But as Gallwey shows, we have the means to build a shield against stress with our abilities to take childlike pleasure in learning new skills, to properly and healthily rest and relax, and to trust in our own good judgment.

via The Inner Game of Stress « Imprint: Business Author Interviews.

We all have dreams – outcomes we would really like. But often the obstacles seem too great. So they stay dreams, never making it into reality.
We feel stuck, so we try to get on with day-to-day tasks and struggle to ignore the frustration. This is a heavy brake on our performance. In his brilliant book ‘The Inner Game of Tennis’ Tim Gallwey first showed a new way to look at this:

Performance = Potential – Interference

Gallwey found that, as a tennis coach, his clients improved their game much more as he told them less what to do. Giving instructions appeared to interfere with their learning.

Instead he focused on helping the client increase their self-awareness, finding then more of the player’s potential automatically became real. Moving on from tennis, Gallwey’s approach has been applied in many other fields. It seems universal, so we can apply it too.

This means that if we are unable to reach the goals that really matter to us, we can turn the situation around by reducing the interference we experience.

Malibu Times

Malibu author Tim Gallwey’s new book helps stressed individuals stay balanced.

“Inner Game of Stress” Malibu author W. Timothy Gallwey (center), with doctors and co-authors Edd Hanzelik, M.D. and John Morton, M.D. Through “The Inner Game of Stress” Gallwey hopes his readers outsmart and circumvent stress. Photo by Marie Catherine Toulet

By Patrick Timothy Mullikin / Special to The Malibu Times

Published: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 11:16 AM PDT

Stressing over which stress-relief book to buy?

Sounds silly, but minor stress, such as fretting over which book to buy, has become part of daily living. We simply grin and bear it and move along.

Major stress? That’s another matter. Malibu author W. Timothy Gallwey estimates that up to 75 percent of all visits to primary-care physicians are for stress-related complaints or disorders.

Simply stated: stress is making us sick, even killing us.

“The Inner Game of Stress: Outsmart Life’s Challenges and Fulfill Your Potential,” the latest in Gallwey’s “Inner Game” series, is being touted as the only book on stress you’ll ever need. And while that’s quite a claim, Gallwey is quick to back up this statement, making it clear his book approaches the stress issue from a completely different direction.“It doesn’t deal with stress management. The whole idea of the strategy around stress is not to try to fight it, but to try to build an inner stability so that when the inevitable stressors come your way, they won’t throw you off balance,” Gallwey said last week during a phone interview from his Malibu home.

“In other stress books we see mostly diets, exercise, buy a puppy, various things to alleviate your current stress. You have to have the stress already to apply those books.”

Through “The Inner Game of Stress” Gallwey hopes his readers outsmart and circumvent stress.

What he and co-authors Edward Hanzelik, M.D., and John Morton, M.D, offer readers in “The Inner Game of Stress” is a series of steps and exercises-preemptive strikes, if you will-to keep stressors at bay and “to discover your inner stability so you can respond to inevitable life stressors before they happen.”

At first blush this sounds like New Age psychobabble, but Gallwey et al. do in fact present the reader with concrete-some of it common sense-examples of how to discover this inner stability, including: The STOP (Step back, Think, Organize and Proceed) Technique; The Attitude Tool: Feeling resentment? Try gratitude; The Magic Pen: Use it to develop your ability to open up your intuition and wisdom; The Transpose Exercise that allows one to imagine what the other person thinks, feels, wants-and develop empathy, kindness, and better relationship skills; The PLE (Performance, Learning, and Experience) Triangle that uses goals to redefine success and enhance enjoyment.

The book can have the feeling of a PowerPoint presentation at times, making it an easy read, and Gallwey makes references to the stress seminars he and his colleagues conduct. (A few of the case studies are, in fact, about seminar attendees who have put Gallwey’s principles to test, with positive results.)

Sprinkled throughout the book’s three sections-“The Game of Stress,” “Outsmarting Stress,” and “The Inner Game Toolbox”-are case studies written by Hanzelik and Horton (hence their billing as coauthors) illustrating the effects of stress on health and showing how Gallwey’s principles have helped these patients. These “Patient Files” are at times austere, even Kafka-esque, in their descriptions: “When Ruth, a young woman in her thirties, first came to my office,” writes Hanzelik, “she was desperately unhappy to the point of being suicidal. On the face of it, Ruth had every reason to be happy, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for in life. She was consumed by a relentless inner dialogue led by the Stress Maker.”

The “Stress Maker” that haunts Ruth, we learn from Gallwey, “is another name for fear, doubt, confusion and ignorance, an inner voice that unless vanquished or diminished can lead to stress.”

Each chapter ends with an exercise to put Gallwey’s principles to test. In the case of the “Stress Maker,” it’s a how to bypass your stress maker: “Review the bothersome fear you noted above and see if you can bring the Stress Maker down to size. How much of the fear is real, and how much is invented? What would your voice say to bypass the Stress Maker’s concepts rather than buy into them?”

