Americans are stressed out. The American Institute of stress estimates stress has a $300 billion price tag when you take into account accidents, loss of productivity, and medical, legal and insurance costs.

Aside from just the dollar value, stress has a major impact on health. It has been associated with fatigue, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, depression and sleep disorders. Stress alone does not cause all of these health problems, but the problems arise from the way most of us respond to stress.

Stress is what happens when fear or anxiety become a constant state. The physiological effects include contracted muscles, increased heart rate, constricted breathing. The adrenal system is over taxed and blood pressure rises. Stress interferes with the body's natural flow of energy. It cuts down our available energy and forces us to function on adrenaline.

Just a few causes of stress: noise pollution, poor lighting, poor nutrition, computer use and exposure, overwhelm, intensity and pace of life, self expectations, expectation of others, the “not good enough” syndrome. We at Brain Breakthrough utilize sound therapy, color therapy and the HeartMath Solution, among others, to assist our clients in managing the stressful reactions to their fast paced lives.

Our energy level is determined by the functioning of chemical systems and nerve impulses throughout the body. Neural activity (the passage of information along our nerves) resembles electricity in several ways. The potential for excitation of the nerve synapses depends on the level of energy charge in the brain. The brain acts like a battery which is constantly being either charged or discharged. Dr Alfred Tomatis [Research pioneer of Sound Therapy] contends that the most important function of the ear is to charge the brain through the stimulation of sound. Failure of the ear to provide sufficient re-charge to the brain results in fatigue and inefficient mental processes.

Noise

Noise is one of the biggest contributors to stress and fatigue. Dr Tomatis discovered that the ear is intended to hear mainly high frequency sounds, because most of the sensory cells in the inner ear are accumulated in the high frequency zone. It is the high frequency sounds which replenish the brain's energy and activate the cortex, improving our ability to think. Unfortunately, most of the sounds we hear in our mechanized, urbanized lifestyle are low frequency sounds. Traffic, factories, household appliances, refrigerator, fluorescent lights and even computers put out a low frequency drone which drains the brain of energy and causes stress.

How can Sound Therapy help?

Many, many people experience “listening disabilities” and do not realize it.

These weaknesses or problems in processing sound can adversely affect us in many ways including: communication skills, learning abilities, attention and behavior, energy levels, coordination, relaxation, brain function and sensory integration. Improving or enhancing our ability to process sound can produce specific benefits.

Often subtle improvements in auditory processing enable children and adults to improve their attention span and concentration. Some children begin to move ahead much more easily in reading, spelling, and handwriting. Greater steadiness and focus also build better motor control and speech and, with that, improved self-esteem and motivation. For some children and adults the neurological input provided by The Listening Program is the jump-start they need to make a major change and come alive in many dynamic ways.

Listening to the music in The Listening Program literally exercises and tones tiny muscles in the ear and helps build stronger multi-sensory pathways in the brain. The brain receives especially rich auditory stimulation, and its ability to process sound improves.

The Listening Program was designed by a cross-disciplinary team of experts to help balance and restore our ability to listen to and process sounds across the full auditory spectrum, from 20Hz to 20,000 Hz. This can result in striking improvements across the human continuum, from academic performance to emotional balance.

The Listening Program music can help compensate for the draining, stressful effect of low frequency noise. The effect upon the person is one of harmonizing, vitalizing and healing in almost every area of being. 80% to 90% of Sound Therapy users notice a significant reduction in their stress levels.

Your Brain Breakthrough practitioner will work with you in purchasing and using this at- home program.

The effects of color on our moods, health, and way of thinking have been studied by scientists for years. Your preference for one color over another may be related to the way that color makes you feel.

Colors are visible light energy of certain wavelengths. Photoreceptors in the retina, called cones, translate this energy in such a way as to allow us to perceive colors. The retina contains three kinds of cones: one for blue, one for green, and one for red. We perceive other colors by combining these colors.

How Color Therapy Can Help

When the energy of color enters our bodies, it stimulates the pituitary and pineal glands. This in turn affects the production of certain hormones, which in turn affect a variety of physiological processes. This explains why color has been found to have such a direct influence on our thoughts, moods, and behavior-an influence that many experts believe is distinctly separate from psychological and cultural factors. Color seems to have an effect even on blind people, who are thought to sense color as a result of energy vibrations created within the body.

In 1942, the Russian scientists demonstrated that red light stimulates the sympathetic nervous system [stress response], while white and blue light stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system [relaxation response]. Other experiments revealed that certain colors stimulate hormone production, while other colors inhibit it.

Specific colors can also have an effect on specific diseases. Symptoms of acute eruptive diseases such as smallpox and measles were relieved when patients were put in a room with red windows. Melancholic’s also recovered after a few hours in such rooms. Pain and depression were found to respond well to therapy using flashing bright lights and colored lights. These treatments have been shown to alter neurochemical production in the brain and this may account for their positive effects. Scientists now believe that the brain has specific responses to different frequencies of flashing light and the different frequencies of various colors. They point out that sleep problems can often be cured in one day by this method. Mood alteration takes a little longer - about one to two weeks of treatments.

Photostimulation with flashing opaque white or violet lights was found to induce relaxation, reducing stress and chronic pain. Use of photostimulation, or brain wave synchronization, to assist relaxation and the induction of hypnosis had been around since 1948. It has been used with the EEG (electroencephalogram) as an adjunct to the diagnosis of epilepsy.

Much has been said and written about the healing benefits of light therapy and the toxic effects of computer energy (i.e. positive ions). Some may say that the technology intrinsic to computers is too toxic to use as a healing modality. This is not so. The following is a list of simple things computer users can do to minimize the toxic effect of positive ions and artificial fire energy (as it is referred to in Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicine, i.e. radiation) inherent in computers. (These suggestions may also be applied to television as well). Always make sure there is plenty of natural light in the room to dilute the light energy from the computer screen. Natural lighting is always the best. If this is not possible, or if the computer is being used at night, the use of full spectrum light bulbs is a good second choice.

Light is often described as the medicine of the future. It is an important therapeutic medium that profoundly affects all aspects of our life.

The emWave™ HeartMath program is a simple, easy to use software program that displays your heart rhythms and shows you how stress may be affecting you. Quickly and easily install the software, plug in the sensor and start to have fun with this new and unique interactive ability to see and control your heart rhythms. Let the emWave™ program help you break through stress that's preventing you from feeling good, being in control and achieving your goals.

At the time of a reaction to stress, the brain sends a negative signal to the heart, which then becomes "out of coherence," and the rest of the body, including the nervous system, reacts by getting out of sync. This is when damage occurs.

In a healthy person, the heart rate changes with every beat, according to Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Director of Research at the HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek, California. A lack of variability, he said, is a predictor of future heart problems. “This is exactly the opposite of what they used to think was healthy. Only 20 years ago it was considered that a nice steady heart rhythm was a sign of good health," he said.

The heart is considered to be in coherence when there is a healthy change in heart rate. Lack of stressful reactions allows the heart and nervous system to be in coherence, which leads to mental clarity, creativity and better problem-solving abilities.

How HeartMath Can Help

McCraty and colleagues at HeartMath have created a software program called emWave™, which helps a person achieve coherence. It is based on the idea that when you experience positive emotions such as joy, appreciation, care, and kindness, the heart responds in a positive way. emWave™ allows patients to see on screen whether or not they are in coherence and guides them through exercises that help achieve coherence. HeartMath is internationally recognized as one of the most effective and fastest growing organizational transformation systems in the world today. This at-home program can be purchased from your Brain Breakthrough practitioner.