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The following article was edited from a live radio interview broadcast on WHPC radio, Nassau Community College, in Garden City, New York. The program "Secrets of Success" was hosted by Bill Horan, the interviewer. (Reproduced and distributed by TRO Productions, Inc. with permission.)
Question: Dr. Orman we hear so much about stress today. Are you saying that we can't or shouldn't manage it?
Answer: Unfortunately most people are trying to manage their stress, but the results they've achieved haven't been what they hoped for.
Question: You say unfortunately, isn't it good to manage stress?
Answer: Certainly we can all benefit from stress management techniques such as exercise, dietary changes, and relaxation procedures. These all have positive benefits. But most stress experts aren't telling people the whole truth about these techniques. In particular, they're not telling people about the negative aspects of managing stress.
Question: If I may, let's stop right here and clarify what stress is before we move on. When I think of stress, I think of running around in a hurry, grabbing a cup of coffee, feeling a big knot in my stomach. Am I right, or am I wrong in thinking that way?
Answer: Well, you're both right and wrong! You see, there are 20-30 different definitions of stress floating around today. Some people define stress as a sensation in their body, like a knot in their stomach, or tight muscles, or headaches, etc. Some people define stress as having too many external pressures and demands. Others define it as having trouble concentrating or not being able to get to sleep. Still others define it as feeling tense, nervous, irritable, or apathetic.
There are a great many definitions out there, including the medical definition which views stress as measurable changes within our bodies. But what most people tend to forget is that none of these definitions is completely accurate. You see, "stress" is just a word we use to stand for hundreds of specific problems in our lives. "Stress" itself is never our problem. It's just a "buzzword" or code word for lots of other things that trouble us. But when we lump our problems together and call them "stress," we forget we really want relief from very specific things--like getting angry, feeling frustrated, having bad relationships or dealing with all sorts of other day-to-day problems.
Question: Do people handle stress differently? If we cut our finger, we all pretty much hurt and bleed. But with stress, do some people get overly excited about small things, while others remain calm and cool even in the face of a million dollar law suit?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. Whether something is a problem for you, or whether it affects your quality of life, or your health, is going to be different for different people. Two different people can be exposed to the same difficult situation, and depending upon their own unique reactions to that situation and their own ability to deal with it, they may or may not end up distressed.
Question: You've actually written an award-winning book about all this. Can you tell us the title?
Answer: Yes. It's called the "14 Day Stress Cure" and what's important for people to know is that the advice in this book is totally different from any they've received about stress so far. For example, I don't encourage people to deal with "stress" at all in this book. In fact, I advise them to stop trying to deal with "stress" per se and get specific about the problems that are troubling them or making them sick. I also don't advise people to manage their stress. Instead, I show them how to make stress naturally disappear, without managing it. This can easily be done by improving your understanding of the hidden causes of your problems and then dealing with these hidden causes effectively.
Question: Of all people, as a physician, I would think you'd probably have more stress in your life than just about anybody else.
Answer: Well, I used to have lots of stress, but I don't anymore. That's why I wrote "The 14 Day Stress Cure." To show people how I learned to cure my own stress as a physician, and how I used that knowledge to help my patients. The book really summarizes all that I've learned about stress during the past ten years, including the way I work with patients in my practice and the way I deal with stress in my own life as well.
Question: I recall from reading the introduction that you had to make major changes in your life to handle stress successfully.
Answer: I know it looks that way, but the biggest change I made was in my understanding of stress. In other words, my breakthrough really began when I realized that most of what I was taught about stress in medical school, and most of what I had learned about it from listening to experts, wasn't really true! Like millions of other Americans, I had bought into numerous myths and misconceptions about stress that were keeping me from coping with my problems successfully. When I finally became aware of what these myths were, and where they came from, I was eventually able to cure many of the problems I had been suffering with for years.
Question: Would you say that there's more stress around today than in previous ages? Certainly, we hear about it all the time now, in the newspapers, on TV, and on talk radio. Is this because there's more stress around today, or are we just talking about it more?
