Here is a series of emails that John and I exchanged some time ago. Dear John, To me, your's is a serious question, and I will be happy to answer it. Could you say a bit more, so that I can be clear that you are not part of a marketing company trying to use my website to sell their product. I do not mind their trying, but I would rather put energy into a response that is valuable to my readers. Warmly, Al Turtle -------------------------------------------------- Hi Al, Thank you for your response. I suffer from PTSD, and I've been doing some research, and when I came across your site (well done by the way) I found that with my PTSD fear is the primary emotion that then triggers my symptoms such as anger as an example. I am thinking that if perhaps I can regulate the amount of adrenalin that my body puts out that I can counter the symptoms, or at least minimize them. I'm not on any prescribed medications, and I'm hoping that I can use vitamins and or herbal supplements to do that. I just got in from the health food store which I purchased some L- Tyrosine. That is the main ingredient in Green Tea which my research seems to show the best results for stress relief, and relaxing without drowsiness. Also, I purchased some Melatonin for help with proper sleep. If you know of anything that might slow my racing mind, which I think occurs due to too much adrenalin so that I can have a moment to address my emotions before reacting that would be great. I'm also aware that regardless of what I take to help I will need to modify my responses to my emotions, and I'm perfectly willing to do the work needed. Any suggestions that you might have are welcome. Thank you, John --------------------------------------------------- Dear John, I may want to post this on my blog, but for the time being, I will just respond directly to you. I really applaud your effort of find a solution for what is going on for you. Keep going. As I read your letter, I was struck by how several times you seem head off in what I think are non-productive areas of thinking. You may not 'like' what I am writing. All I can share is what I believe. First, I do not believe stress happens to you. I believe stress is your conscious (and mostly unconscious) response to what is going on around and inside of you. It is more like a "fever" than a disease. The fever is a symptom, or sign, of the body doing its normal job, reacting to an abnormal or ugly situation. I find generally that thinking of curing the symptom is not very useful. It sometimes is damn destructive. Go get and cure that disease that is causing the symptom. Now, it is true that chemicals (prescribed or over the counter or natural) can effect the cycle of reaction. And I have used and recommend chemicals when the emotional reaction prevents working on the sources of the stress. An example of this is when a person gets so upset (fear, anger, grief) that they cannot sleep for several days. But, my thinking is to use those chemicals to gain a "breather" from the reaction in order to work on a more reliable, drug-free, and permanent solution. (By the way, I don't think the pharmaceutical companies want me to say this.) I am not in favor of the phrase "under stress.” It leads the mind to think that stress is coming at you from the outside. This is an easy delusion, I believe. I like your noticing that when you are in stress, one of your reactions is anger or irritability. You can use this to go backwards and say, "If I am irritable or angry, perhaps my Lizard is trying to protect me from something." A useful clue is that your anger triggered by “discussing it. “ This suggests that you don't have much experience with chatting peacefully with people about this topic. What is that all about? Is it normal for you to "argue over the truth?” Quit it, if it is. I really don't like your thinking that the "stress is out of your control.” I much prefer you stubbornly finding out what you can do to get a sense of control in your life. I find that just "feeling out of control" will trigger stress. The Lizard loves to be in control of itself. Now to the phrase "work on finding solutions to express myself to the person causing this stress.” This is a big point, to my way of thinking. That person is not causing your stress. That is the firm way I would say it. I understand that it seems that they are "causing" your stress, but they are not. The "language of blame" leads to not solving the problem. I think it leads to keeping the problem for longer and longer times. It is all about learning Boundaries, and about Passivity and Master/Slave. What I find is that the solution lies in learning how to "remain calm and peaceful" while dealing with a person like that. This I like your working on finding ways to express yourself, but not in blaming that person. Warmly, Al Turtle