognitive Behavior Therapy or Talk Therapy (CBT)
  • Cranial Electro Stimulation (CES)
  • Cranial Sacral Therapy
  • Energy Medicine
  • Energy Work: Reiki, Polarity, Quantum Touch
  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
  • Herbal Remedies
  • Homeopathic-including Bach Flower Essence
  • Hot Bath or Hot Tub
  • Light Therapy
  • Massage, such as reflexology or Feldenkrais Method
  • Medication
  • Neurofeedback
  • Night out: movie, theater, etc.
  • Sound Therapy
  • Vacation

Biofeedback

Biofeedback, which includes thermal, muscular and EEG (Neurofeedback), is like looking in a mirror and seeing the reflection of your inner responses rather than your outer appearance. Ordinarily, you cannot influence your brain wave activity because you have no information about it. However, when you can see real time information about your brain function on a computer screen, you then can influence that function in a positive way.

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback is a technology-based learning technique that uses a computer to give information to a person about his or her own brainwave pattern in the form of EEG activity. This is a process in which subtle brainwave information is amplified and shown back to the trainee in the form of a computer game. When the brain is not functioning properly, evidence of this will show up in EEG activity. The brain will then recognize this and make voluntary changes based on what it “sees” via computerized graphic displays and sounds. This challenges the brain to learn to reorganize itself and function more effectively.

Both Dr. Diane® and Paul Soper are the Neurofeedback specialists and are part of the Brain Health Expert Team.

SCENAR (Self-controlled Energy Neuro Adaptive Regulation)

This technique uses signals that are modified depending on past events—this backward-looking technology is seen as reorganizing. The newer Cosmodic technology of adaptive regulation looks ahead at the body’s desired (target) state of response, making it more regenerative.

Cranial Electro Stimulation (CES)

Another Biofeedback method was developed in Russia during the 1950s is Cranial Electro Stimulation (CES). Through double blind clinical trials this technology has proven effective in treating stress, anxiety, insomnia, and depression. It is a registered FDA medical device for alleviating the symptoms of these conditions, and it is effective for chronic pain.

All of these forms of neurofeedback are specifically designed to ease anxiety, though the number of sessions of treatment will depend on the specific cause. Using Neurofeedback and talk therapy, in conjunction with many of the other internal and external methods shown, anxiety can be eased. Both Dr. Diane® and Paul Soper provide Neurofeedback as part of the Brain Health Expert Team.

Other External Treatments

Acupuncture has been around for over 4,000 years as an external method for easing stress. William Mogan, Tom Tam, and Yvonne Tam are our team acupuncturists.

Your thoughts can cause your body and brain to react. Understanding how you think and how to change your thinking can be effectively done through talk therapy; Dr. Diane® is a licensed psychologist.

Another form of therapy specifically designed to deal with stress, anxiety, and PTSD, is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which was developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro. This form of psychotherapy uses an eight-phase approach to disconnect the thought of the traumatic event from the emotional and physical reaction to it. By identifying the triggers responsible for stress, anxiety, or PTSD we provide you with valuable tools to work through and sever the connection.

Light therapy uses lasers, from infrared and visual wave patterns, to sitting under various colored lights to produce a calming effect on the brain.

Our bodies have limited ways of telling us when something is wrong, even though what is causing the symptoms of stress can vary greatly. So, to be able to provide effective stress treatments it is important to look at coexisting diagnosis’ so that the true cause can be found.

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Dr. Diane® Roberts Stoler, Ed.D.
7 Hodges Street
N. Andover, MA 01845
Phone: (800) 500-9971
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Image Credit Elaine Boucher

Within each person shines an inner light that illuminates our path and is the source of hope. Illness, trauma, suffering and grief can diminish the light and shroud hope. I am a catalyst for hope and change, offering a way to rekindle this inner light.

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