“Stress is essentially the rate of all the wear and tear caused by life.”, The Stress of Life, by Hans Seyle, M.D., (McGraw Hill,1978)

Stress is anything that puts the body in flight-or-fight (FOF) mode causing an increase in heart, respiratory and blood pressure rates, and moving blood away from your digestive organs and into large muscles in preparation for a “fight or flight”. In FOF, your body is in a state of red alert or readiness, as it gets ready to run from that big’ol tiger, or to fight competitively for that big business deal. The technical terms for FOF are “activation of the sympathetic nervous system” or “autonomic arousal.” Of the two conditions of stress, acute stress and chronic stress, either may come from biophysical or psychosocial stressors or both.

If a person under stress who is on FOF does not discharge the arousal by actually fleeing or fighting in response to that stress (and many modern stresses cannot be run from or fought), the readiness to act is stored chronically in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a part of the brain that functions as the connection between the mind and the rest of the body. It is like a switchboard that ultimately controls all parts and functions of the bodymind.

When stress occurs and a person goes in to FOF, the effect of the stressor (called stress-effect) that is not discharged by fleeing or fighting accumulates in the hypothalamus as stored stress-effect. Over the years, the stored stress-effect increases, creating heavier and heavier burden of readiness in the hypothalamus, until it completely changes how the hypothalamus runs your entire bodymind. The result is your bodymind stays in a continual state of FOF.

Ultimately, stored stress-effect directly affects function and dysfunction of body and mind, and is the root cause of many chronic (long-term) health conditions. Stored stress-effect does not actually cause illness by itself, but at least greatly aggravates and contributes to every illness to which humans are heir. Recapture Your Health, by Walt Stoll, M.D., and Jan DeCourtney, C.M.T., (Sunrise Health Coach Publications, 2006).

Skilled Relaxation (SR) is a skill that you learn and develop that automatically reverses the buildup of chronic stress-effect and does so at a rate of 24 times as fast than sleep. YOU WILL ACTUALLY BE PRACTICING A SKILLED RELAXATION TECHNIQUE WHILE USING EITHER THE HOLOSYNC SOLUTION OR STRESSERASER.

SR is an activity that produces a physical relaxation response that occurs when you slow down your brainwaves. When you practice SR, you change the activity of your brainwaves from ordinary waking consciousness (beta brainwave) to relaxed (alpha or theta brainwave). This is not to be confused with sleep (delta brainwave) though.

Brainwaves are nothing mysterious, unusual or new. You experience all of them constantly and also sequentially every night when you fall asleep.

There are four categories of brain wave patterns. The most rapid is called a beta brain wave pattern, the pattern of normal waking consciousness. Beta is associated with concentration, arousal, alertness, and cognition.

At its highest, most rapid levels, though, beta is associated with anxiety, disharmony, and dis-ease. (Perhaps the ability to slow yourself down from those levels might be beneficial??)

As you become more relaxed, your brain wave activity slows into what is called an alpha brain wave pattern. Alpha patterns vary from deep alpha, a state of deep relaxation often referred to as the twilight state between sleep and waking, to the higher end of alpha which is a more focused yet still very relaxed state.

When you are absorbed in a good book (or a television show) you are probably in alpha. And, as I already mentioned, alpha is often associated with what is known as "superlearning"—the ability to learn, process, store and recall large amounts of information quickly and efficiently.

Slower still are theta waves. Theta is best known as the brain wave state of dreaming sleep, but it is also associated with a number of other beneficial states, including increased creativity, some kinds of superlearning, increased memory abilities, and what are called integrative experiences (in which we make broadly-based positive changes in the way we see ourselves, others, or a certain life situation).