Why Should I Add a Stress Management Practice?

The Ornish Program has four components because each of them plays a powerful role in your health and well-being. While eating healthfully and exercising are important, so are stress management as well as love and support.

Chronic stress causes your arteries to become more clogged and you to gain more weight independent of your diet.

For example, chronic stress causes your arteries to become more clogged and you to gain more weight independent of your diet. It increases your risk of sudden cardiac death, decreases your immune function, and even accelerates the aging process.

The good news is that stress isn’t just a function of what happens to you; even more important is how you react to what happens to you. When you practice simple stress management techniques on a regular basis—even just a few minutes a day—you can be in the same job, the same school, the same family, but you react in healthier ways.

Some people say, “I used to have a short fuse and I’d explode easily. Now, my fuse is longer, so things don’t bother me so much. I can accomplish even more without getting stressed in the process.”

You’ll find powerful stress management techniques, including guided meditation videos, on the Ornish Spectrum website—and they are all free.