Self-help treatment becomes a way of life

We all get stressed or nothing would ever get done. Isn’t it stress which makes us study for the exam, prepare for the speech / job interview, run for the train, organise moving house, getting married or divorced? Nothing wrong with stress.

Back in primitive times, we were fortunate to have an acutely sensitive stress reaction mechanism where the main aim was to survive. We sensed the tiger behind the lamp-post and we immediately moved to the ‘fight-flight-freeze’ reaction (the body’s recognition of major alert). This helped us to achieve safety, and probably dinner, for ourselves and families. Our instinctive survival mechanism hasn’t changed in thousands of years. But our lives and circumstances have.

Now we can find ourselves reacting inappropriately to the tasks in hand, and worse, once the ‘danger’ has passed (we missed the train), we can’t shift that anxious, nagging feeling that all is not right with the world. Over time irritating symptoms pop up: frequent headaches, mood swings, low energy, maybe sleep problems and poor concentration (brain-fog). We are in ‘distress’ – and we don’t know what to do to solve it.

And further frustration occurs when we do everything in our power to stave off anxiety and we find we can’t. Pills might help to a certain degree, but this is not a permanent answer.

What we can do is learn a well-established method called Autogenic Training (AT)

This is a self-help system of mental exercise (a bit meditative but easy to do) which enhances the body’s natural self-righting processes. Evolved 100 years ago by a German neuro-psychiatrist, the method engages mind and body together in a structured system using relaxation and repeated silent thought-phrases relating to the body in its relaxed state. We sit or lie in a comfortable, neutral and symmetrical posture for less than 10 minutes at a time.

These mental exercises are standard for everyone: you practise at home three or four times a day (in bed before sleep, on the train). Each week you report on your experience and then learn the next exercise – the whole programme is monitored and completed in 8-10 weekly sessions.

Each time you practice the mind-body system has an opportunity to readjust itself, by quietening down the fight-flight reaction. The work is truly ‘autogenic’: you practise/administer the method for yourself (auto) and the results of that come from within yourself (genic). Over time, you might find change occurs spontaneously, or the supportive awareness of the therapist will help you.

Even if we think we are reacting to current stresses, the autogenic process can be experienced as a holistic one: old memories relating to past illness, surgeries, difficult life events, sorrows and joys can fleetingly occur in its random journey. The altered state of consciousness does the work, not our effortful thinking brains ‘trying’ to sort out our lives.

People say: ‘I feel a new person.’ ‘I am much nicer to live with’. ‘I can stand back.’ ‘Others can get stressed – not me.’