Learn to Unwind and Enjoy your Life

With today's fast-paced way of life it can be hard to take time to stop and smell the roses. Whether you're constantly on the run, responding to dozens of emails, working until all hours or dealing with a difficult situation, there is stress all around us and it is easy to let it take over your life. With everything going on in our lives our body's stress response is often turned on most of the day. Relaxation should be an important part of everyone's daily routine. If we don't take the time to practice relaxation we run the risk of compromising other body functions, like our immune system. Not only that, but it's a lot harder enjoy life when you're struggling with negative stressors every day!

Dr. Edward Leyton wants you understand not only why relaxation is important, but also how to go about doing it in an effective way. A licensed medical practitioner, Dr. Leyton is certified to practice Psychotherapy, and is a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Timeline Therapy and Ericksonian Hypnosis. He is also the author of several articles, books and textbooks. He founded Accessing Resources for Empowerment so that he could produce tools and information specifically designed to help people manage stress and fear. Dr. Leyton has created a line of CDs to help tackle the issues of stress, sleeplessness and fear of flying.

We turned down the lights, put our feet up, lit some beeswax candles and played Dr. Leyton's Learn to Unwind and Enjoy your Life CD for an evening of relaxation and stress reduction. The disc has four parts: a quick introduction, an explanation of the stress and relaxation responses (lasting about 16 minutes), a relaxation session (24 minutes), and a 3 minute return to alertness. The sleeve of the CD also includes a written summary of the stress response and the importance of relaxation.

The great thing about this disc is that anyone can use it (provided of course that you're not operating heavy machinery). The "What is Stress?" portion gives a crash course in stress, perfect for those who have never learned about this chemical occurrence and for those who have never practiced relaxation before.

The relaxation portion starts with some basic deep breathing, followed by autogenic training. For those of us whose wandering minds prevent us from successfully practicing breathing and visualization techniques (a problem experienced by one of our Naturally Savvy staff members), Dr. Leyton's gentle voice brings you back to focus.

The latter portion of the relaxation process takes us further to a self-hypnotic stage in which we are asked to bring to mind a previously stressful event. This type of meditation can help you transform these events from stressful situations to ones you experience in a more tranquil way. Finally, Dr. Leyton brings us back to an alert state, relaxed and refreshed.

We really enjoyed practicing Dr. Leyton's techniques. His peaceful and calming voice was easy to listen to. Not only do we see the importance of daily relaxation, we also see how having a professional helping hand can make this routine more effective in reducing our stress levels and increasing our enjoyment of life. For these reasons, Dr. Leyton's Learn to Unwind and Enjoy your Life earns the Naturally Savvy Seal of Approval.

To learn more about Dr.Leyton, his CDs and for further information, visit the Accessing Resources for Empowerment website at www.arfe.ca.