WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Memory:
Several years ago, when I discovered this system, I was looking for a way to improve my memory. I noticed that when I would remember something, for example going to the movies, the memory was just a vague, general impression of the trip to the movies with no particular detail except, perhaps, the feeling of how much I liked or didn’t like the movie.
However, I noticed that if I remembered a specific moment, particularly an action, such as taking my change back from the cashier, or handing the ticket to the man at the door, or tripping over someone as I walked through the aisle, the memory was quite specific, detailed and clear.
So, I made it a project to try to remember specific moments, things that I did, that just took a second or two, instead of trying to remember the whole movie.
I decided to set a goal of thirty specific moments, as an exercise. I chose that number because I thought it would be a difficult, but not impossible, goal. It turned out actually to be fairly easy.
I did the exercise once a day for several weeks, and I found by the end of the first week that I had no trouble at all writing down thirty specific moments, specific things that I did during the day. As a matter of fact, I discovered that I was able to list thirty things that I did just in a trip to the grocery store, and have the whole rest of the day as another bank of potential answers.
Then, I decided to try more than thirty. I tried sixty, then ninety, and then 120. And, by the end of the third week, I found that I could remember 200 specific moments, specific things I did during the day.
I had discovered a truly great memory exercise.
This was exciting. My memories were clearer, and easier. I was a happy fellow.
I had a wonderful, very workable, easy to do, and highly successful memory improvement exercise. I also had something else, something perhaps even more valuable, but I didn’t know it at the time.
I was soon to find out.
The Headache:
I told a friend about my discovery. I recommended that she try it to see how it worked. She sat down and tried it right then while I watched. It took her five or six minutes.
When she was finished I asked her, “How did it go?” Her answer was disappointing. She said, “I don’t think it did a damn thing about my memory.” Then, she added, rather pointedly, “But, my headache is gone.”
You can certainly understand that this was strange. She hadn’t told me anything about a headache. But, apparently, suddenly her headache had disappeared, and she had felt very definitely that it was the result of the exercise she had just done.
To make a five-year-long story short, over the next five years, when ever anyone ever said anything about having a headache I was on top of it. “You do? That’s great. I have an exercise you can do that might fix it.”
I managed to have 16 people try this exercise over those years and eleven found that their headache was gone by the time they completed the exercise, and it never took longer than five or six minutes.
I had to show them how to do it, and give them a piece of paper and pen, because that was part of it. It has never worked without that paper and pen or pencil.
Eleven out of sixteen convinced me it was not an accident. There was a definite relationship between the relief they experienced and the exercise they had done.
Back Pain:
Eventually, when I mentioned this exercise to a group of people, one woman came to me after the meeting and asked if it would do something for a pain she had in the back of her neck. It seemed strange to me that she would even ask. She told me that she had been in an automobile accident a year ago and had hurt her back and it had hurt her ever since, and that she had been to four doctors and none of them could find anything wrong. And she wanted to know if this exercise would help.
What could I say? I didn’t know. A year-long back pain seemed a little more serious than a headache to me. But, she insisted she wanted to learn how to do it. I took ten minutes and showed her how to do it and she went home.
Three days later, at 1:30 a.m. in the morning, my phone rang. She was on the line. The story she told was truly surprising.
The next day, after our meeting, she had taken a break at work and went to the lounge. She had taken the instructions I had written out for her, a pencil and a pad. She sat down and started the exercise.
What she told me was that half way through the exercise she fell asleep. And when she woke up the pain in her back was gone.
You can believe that she was excited. However, it seemed “too good to be true.” She was happy about it, but expected that the pain would return, perhaps in an hour or so.
The pain didn’t come back all day.
This was a happy woman. She had a lot of attention on her back, enjoying the relief, but expecting the pain to return. At the end of the day the pain had not returned, and the next morning also.
She was beginning to get used to it. She wondered how long the relief would last. With some hope she went through the day and the pain did not return.
The next day, the third day, the pain in her back still hadn’t returned. She was so excited about it by the end of the third day that she couldn't get to sleep. Then, at 1:30 a.m. she called me to tell me about it.
How come this simple exercise improves memory ten fold, gets rid of headaches two thirds of the time, and can even vanquish a year-long back pain? I don’t know. However, in the process of developing and using this exercise I discovered that it significantly improves memory, significantly reduces headaches and stress, and usually does away with insomnia.
