"This course provides a framework for understanding the nature of stress, it's effect on us, and our own role in dealing with it effectively.

Other frameworks offer different approaches, but I found this course useful primarily because of the notion that it is possible to soothe the limbic system through actions taken by the rational neocortex.

I have taken stress-related training before, (Heart Math, for example, and systema), that sought to teach how to bring your pulse rate and breathing in line with a more relaxed state. Not much of this is really new to me, but the relation between the limbic system and neocortex and the notion that we might more directly impact the behavior of that raging elephant in a conscious way somehow eluded me. I've done many of the breathing exercises many times, without fully understanding exactly why I was doing them.

We are living through a stressful period. At the beginning of the class, I was having difficulty recognizing and admitting that I have indeed been stressed. My thoughts were that I'm OK, that I'm nowhere as stressed as I was when I worked full time, that life is good, I'm happy, and that nothing is really wrong.  Having gone through a fairly harrowing week this past week, I more readily recognize the effects of stress and it's painful physical manifestations. I am better equipped to be able to deal with it should I choose to do so. I have a fuller understanding of the work it might take to resolve these issues.

It's empowering."

Henry Rivers
Chapel Hill, NC