Human beings automatically respond to the perception of threat or danger by the release of adrenalin and other hormones that result in increased heart and breath rate, increased blood pressure, changing the flow of blood to large muscles, etc.) This is meant to be a temporary overdrive system to meet the challenge that is threatening or dangerous.

When we become chronically stressed, however, the body can be pushed beyond its ability to re-establish homeostasis (balance), and its recuperative abilities can become exhausted. That’s why learning to relax is now considered a survival skill for maintaining health in the complex and stressful world in which we now live.

According to the scientific method, you cannot reliably change anything that you can’t measure. Although most everyone today will acknowledge that they have a lot of stress in their lives, very few know how to regularly and reliably measure all of the effects that it is having upon us.

At the end of each day, we recommend that you take a few minutes to complete our Daily Stress Check List. This will allow you to keep track of the ways that stress may be causing certain physical symptoms, may be affecting your mental processing and daily behaviors, and may be evoking stress related feelings.

You can download a copy of the Daily Stress Check List by clicking here. If you are consistently checking more than 12 boxes, contact us at 310-474-2777 for a stress management program that really works.

Our nation is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic. More people died from drug overdoses in 2014 than in any prior year on record, and the majority of drug overdose deaths (more than six out of ten) involved an opioid. Since 1999, the rate of overdose deaths involving opioids—including prescription opioid pain relievers and heroin—nearly quadrupled, and over 165,000 people have died from prescription opioid overdoses.

Public health officials are calling the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015. Overdose deaths were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes. In 2015, for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides

To help deal with this problem, physicians, dentists, and other prescribers must consider the numerous effective alternatives to opioids for post-operative, acute, and chronic pain control. These include acupuncture, massage and physical therapy, transcranial and interferential neurostimulation, phonophoresis, intermittent hypoxic training, nutritional and herbal supplements, medical hypnotherapy, biofeedback training, and interactive guided imagery(sm), among others.

Using these alternative approaches, we have been successful in helping our patients to significantly reduce or eliminate their opiate and other prescription pain medicines without the discomfort frequently associated with narcotic withdrawal. Contact The Bresler Center at 310-474-2777 for more information.