November 2004 | Whole Health: Practitioner Profile
Uncommon Healer
Relieving stress, six seconds at a time
by Andrew Mulholland
You might think there is no cure for stress, but psychophysiologist Robert Simon Siegel has other ideas. In fact, he says you can relieve a good deal of your stress — are you ready? — in six seconds.
“Stress has evaded remedy for decades because it crosses several disciplines including biology and psychology,” says Siegel. Only by integrating knowledge of the mental, physical, emotional, motivational, perceptual, energetic and behavioral is a genuine treatment protocol possible.
Siegel works toward doing just that sort of integration with groups and individuals. He has conducted workshops for huge multinational corporations, presented classes for members of the Washington Athletic Club, counseled individuals and just last month taught his stress-remedying techniques to local government environmental officials. He doesn’t plan to stop his unique brand of “cross-training” any time soon.
EM caught up with Siegel to discuss his ideas and practices:
STRESS AS A POSITIVE “The actual positive function of stress is fascinating and has been largely unrecognized. ‘Stress’ operates biologically as a feedback signal to successfully navigate change. Like a ringing telephone, its job is to communicate the perception of ‘change’ and then to give continuous feedback — guidance — until a successful adaptive response to change has been accomplished. Then the stress dissolves. This is true for people and for corporations.”
EARTH TO YOU “Functionally, all of the so-called ‘symptoms’ of stress are actually unheeded communications about change, trying to get your attention and provide important information. Unheeded over time, signals (symptoms) increase, causing damage and costs. This is also true for people and organizations.”
BREAKING THE STRESS LOOP “An ability to adapt, navigate and prosper with change — what I call thriving — is the health key to all biological life.”
THE REMEDY “To dissolve stress successfully, all four body systems — mental, emotional, physical and energetic — must be reset quickly to healthy calm or ‘homeostasis.’ Addressing fewer than all four won’t succeed, since any system ignored re-triggers the others. Fortunately, control levers exist.
“A major part of the remedy is totally natural: ‘the deep sigh breath.’ When upsetting emotional events are resolved, we sigh. Sighing corrects breath-holding, the breathing pattern of stress.
“Sighing’s physiological purpose is to reset internal activity from high arousal (stress) to low arousal (calm). This three-step procedure quickly restores calm: 1. Inhale deeply and smoothly through the nose; 2. Release like a sigh, through the nose, exhaling naturally, neither forcing nor controlling; and 3. Rest. After exhaling, fully let go, as long as comfortable — until your body signals to inhale. That takes about six seconds. Repeat as needed.”
THE VITAL THIRD STEP “Repeat as needed. Rarely prescribed, the vital third step resets the brain, literally quieting sympathetic adrenaline reactions. The ‘deep sigh breath’ is a single (though powerful) technique that resets the sympathetic nervous system.”
BUSINESS OF LIFE “My innovative Thriving with Change trainings for corporations have helped companies to significantly lower costs of healthcare and absenteeism.”
MORE INFO Siegel is author of the newly revised book “Six Seconds to True Calm: Thriving Skills for the 21st Century.” He has pioneered the successful remedy of stress conditions as a specialist in medical clinics, hospitals, wellness centers and for some of the country’s top corporations. He is founder of Thriving with Change trainings. Visit www.thrivingwithchange.com to learn more.
Andrew Mulholland is a regular contributor to Evergreen Monthly. He tried Robert Simon Siegel six-second remedy while writing this article.
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