Answer: I certainly agree that there's been an explosion of interest in stress and its health effects during the past ten years. But I also think that stress levels are definitely on the rise. With the economy the way it is, the lack of job security, crime, overcrowding, and all the many changes people are facing in life today, I think that stress levels have clearly gone up in the past 5-10 years. And there are a number of studies to bear this out. A recent National Health Survey showed that about 75% of the general population experiences some stress at any point in time, and about half these people experience very high levels of stress. There have also been a number of studies, not just in the U.S. but in other countries as well, that show 50-60% of workers in industrialized nations have high levels of stress and tension in their jobs. So I think we are seeing a significant increase in the problem, and at the same time, I think we are also seeing proof that currently popular stress management approaches are failing to give people the relief they want.
Question: Based on your experience as a medical doctor who specializes in treating people for stress, are the people who come to you with stress related problems more likely to be a person like yourself, a professional type who's always on the run, jumping around, trying to better themselves, and who's always striving to achieve lofty goals, or it is more the other extreme, maybe a blue-collar person who says "Gee, I'm the 3rd guy down from loosing my job," or "What will I do if the union goes on strike and I can't pay the mortgage"? Is there any one group or one type of person you are seeing predominantly?
Answer: Not at all. Basically, all groups of people are struggling with stress. And, if you remember that stress is just a word we use to stand for problems, I know very few people who don't experience problems, or who don't encounter relationship or marital conflicts, or who never have difficulties at work, or who always get along with their boss, employees, or co-workers, or who never have financial concerns. Everybody in life has problems, and that's what we really mean when we say we have stress. Some people, however, know how to deal with their problems better than others, and those are the people who don't show up in my office for help.
Question: I assume you're not implying that most of our stress is exclusively job or career related. It can also include being overweight, having family problems, not getting along with your kids, or anything else.
Answer: Yes. And don't forget health problems too. Whether or not they resulted from stress originally, being sick for any reason can be a major source of additional stress.
And many other problems in society today, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, overeating, and smoking, are strongly linked to stress in many people.
Question: Do most people know when they are under stress? I know I'm overweight when my pants don't fit or my shirt gets too tight. But does stress kind of sneak up on people, or do most of us know when something is going on?
Answer: I think most of us know when we're having problems in life. We know when things aren't going well for us, or when we're not being successful at whatever we want to do or accomplish. Unfortunately, we've all been taught to define stress far too narrowly. If we don't have the exact feelings or symptoms that meet these narrow criteria, we might falsely conclude that we don't have any stress and we don't have anything to deal with. On the other hand, if we throw the word "stress" away and say OK tell me if you're having problems in your life, most people will say that, yes, they are having problems, only they didn't consider this to be stress.
Question: So if you turn the word stress around, or throw it away as you said, and ask yourself if you're having any problems, whether it's your girlfriend, boyfriend, your spouse, a death in the family, problems with a child, etc.--that's what we're really talking about today.
Answer: Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You see most people are running around today with some narrow definition of stress which gets them into trouble. So if we got rid of the word, which of course we're not going to do, or if we keep reminding ourselves that stress means problems, I think we would all be much better off. Then, instead of asking "How can I learn to deal with my stress?" we would be forced to ask ourselves more focused questions, such as How can I deal with anger or frustration more successfully? How can I deal with a marriage that's not satisfying to me, or how can I deal with the fear that I might loose my job, or that I'm going to get fired, or that my boss doesn't like me? These are all much more empowering types of questions, and once you start asking them, you're in much better position to identify the causes of your problems and deal with these causes successfully.
Question: Let me see if I'm following you so far. It sounds like most of the advice people received in the past, specifically the idea that they should manage their stress, is really like just putting a band aid on the cut? You, on the other hand, get under the band aid and deal with what's there, and maybe even show people how to prevent similar accidents from happening in the future.
Answer: Absolutely. The major drawback with stress management techniques, which is why I say they're a loosing proposition, is that stress management only deals with the symptoms of our problems. Stress management techniques don't help you identify or control the underlying causes of your problems. And this ability is what really separates people who deal with stress successfully from those who don't.
