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Join our panel of health professionals as they introduce some general principles of Mind/Body health, and discuss its impact on our understanding and management of stress.

PARTICIPANTS William Bergman, MD Hahnemann Health Associates Warren Berland, Ph.D. Author, "Out of the Box for Life"

For the next few minutes, we will talk about stress, how it can take a serious toll on your body, and the things you can do to circumvent it.  Joining the discussion are two doctors who practice and preach mind-body therapy to restore and preserve health.  William Bergman, MD, is a physician and educator with many years of study and experience in behavioral and holistic approaches to disease prevention.  He currently practices at Hahnemann Health Associates in New York City, a holistic medical facility he founded in 1980.  He specializes there in homeopathic medicine, nutrition, and stress management.

Also joining us is Warren Berland, PhD.  He has been a practicing psychotherapist in New York City for nearly 20 years.  He is also the author of the book, “Out of the Box for Life - Being Free is Just a Choice,” which details a mind-body approach he has developed for dealing many problems including illness.

Well, let’s talk about stress.  What does it mean?  And how does it differ from other terms that people might use?  Some people might be excited with their work or have an adrenaline rush about a certain event.  When does it spill over into a harmful thing that we call stress?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: I guess if we think about the natural capability of our system to face a potentially dangerous circumstance in a way that is empowering, we can see that stress really could be our friend.  If we happen to be in the path of a hungry tiger, it would be good that we get those hormones going in order that we can protect ourselves and run away as fast as possible.  But when that same hormonal situation occurs when we are late to work and we are in a traffic jam and it continues all day long with those stress hormones flowing, even though some people may feel that they are thriving on it, it does take a toll.  There is scientific evidence that it does in fact prematurely age us, weaken our immune system, and in many ways drain us of our vitality.

LISA CLARK:  What are the negative effects of all of that other than the physical, the aging, the feeling tired all the time?  What are the other effects?

WARREN BERLAND, MD:  I think we can really feel trapped in our emotions.  We can feel trapped in fears, trapped in doubts about ourselves, trapped in our upsets, trapped in our situation and our life.  All of those become very stressful and, of course, there is a physiological effect on the body.  I think we really have to learn to take charge of whatever the situation is, not to feel victimized by it, and not to feel trapped in the kind of feelings that we have or even in our childhood and in our history, or thinking that we are a certain way just because we have been that our whole life.  We really can realize that we can change no matter however we see ourselves.  We still can make changes in our life.  We can make profound changes whether it is changing work, changing relationships, making changes in ourselves so that we are no longer a victim to who we have been and how we see ourselves.

LISA CLARK:  Dr. Bergman, in your practice do you see people who have become sick because they are too stressed?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  That is definitely the case.  So often, patients will say that they are feeling tremendously stressed.  They know that this is part of why they are having recurrent upper respiratory infections, why they are having flare-ups of their arthritis or gastrointestinal difficulties, and on and on it goes.  There is no question about it.  And the folks that come in with hyperelevated blood pressure or cardiac arrhythmias and certainly in many cases we know that stress is an important part of why they are in the state that they are in.

LISA CLARK:  But it is also almost impossible to avoid stress.  Our society seems to thrive on stress.  So the issue seems to be more one of coping with stress rather than being able to avoid it.  It would be wonderful to be able to avoid it but I don’t think most people can on a day-to-day basis.  So, how do you teach your patients to cope with it?

WARREN BERLAND, PHD:  Even beyond coping, it is really a matter of sometimes triumphing over it.  I think sometimes we do accept it and we put up with it.  I think there is another way we can go a step further in saying how am I going to beat this?  How am I going to take charge of my life?  Make the kinds of changes that are going to make me feel better, are going to empower me, and are going to change my life.  I think that is really the orientation.  What do I need to do for myself so I am really back in charge of my life and no longer see myself as a victim as anything that has happened to me, even anything that has happened to me in the past?

