Note: The Stop Your Pain Now! Emotional Stress Reduction Technique is our first line of defense when confronted by stressful factors, whether they be part of our daily life or long-term stressors.  This article provides another adjunctive procedure that you may use to help reduce your stress.

Did you ever wonder why a distraught person is usually seen holding his or her head in the hands?  Or when overcome by great surprise, why we often instinctively hit the forehead with our hand?

The body does not perform these instinctive acts by mistake.  On the skin of the forehead are located neurological “circuit breakers” which are associated with mental and emotional stress overload.  See figure 1.

Figure 1:

Emotional Stress Overload “Circuit Breakers”

Just as when there is a power overload in your house, and a circuit breaker blows, a similar pattern takes place in the body when it encounters an overload of activity from mental or emotional factors.  And just as we reset the circuit breaker in our house, so may we reset the emotional stress overload circuit in the body.

Dr. George Goodheart, the founder of applied kinesiology, made the first observations of these emotional stress overload circuits (at the time he called them “emotional neurovascular reflexes”) in 1968.  He found that holding these areas with a light contact with the fingers, almost a slight stretching or tugging of the skin would act as a treatment to reset these circuits.

This simple trechnqiue for mental and emotional stress can be performed by you on yourself, or even better, by a close friend or family member.  Hold the “emotional stress overload circuit breakers” with the fingertips until a slight pulsation (like taking your pulse on your wrist or your neck) is felt in both fingers simultaneously.  This usually takes from 30 seconds to two minutes.  Once the pulsation is felt, the contacts may be held for a few more seconds and then released. The treatment is then complete. See figure 2.

Figure 2:

Holding the Emotional Stress Overload “Circuit Breakers”

 

 A typical use of these emotional stress circuit breakers was seen at a funeral where every member of the bereaved family showed a need for holding these points on the forehead.  Doing so allowed the family to make it through the crisis without breaking down.  This is not to say that it was easy, but the ability to carry on was maintained by the family when, at one point, it appeared that several of them might not be able to go through the funeral process.

Some people never “get over” a loved one’s death, a marital breakup, or other severe stress.  Never.  These people live their lives in the constant presence of the past emotional stress.  Even extensive counseling doesn’t help some people.  Counselling at such times can be most important for a person, but counselling does not reset the emotional stress overload circuit breakers if they have been short circuited.

How many stressful life events can you think about which cause your “stomach to tie into a knot” or a queasy feeling to occur or tears to fill your eyes?  The presence of these symptoms when thinking about an emotionally stressing event are a surefire indication that the emotional stress overload points need to be “reset” by you or someone close to you.

You will feel changes such as a relaxation of the abdomen, a sigh, or a relief of tension throughout the body.  In addition, the emotionally stressing thought will usually no longer elicit the physical or mental symptoms that it did previously.

These treatments do not bury or hide the emotionally stressing mental activity and can be used in conjunction with counselling with one approach facilitating the other.  These techniques keep the problem in the head where it belongs and stop it from spilling over and adversely affecting the body.  This is seen by the abatement of physical symptoms associated with the thought process.

You can observe thse changes by using Indicator Testing.  That is, measure something, a pain or a range of motion, both prior to and after holding the emotional stress overload circuit breakers on the forehead.  After treating these points for 30 seconds to two minutes as described above, we must still deal with the psychological ramifications of the stress, but now we can do so without the extra burden of the stressful spill over into the body which depletes our reserves.

If you experience the need to perform these points repeatedly, see your doctor.  There are certain nutritional factors which might be necessary in order for the treatment to maintain itself in about thirty percent of people.  But there is no harm in holding or tapping these treatment points anytime the stress level warrants.  Some highly stressed people, including doctors, hold them for a minute every morning and a minute every night as a preventative measure.  In fact, I often do it myself.