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How to Elicit the Relaxation Response, Step by StepWhen Dr. Herbert Benson introduced this simple, effective, mind/body approach to relieving stress forty years ago, his book became an instant national bestseller. Since that time, millions of people have learned the secret — without high-priced lectures or prescription medicines. The Relaxation Response has become the classic reference recommended by most health care professionals and authorities to treat stress. Discovered by Dr. Benson and his colleagues in the laboratories of Harvard Medical School and its teaching hospitals, this revitalizing, therapeutic approach is now routinely recommended to treat patients suffering from heart conditions, high blood pressure, chronic pain, insomnia, and many other physical and psychological ailments. It requires only minutes to learn, and just ten minutes of practice a day.From the Foreword:Quote:When The Relaxation Response was first published in 1975, the Vietnam War and the cultural upheaval that accompanied it loomed large. Only two years earlier, the Supreme Court had established a woman’s right to a legal abortion in its controversial Roe v. Wade decision. AIDS would not be discovered for six more years. The precursor of in vitro fertilization, the first test-tube baby had yet to be born. Two Californians were working in their garage to build the Apple, the first mass-produced computer. Fax machines and cell phones were a gleam in their inventors’ eyes.Indeed, the world today is dramatically different from the world that was first introduced to the connections of mind and body detailed in The Relaxation Response. Three decades ago it was considered scientific heresy for a Harvard physician and researcher to hypothesize that stress contributed to health problems and to publish studies showing that mental focusing techniques were good for the body. I broke ranks with the medical establishment when I decided to pursue this theory and to prove or disprove it in my medical research.Today we, as a society, take for granted the multifaceted and intimate relationship between mind and body. Scientists now avidly pursue ties between brain activity and physical manifestations. Millions of Americans now elicit the Relaxation Response regularly, as Yoga classes swell, athletes report “being in the Zone,” and people set up quiet places in their homes to meditate or pray.Despite the advances that have been made, this twenty-fifth anniversary update of The Relaxation Response is sorely needed. Mind/body science has made enormous progress but has yet to be incorporated as an equal, fully respected partner in Western medical disciplines. As many times as science has affirmed the original message of the book over the past two-and-a-half decades, medicine and society have yet to take full advantage of the healing resources within the mind/body realm.So much has changed: our economy is becoming more globalized, and barriers between countries are being pulled down. But we have yet to witness a corollary paradigm shift in medicine. Today, our appetites have been whetted with quick fixes, so much so that our quest for diagnostic gadgets and miracle drugs has almost overcome common sense. We expect that surgical acumen will be enough to save us and if not, the next remarkable scientific discovery will. Although mind/body therapies have been proven effective for the vast majority of everyday medical problems, we are still far more apt to run to our medicine cabinet to relieve aches and pains than to consider relaxation or stress-management techniques.Evolution has yielded us a human body that is astonishingly reliable, able to perpetuate breath and thought, movement and experience, day after day, year after year. By and large, our bodies function even when we bombard them with stress and fatty food, even when we neglect to exercise or to get a good night’s sleep. Clearly, we are blessed with an incredible internal technology.Sadly though, we still rely far more than we should on external fixes—on medications and medical and surgical procedures developed in laboratories—and not on our natural potential for self-healing. Therapies we can purchase and caregivers we can consult, whether available through conventional or unconventional medicine, are still far more impressive to us than our own hearts and minds, lungs and hopes, muscles and beliefs, even though they sustain us day in and day out.ContentsCover Title Page Dedication ContentsForeword1 An astute physician is lamenting the times:2 If you owned a factory and a sales representative called…3 Stress has long been the subject of psychological and physiologic…4 Are we really able to adjust to physiologically jarring changes…5 The physiologic changes of the Relaxation Response are associated with…6 We have pointed out that the regular inappropriate activation of…7 The case for the use of the Relaxation Response by…8 Throughout this book we have tried to show you that…BibliographySearchable TermsPraiseCopyrightAbout the PublisherHardcover: 222 pagesPublisher: Random House Value Publishing (Dec 19 1992)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0517091321ISBN-13: 978-0517091326ASIN: B002OMZTTO