Sensible guide for reducing stress and feeling better

books:

	• The Cortisol Connection: Why Stress Makes You Fat and Ruins Your Health - And What You Can Do About It Shawn Talbott Hunter House, 2007 - 265 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Cortisol Connection

Cortisol. Who knew! Too little, or none.. and you have Addison's Disease and cannot handle stress without medication. Too much? Weight gain, IBS, joint pain, hair loss, and more.

This book not only outlines the problems caused by stress, which causes too much cortisol to be created by the body, but how to cope with it. Not only will you be informed about what and how much damage can be done to the body by too much stress/cortisol, but there are recommendations on how to change it.

Nutrition, supplements to take or not to take? And of course a healthy diet and exercise are the among the answers.

This is not a gloom and doom book by any means. This is a book that explains a problem, and gives simple and often enjoyable approaches to controlling stress and the overproduction of this hormone. Read a trashy novel, soak in a hot tub, give yourself days off each week..hey, I can do that!

Often books that you think you should read to learn something you feel that you should know about are dry and dull and agonizing to get through. This one has bits of humor ( humans are not zebras!) and it presents information in such a clear and simple way that I was able to zip right through the pages, and make my way through it in 2 sittings.

Even though I have read it cover to cover, you can be sure that this is one that will spend a long time on my nightstand. I want it to be available for quick reference and reminders of what I should be doing and looking for. Not just a good and informative read, but by all means, a keeper!

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Sensible guide for reducing stress and feeling better

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (9/07)

If you are living in the USA, or really anywhere in the so-called "developed" world, chances are you are stressed beyond belief. While stress used to be taken lightly in the past, there was a lot of research performed on how it affects us and in recent years doctors are calling attention to all of the risks associated with it. If you think your life is not really complicated enough for you to qualify as being under stress, consider this paragraph from "The Cortisol Connection" by Shawn Talbott, Ph.D., which clearly shows that one does not need to be a CEO to be under stress:

"The most direct example of the chronically elevated human stress response can be observed every day in the lives of a large part of the American (and worldwide) population. Those are the folks who are driving a junker car (and hoping it makes it) to their second job. They are hoping that the money from that second paycheck will last until the end of the month when the bills are due. They are not the people whom you see commiseration about their terrible jobs on sitcoms such as Friends. The constant unrelenting stress of making ends meet, job instability, sleep deprivation, poor diet, lack of outlets for stress, and overall lack of control combine to increase the risk of disease by a factor of five to ten!"

A factor of five to ten is scarily high, so getting stress and the risks under control would certainly be a good idea. "The Cortisol Connection" is an extremely helpful guide in this process, clearly explaining the risk factors, possible effects of those factors and ways and means of controlling stress and taking control of your life. The proposed solution, called the SENSE Lifestyle Program, is more than a diet, since it incorporates several key elements; such as stress management, exercise, nutrition and supplements. Although the book is very detailed and in parts quite "technical," the overall program seems to be eminently sensible and not impossible to follow.

While I have no experience in the medical field and cannot evaluate the book from that perspective, I was clearly impressed by the amount of research that went into this book, as is evident from the extremely extensive "References" section. I found the language easy-to-follow and easily understandable. While an average reader might not care for all the medical references and explanations, I believe most anybody could and should follow the recommendations of the SENSE Lifestyle Program, especially since it was extensively researched and tested.

I would highly recommend "The Cortisol Connection" to any reader who wants to take responsibility for his or her own health and well-being and actually do something about it.

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Great Book

Very insightful and informative book! Highly recommend it for anyone that wants to get healthier.

A Good Book to Relax With

Anxiety and depression run in my family. I also have the added bonus of coping with allergies and asthma, so I'm always on the lookout for books that might help me with any of these issues, which is why I picked up The Cortisol Connection.

This book far surpassed my expectations. I was able to apply some of the nutritional advice before I'd even finished reading the book and immediately felt an improvement in my outlook and mood. This was over the holiday season too, which is normally a very tough time for me.

If you know you are already stressed, you may want to skip the first six chapters and dive right into the advice that starts in chapter seven. Reading those first six chapters that explain what bad cortisol levels can do to you caused me quite a bit of worry, and it took a while to get through all that information. It was good information to have, I just wish I would've read the "what you can do about it" part first.

This book gives the most concise and easy to remember nutritional advice I've ever read. The supplementation information corroborated with things I've read when researching inflammation. In changing my diet and adding some supplementation according to Talbott's recommendations I've been able to reduce my anxiety levels significantly, cut back on how often I need my rescue inhaler and clear up most of my congestion.

My only complaint is the lack of notation. Talbott sites many scientific studies, but never includes notation with those passages to tie them to the appropriate study listed in the appendix. The few times I had the patience to flip to the appendix and try to pin-point the study he was referring to seemed to indicate he'd included all the necessary references, but more specific notation would've given me a little more initial confidence in the information.

From the perspective of a lay person with no medical schooling, but who's spent years reading and researching in an attempt to improve my own health, I find this book invaluable. Several family members have asked to borrow it, but I'll be buying copies for them so I don't have to part with mine.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The hormone cortisol, activated by the fight-or-flight (stress) response, is emerging as a major culprit in a variety of health problems. The Cortisol Connection explores the documented relationship between elevated levels of this hormone, chronic stress, and such health conditions as obesity, depression, suppressed immune system, osteoporosis, and hypertension. This new edition describes the results of the latest research about the connection between cortisol and HSD, and cortisol and testosterone.

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