The obvious question: Does the book work?

Although the book was released on Aug. 18, the reaction so far has been positive, Gallwey said. “We had a book launching in mid-August and 400 people came to it. Lots of people had read the book already and were extremely enthusiastic about it,” he said.

Gallwey said he uses the book’s principles all the time in his own daily life, with positive results, and hopes the book will help others, too.

“I have a feeling of compassion for people who are depriving themselves of a really high-quality life because of stress. There’s a choice. There’s a real choice, and I hope more and more people will take that choice, through my book or any book or anything that can help them.”

Copyright © 2009 – Malibu Times

Join Penny as she talks with Tim Gallwey, Dr. Edd Hanzelik and Dr. John Horton about their new book “The Inner Game of Stress” (Random House – August 2009). Renowned sports psychology expert and best selling author W. Timothy Gallwey teams up with two esteemed physicians to offer a unique and empowering guide to health in today’s volatile world. The Inner Game of Stress applies the trusted principles of Gallwey’s wildly popular “Inner Game” series, which has helped athletes and politicians, and has touched just about every corner of our population, not only by providing useful tools for stress management, but also by demonstrating how we can each access our inner resources to maintain stability in life. Tennis great Billie Jean King and championship NBA coach Phil Jackson are just two of the sports legends who have benefited from Gallwey’s “Inner Game” books. A one-of-a-kind guide, “The Inner Game of Stress” allows anyone to get in the game and win.

The Inner Game of Stress

After I read The Inner Game of Stress, I also got the chance to ask the authors a few questions to pass along to all of you! Here’s what they had to say.

Question: What kind of physical complaints can be caused by stress? Are these symptoms “all in our head”, or are the serious problems?

Edd Hanzelik: Almost any physical symptom can be caused or worsened by stress including headaches, chest pain, palpitations, asthma, all GI symptoms, increased susceptibility to colds and other infections, skin rashes, menstrual irregularities, etc., etc. These symptoms are not in the mind; they are in the body, caused by the great chemical imbalance in the body produced by chronic stress.

Question: If stress is so bad for our bodies, why does it exist in the first place?

Edd: Stressors (things that cause stress) exist because we are finite creatures and everything does not go the way we want. Stress inside our body is inevitable when we respond to these challenges with our mammalian stress system (fight/flight/freeze). Our human stressors need a uniquely human response, that maintains our core of stability.

Question: If you only had time to teach someone one tool for dealing with their stress, what would it be?

Tim Gallwey: If I could only teach someone one tool for dealing with their stress it would be the STOP tool. It is easy and effective. It separates the person from their stress momentum long enough that they can reflect and switch from the stress system to the wisdom system. The only hard thing about the STOP tool is remembering to use it when you really need it.

Edd: I would use the STOP tool. When a person begins to feel stress, the need to Step back and Think about their situation. During their reflection, they need to be clear that they want to avoid stress and they can consider their options to deal with their stressors. They Organize these reflections into a strategy. Then they Proceed to handle their challenging situation on their own terms. By STOPping, people can realize the options they have to handle life’s challenges without getting stressed.

Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of The Inner Game of Stress to review.

The Inner Game of Stress

Renowned sports psychology expert W. Timothy Gallwey teams up with two esteemed physicians to offer a unique and empowering guide to mental health in today’s volatile world. The Inner Game of Stress applies the trusted principles of Gallwey’s wildly popular Inner Game series, which have helped athletes the world over, to the management of everyday stress–personal, professional, financial, physical–and shows us how to access our inner resources to maintain stability and achieve success.

Stress attacks every aspect of our well-being. Gallwey explains how negative self-talk undermines us, making us believe that pressure is inevitable and that other people’s expectations are paramount–which leaves us feeling helpless and unhappy. But as Gallwey shows, we have the means to build a shield against stress with our abilities to take childlike pleasure in learning new skills, to properly and healthily rest and relax, and to trust in our own good judgment. With his trademark mix of case histories and interactive worksheets, Gallwey helps us to tap into these inner strengths, giving us these invaluable tools:

• the STOP technique: Learn how to Step back, Think, Organize, and Proceed with a more conscious choice process, even in the most chaotic circumstances.
• the Attitude tool: If you’re feeling resentment, try gratitude.
• the Magic Pen: Develop the ability to open up your intuition and wisdom.
• the Transpose exercise: Imagine what the other person thinks, feels, wants–and develop empathy, kindness, and better relationship skills.
• the PLE triangle: Use your goals for Performance, Learning, and Experience to redefine success and enhance enjoyment.

Now you don’t have to be a champion athlete–or an athlete at all–to keep your life in perspective and your performance at its peak. A one-of-a kind guide, The Inner Game of Stress allows anyone to get in the game and win.

Here is the link for the eBook versions.