Stress Management
Stress Management is a critical component to health and wellness and is an essential part of being healthy, in mind, body, and spirit. The Stress Management Services at Malec, Herring and Krause incorporate diaphragmatic breathing and gentle tense and release exercises. By focusing on the breath, many physiological changes occur. Releasing tension in the muscles not only impacts the effects of stress on the body, but helps the mind to let go of stressful thought patterns.
Becoming aware of where you hold tension in your body is the first step in managing stress. Another key component is noticing what thoughts coincide with muscle tension or physical discomfort. Knowing the cognitive component of stress and the physical reactions of stress creates new learning to discover the benefits of being able to respond mindfully rather than react automatically to life’s challenges.
Benefits of Stress Management:
- Reduces Pain and Prescription Medications
- Increases Circulation
- Lowers Heart Rate and Blood Pressure
- Eases Gastrointestinal Disorders
- Restores Energy
- Decreases Anxiety and Depression
- Promotes Sleep and Relaxation
Peaceful Present Stress Management is offered individually in coordination with your therapist. By adding an additional private stress management session to your ongoing psychotherapy, you can personally explore your unique patterns of responding to stress in your mind, body and breath.
With a one-on-one approach to exploring your unique stress response, you can more rapidly understand your mind/body connection and let go of old ways of responding or mindlessly reacting to stressors. By practicing new ways of letting unwanted thoughts and body tension go, you can respond less emotionally and more calmly to life’s challenges.
Group Stress Management Sessions are based on the well-documented outcome studies of Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction protocol. When the body and breath are relaxed, more active forms of movement become available to you. Group Classes are ongoing and by invitation only after proficient with basic Stress Management techniques.
Stress Management Biofeedback
Biofeedback monitors heart rate variability associated with stress.
Hearthmath® technology translates pulse data from a heart rate monitor into graphics on the computer screen allowing you to take an active role in preventing stress and managing the emotions associated with stress.
When stressed, the heart rhythm has a jagged, incoherent pattern on a computer monitor. By practicing relaxation techniques that combine rhythmic breathing with a positive emotional state, you can see your heart rhythm change to a smoother, wave-like, coherent pattern.
By measuring heart rhythm patterns, learning a coherent breathing technique combined with an intentional shift in positive emotions, you can reduce the effects of stress on the mind and body in as few as six sessions.
Common Symptoms of Stress:
- Frequent headaches
- Jaw clenching
- Neck and back pain
- Cold/sweaty hands or feet
- Heartburn
- Stomach pain
- Chest pain
- Heart Palpitations
- Excessive anxiety, worry, guilt
- Nervousness
- Anger, frustration, hostility
- Insomnia
- Difficulty concentrating
- Indecisiveness
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Disorganization or forgetfulness
- Constant fatigue or weakness
Heart Rate Coherence Training improves your stress response.
Who can Benefit?
Everyone: Anyone can learn to prevent stress by becoming aware when the stress response starts. By learning simple techniques to regulate how thoughts and emotions affect physiological and behavioral responses, we can change our stress response.
Students: Learning and academic performance is directly influenced by reduced stress and emotional control. Outcomes in attention and anxiety responses are beneficial for studying and test taking.
Athletes: Mental and emotional training is crucial to maintain composure under stress and to improve athletic performance. Coherence training improves performance in a wide range of sports, both professional and amateur.
Executives: When using a Quick Coherence Technique®, you can learn to shift and sustain a positive emotion. This can be used at any time of stress: in the morning to increase clarity and performance, during a break to recharge your system, or before a meeting to increase mental acuity and emotional balance.
Alpha-Stim®
What is Alpha-Stim® Technology? ALPHA-STIM®is an electro medical treatment for anxiety, depression and insomnia. The ALPHA-STIM® also treats acute, chronic, and postoperative pain. The Alpha-Stim applies tiny electrical currents through electrodes that attach to your ear lobes. The electrical pulses stimulate alpha waves , which are the brain waves produced during deep states of relaxation. Treatment outcomes include depression, anxiety, insomnia, and pain with none of the side effects associated with prescription medications. Unlike pharmacological treatments that can leave a person feeling drugged, the Alpha-Stim leaves the mind alert. The person undergoing Alpha-Stim treatment feels a pleasant, relaxed sense of well being. Anxiety reduction is usually experienced during treatment, but may be seen hours later, or as late as one day after treatment.
How Alpha-Stim® Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (CES)Works
It appears that the Alpha-Stim® activates the chemicals serotonin and.acetecholine. By changing the electrical and chemical activity of certain nerve cells in the brainstem, Alpha-Stim® technology appears to both amplify and diminish neurologic activity. This neurological modulation produces an alpha state which can be measured on brain wave recordings (called electro-encephalograms, abbreviated EEG). Such alpha rhythms are accompanied by feelings of calmness, relaxation and increased mental focus. The neurological mechanisms that are occurring during the alpha state appear to decrease stress-effects, reduce agitation and stabilize mood, and regulate both sensations and perceptions of particular types of pain. These effects can be produced after a single treatment, and repeated treatments have been shown to increase the relative strength and duration of these effects. In some cases, effects have been stable and permanent, suggesting that the electrical and chemical changes evoked by Alpha-Stim® technology have led to durableand lasting results.
For more information please contact us at 724-772-4949 or email us at[email protected].