It may be, one new theory has it, that insomnia and stress have to do with too many incomplete purposes through the day, too many things a person has on his mind that he wanted to do but hasn’t completed or handled, and there are so many that he can’t isolate them, acknowledge them or put them aside for tomorrow.
Over-Stress:
This simple stress relief system evolved into an emotional first aid. It was set up as a simple workbook to deal with headaches, over-stress conditions, and insomnia. On some occasions, it also dealt with physical pain that resulted from over-stress.
It was intended at first as a one time first aid measure. When a person was likely to take an aspirin he could do a five minute Stress Release. The difference was that an aspirin works for a short time. The relief from aspirin was temporary and had to be repeated. But, those who used the Stress Release for a headache had to go through it only once.
Then, we found out that, if a person was in the habit of having headaches, he could repeat the exercise a certain number of times and the headaches became lighter, or disappeared and didn’t come back. His tendency to have headaches had vanished.
We discovered that a person using this system over a period of several weeks significantly improved his memory, became significantly more relaxed, alert and energetic. Problems just didn’t weigh on him like they used to. One person referred to it as “housecleaning for the mind”. So, we came to realize that this Stress Release System had farther reaching implications than we had imagined.
Results of this amazingly simple exercise demonstrate that those who used it didn’t dwell so much on the negative and found that they had developed a natural positive attitude. They didn’t have to “think positive” because they felt positive.
Another benefit we noticed was that during the day, one found himself more aware of what he was doing. He noticed things more, noticed details more, forgot things less. Was it magic? No. Not at all. It was practice. Yes. And darned simple practice at that.
Practice:
Directing your mind positively, and letting up on the negatives, is a matter of practice. This is the easiest practice you’ve ever heard of. Just sit down in a comfortable place for 10 minutes, read the instructions, and do it.
Difficulties:
We have had a few problems with the Stress Release based on misuse. Some people tried to use the program for something else, or in some other way, and it didn’t work.
One was that some people would “try it” when they had no headache and weren’t feeling stressed to see how it worked. Obviously, since they weren’t feeling stressed in the first place, they didn't notice any benefit or change the first time around and never went back to it.
Also, people would “try it” to see what it would do for their memory. Trying it, one time through, has never done anything for anyone’s memory. The first time only demonstrates how good or bad your memory is. To improve memory, it takes some practice. It takes running through the routine, on a daily basis, for a number of days. We found that after five or six days one would begin to notice a significant improvement and it would continue to get better after that.
There was one other problem. There were times when someone would just read the material and dismiss it as silly, as just too simple and others who said, "That's too difficult. I could never do that."
There are two right ways to use this program, 1. one time through will usually work for a headache, insomnia, or other tension pain, 2. memory improvement or other more invasive stress symptoms can require a daily run-through for two to three weeks. Usually, after the first week, it gets really interesting as a person starts remembering better and feeling more alive.
Objections:
I’ve had people tell me, “Hey, this will give me a headache just trying to remember all those things.” That’s not true. Using effort, trying to remember, won’t give anyone a headache, but it can make it more difficult to do the exercise.
The instructions specifically tell you, “do not ‘try’ to remember”. If you can’t remember one part of the day, skip to another. Skip around until you find something you can remember.
For example, you might say to yourself, “I had breakfast, so I will try to remember things from breakfast.” That’s the wrong way to do it. The right way is to take it easy. If you can’t remember breakfast, skip to some other part of the day that you can remember. Maybe you remember dropping the soap in the shower, or opening the newspaper to the sport section. Or, maybe you had lunch with Jerry and you can remember entering the restaurant, passing a pretty waitress, noticing the table by the window, picking up the menu, and handing half of the newspaper to Jerry.
You might say, “But that is so unimportant. Who cares if I remember picking up the menu?”
It isn’t remembering picking up a menu that is important. It is you taking charge of your thoughts, learning to be more aware of your mind and memory, and getting more familiar with the myriad of positive actions that make up your day. If that still seems unimportant, consider this: Doing this exercise on a regular basis will improve your memory considerably, make you much less stressed, much more alert, more positive, and you will be that way naturally, without having to work at it.
Then, again, here is another idea. Disregard what anyone says. Just make an opportunity to check it out. The only investment is about ten minutes a day for a few days to find out for yourself.