LISA CLARK:   Do people accept that they have that ability?  Is it hard for you to get that across?

WARREN BERLAND, PHD:  I think not.  I think people that come to see me know that I work in a very solution oriented way.  I work very quickly and I have them even in the first session make choices about what it is that they want to do and how they want to change their life.  That is really the orientation.  I don’t spend a lot of time looking at what has gone wrong with people and how they have been victimized by their parents.  It is really a practice where we are saying who do I want to be and what changes do I want to make and helping people to realize that they have choice over how they are seeing themselves and what they are doing in their life.

LISA CLARK:  Exactly.  And Dr. Bergman, do you feel the same in your practice?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  Yes, but of course, in my practice because it is a general practice, we will see all different kinds of people with all kinds of different situations and some are more open than others to addressing whether or not there is stress in their life and whether or not they want to deal with it.  I absolutely agree with you, Lisa, that it is not a matter of a life without stress.  We are confronted with it as part of the life experience.  It is how we learn to manage it and actually transform the energy that can be destructive into something empowering and something constructive.  That transformation of energy is what actually allows us to say that, “Yes, there are stressful circumstances, but that I am managing it effectively.  It turns out it is a matter of emotional management.  Stress primarily affects us through things that are operating at our emotional life.  The impact is, of course, physical as well psychological.  But a lot of times we are stressed because of the way we feel about things.

LISA CLARK:  What are some of the better techniques for stress management?  I don’t expect to be able to go home and have perfect serenity after this but for people who are watching us on the web, what sorts of things can you offer to kind of set people in the right path in terms of stress management?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  For me it has been an evolution as I have been researching and trying different things.  For quite a number of years, I would always be talking to patients about a meditative type practice.  I had copies of Dr. Herbert Benson who is an MD who heads up the Harvard Medical School Program in mind-body medicine.  His best-selling book, “Beyond the Relaxation Response” is a little book that is easy to read where he doesn’t teach a specific type of meditation, but rather a method that you can apply to whatever is your personal belief system.  So it is very generic.  I’d give copies of that book to each new patient. I’d advocate that they really start using it.

More recently, I have become involved with a program called Heartmath. Heartmath is a stress management program that I have really been impressed with the scientific research of these very simple stress management tools and how they can affect immune function, hormonal balance, heart rhythms, and a sense of well-being.  I am talking to patients more and more about Heartmath, giving them copies of articles about Heartmath, and trying to encourage them to get involved in the process of learning some tools and practicing them in their daily life.  It is no more difficult than learning how to ride a bike.

LISA CLARK:  Yes, however, some of the people who are the most susceptible to stress, the type A, hardcore driven people might at least on the surface seem to be the most resistant to the notion of meditation.  They might say, “What is that?  How am I going to do that?  How can I be calm and go into myself for five minutes?”.  It is in a certain sense, the most daunting to the person who needs it the most, isn’t it?

WARREN BERLAND, PHD:  Right but maybe there are some other things they can do.  Maybe there are people who can run if they talk to their physician.  Maybe they can go for walks in nature.  Maybe they can walk on a beach.  They know themselves and what would be useful for them.  Taking a vacation.  Sitting with someone who they care about, just relaxing.  It can be any process for themselves that they realize would work for them.  I think that is what is important for people to find a technique that works best for them.

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  I would agree and that is why Dr. Benson called it the relaxation response.  For a lot of people, meditation has a certain connotation, a certain meaning.  What he was saying is that there is a physiological response within the system that can be tapped by many different ways.  We shouldn’t have a narrow view of meditation.

In the Heartmath program, for example, it is not a formal meditation.  It is actually a different kind of approach where you get in contact with the energy of the heart and mobilize that energy to actually empower oneself to change the perception of the circumstances that are stressful.  It is a little bit hard to explain but it is quite user friendly and the point is that it works.