Question: For those who've just tuned in, we're talking to Dr. Mort Orman about his book, "The 14 Day Stress Cure" and he's telling us that stress is really another word for problems in life, which we all have. If we say we never suffer from stress, we either have a very unique life, or we probably have our eyes shut to what's really happening around us. Tell us, Dr. Orman, what are some of the myths you expose in "The 14 Day Stress Cure"?
Answer: Well, there're a great many myths in our society today, and in fact most stress experts and other health professionals are completely unaware of them. For example, there's no truth to the rumor that stress is an inevitable part of modern life. Many of us have also been told that there are two types of stress--good stress and bad stress--or that a certain amount of stress is necessary for us to be healthy or maximally productive in our jobs. These are all myths--very believable ones I might add--but all false nonetheless.
And we've already talked about the biggest myth--that the best way to deal with stress is to manage it. Most people have already discovered on their own, however, that managing stress is rarely the answer to their problems.
So when people read "The 14 Day Stress Cure" they usually come back to me and say "you know, everything you say about stress in your book is true. Why isn't every stress expert teaching these things?"
Question: I will tell you, if you had asked me, before today, I would have said the exercise option would seem the best approach, since we more or less keep building up stress inside, and by exercising we can let some of it out. But you're saying this isn't really so?
Answer: That strategy might work to some degree, but it doesn't go far enough. For example, if you are a person who gets angry all the time, and you go out and run five miles every day or punch a punching bag, you'll get rid of some of your anger. But will you be less likely to get angry the following day? Every day you'll keep building up more and more anger, because you never get to its source. How come you're getting angry all the time when other people aren't? Do you know the hidden mechanism that makes anger occur in any human being? Unless you know the answers to these questions, you'll keep getting angry. And you will have to exercise or punch your punching bag every day in order to keep bad things from happening. But there's a better way to cope with anger and other types of stress, and that's what I'm excited about teaching people how to do.
Question: I guess what you're saying then is it's better to get to the heart of our problems rather than just cover them up?
Answer: The best way to deal with any problem in life is not to attack its symptoms but rather to pinpoint its causes and attack these instead. Nobody ever argues with this point.
Question: But aren't most of the causes of our day-to-day stress beyond our control?
Answer: Here again, we've all been terribly misinformed. We've literally been taught to misunderstand what causes our stress to occur. This comes from the fact that some causes of stress are quite obvious. In other words, we see them very easily. But there's a whole bunch of other causes that are completely invisible to us. These consist of habitual ways of thinking and behaving that get triggered inside of us. They're very real, they do exist, but we don't normally see them or take them into account.
So what most people are doing is focusing only on the obvious causes of their problems. You know, their boss, their spouse, their living situation, the economy, other negative events that occur--things like that. And they think that's all there is to it. But in fact, they're only identifying half the puzzle pieces. They're ignoring other important pieces of the puzzle that are going on within them. And that's why they can't seem to influence many of their problems, no matter how hard they try.
Question: Let me give you a personal analogy. The other day, I was feeling bad, so I started cleaning off my desk in the office. I found some amazing things buried in there, but I also immediately started to feel much better--I felt more organized and more in control of my work and less distracted by all the clutter. When you're dealing with patients, is it often something small like that helps the cure, or does it require something major? I mean do you tell people to move to another state or change jobs or get rid of their spouse, or is it usually some small adjustment they can make to turn things around?
Answer: People usually walk in thinking the only thing that's going to cure their problems is getting a new job or changing their current living situation. But that's because they're only looking at the obvious causes of their problems. Once they learn that there are other important causes--hidden patterns of thinking and behaving within them that are totally within their control--they quickly discover that they don't have to change their life dramatically to improve. Once they learn to identify and deal with the hidden internal causes of their stress, much of their suffering begins to clear up, and they start understanding how to cope with life more successfully. And most are amazed to find that many of the problems they thought were beyond their control really aren't. This is a very, very powerful revelation.