LISA CLARK:  Absolutely.  There are many people who instead of trying one of these approaches, might use drug therapy or traditional psychotherapy.  What would be the benefits of mind-body as opposed to those types of approaches?

WARREN BERLAND, PHD:  I think traditional psychotherapy (of course, I am biased in this way) may not be the most effective way to be dealing with issues.  We don’t need to be spending so much time looking at what is wrong and how did we get that way and looking at our childhood and maybe possibly blaming our parents for what has happened to us.  I think it is much more useful to say:  How do I want to be right now?  What is in the way of my making the changes I want to make?  It is important for people to really begin to make those changes instead of looking for excuses for why they are the way they are.  To begin to take small steps and to take one step at a time to make changes in areas that have been difficult for them.

LISA CLARK:  If people can commit to a stress management program, how soon do you see the benefits and what sorts of benefits are you able to measure?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  Depending on the individual, there can be benefits over days to weeks to a month or so for certain and in some cases it can be rather transformational.  People can feel like it was a fork in the road in terms of their life.  But it varies like everything else.

But we need medications in certain cases for problems that some people are facing.  But these more gentle, less risky approaches certainly should be thought of and used more frequently before we resort to more conventional drugs that might have side effects and whatever else.  It comes down to a case by case situation.  I never want someone who is severely depressed to think that they shouldn’t be on medication.

LISA CLARK:  Precisely.

WILLIAM BERGMAN:  All of this should be done as a team approach so that each person can get the best for their particular situation.

LISA CLARK:  I am curious to know with both of you having such long histories in mind-body therapies, what are your favorite coping techniques.  Let’s say you are stuck in traffic late for an appointment.  How do you deal with it?

WARREN BERLAND, PHD:  As you know, I wrote this book called “Out of the Box for Life” and we will probably talk about that.  I would say to myself, “What if I were out of the box now, what if I were free, what if I were in touch with a place of feeling peaceful inside myself?  How would I feel then?”.  Once I asked myself that, I know that I would take the focus off the fact that I am late. I wouldn’t waste my energy being angry at the traffic given that I can’t do anything about it.  I would say, “This the situation I am in right now.  How can I relax?  How can enjoy myself during this period of time?  What else can I think about?  How can I not wish I were somewhere else other than where I was?  I think of all ways to put myself in the present, rather than feeling again victimized by something and feeling powerless. I am now saying if I am in a clear place, I am just going to relax here.  What else can I do?  And that would be the kind of thing that I would use.

LISA CLARK:  Dr. Bergman, the same for you?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  In my case because right now I am pretty involved in the Heartmath program and I am doing it personally as well as offering it to patients on a professional level, I would do an exercise that is called freeze-frame where you basically take a time-out.  You go through a very simple method of accessing the energy and intelligence of the heart so that I am in a position to be able to make a decision as to how I want to feel in that traffic jam that will be empowering rather than destructive. Those simple steps can allow me to have the capacity to be able to really do what it is in my best interest as opposed to just being controlled by the circumstances, that I can have power over them.

LISA CLARK:  Would you say that stress management is the cornerstone of mind-body therapy?  If you can knock that, does that help with other things that you may need down the path?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD:  I definitely think so.  From my point of view, if we can really learn how to manage stress effectively through emotional management, this will affect our health and well-being to a great degree and the recuperation from illness if we are sick.

LISA CLARK:  Dr. Berland.

WARREN BERLAND, PHD:  I think that is absolutely a part of it and I think we also want to find areas in our life that will help us to find more meaning and purpose.  I think that is something else that is very important.  We want to be ridding our lives of areas of stress that are difficult and challenging.  We also want to be looking for things in our life that do give us satisfaction, that do help us to find meaning, that does bring more love into our life and more sense of peace in ourselves.

LISA CLARK:  Words to live by.  Thank you both very much, Dr. Berland and Dr. Bergman.  I’m Lisa Clark. Thanks for joining us for this webcast.