As a physician, despite all my years of professional training, I was never taught to understand the hidden causes of my stress. I had to go out and learn about them on my own. And that's why I wrote "The 14 Day Stress Cure," so people could have an easy way to gain new insights into the hidden causes of their problems. Because once people have this information available to them, they become much more successful at dealing with any kind of stress they experience.
Question: Dr. Orman, you told me before the show that you recently conducted a scientific study regarding your book and that the results were quite impressive.
Answer: Yes, we wanted to prove that in just 14 days people's ability to cope with stress could be improved. In our study group, we were able to show that 3 of every 4 people who read "The 14 Day Stress Cure" had remarkable improvements in their day-to-day stress levels.
Question: Dr. Orman, can you briefly tell us some of the steps in your method?
Answer: In my book, I give people a step-by-step approach for making stress naturally disappear. This six-step method is outlined in detail in Chapter 4. Step #1 is to forget about dealing with "stress" per se and focus on the specific problem or problems that are troubling you. Then I give people tools to identify some of the hidden causes of these problems that they normally don't take into consideration. Then, once they know what some of these hidden causes are, I give them additional tips and techniques for dealing with these causes effectively. All in all, it's an excellent method for coping with any type of stress that might be bothering you, whether it's relationship problems at home or work, dealing with negative thoughts or emotions, worrying about your kids, having a stress-related health problem, being fearful of speaking in public, or what have you.
Question: You sound like a good athletic coach who shows us that some small change, like moving our hands a little bit up or down, can suddenly make everything fall right into place.
Answer: Yes, that's exactly what I do. I don't consider myself a psychotherapist. I'm a physician. But what I can do for people is coach them. In fact, there's a whole chapter in my book devoted to how coaching differs from psychotherapy. And really, that's all most people need--good coaching. They don't need long term psychotherapy for most of the problems they experience in life. What they need is a good coach. Somebody who can point things out to them they don't normally see about their problems.
Question: To get back to your book, you use a new word called Biolinguistics that I'd like to hear more about. Can you tell us the role Biolinguistics plays and what it means?
Answer: Biolinguistics has to do with the role of language in human life. It reveals a whole new way of understanding ourselves as human beings. For example, I explain in my book how mind-body thinking is one of the main reasons we still have a stress epidemic today. Thus, in order to deal with stress successfully, most people need to completely change their common sense understanding of themselves as human beings. That's what Biolinguistics is all about, and I'm really excited about it, because it's one of the biggest advances in understanding ourselves that's happened in many years.
Question: Did I hear you say before that many of the diseases in our society today are caused, either in whole or in part, by stress?
Answer: Every day, we're collecting more and more evidence that stress can affect our immune system, our cardiovascular system, and other areas of our body. Many illnesses have clearly been shown to be associated with stress, like tension headaches, skin rashes, high blood pressure, and various intestinal ailments. But I think there are many more illnesses that in the near future will also be found to be stress related. So I believe stress plays a significant role in many physical illness and diseases.
Question: Do most of your patients cause their own problems? Would you say, in general, that most people are responsible for the stress they experience?
Answer: No. I think it's very bad to tell people that they're responsible for their stress. I really don't think this is true, because it tends to deny the role that external events and circumstances play. But I do think we always contribute to our stress in ways we don't normally notice. In other words, the situations we experience in life do play a role in how much stress we experience, but there are also thought patterns and behavior patterns that get triggered within us that contribute as well. Lots of times, we can't do much about the external events that happen to us, or the way other people behave, or new rules we have to follow. But we can always do something about any stress-producing thought patterns or behavior patterns that get triggered within us, once we become aware of these patterns, that is, and once we know how to deal with them effectively.
Question: I think we've all seen some fascinating new things about stress today. Dr. Orman thanks for adding your helpful ideas to all the tips we are learning every week about how to be successful.
We would like to thank you at this time for being on our show today, and we'd like to remind our audience that if they want to order a copy of "The 14 Day Stress Cure" ($24.95) they can do so from Amazon.com.
This program is produced at WHPC radio, 90.3 FM in Garden City, and we ask you to please join us again next week at this same time, when we will continue our journey to success.
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