One of the most powerful points we use for emotional clearing are what we call the Emotional Stress Release (ESR) points.
Origin
Dr Terrence J. Bennett, a chiropractor, first described this technique in his book, “Neurological Reflex Technique’ in 1956.
When we experience stress, be it emotionally or physically generated, our bodies go through a series of biochemical changes that vary in intensity depending on the severity of the stress or trauma. One of the effects of stress is the imprinting of a series of negative factors which seem to continually impact us either consciously or unconsciously. We may ‘forget’ the individual stressful incident but our unconscious stores the information and remembers the stress every time we encounter a similar situation. The result is a cumulative effect that leads to our being in stress (distress) almost continually.
How Can We Use ESR Points?
You can use ESR for past, present, and future stress events. The right brain will accept your new learnings and insights as a ‘new reality’ to replace past stressful memories.
Because the right is timeless, it can be used as a time machine to go backward or forward and re-make the past, the present or create the future. This ties in with NLP presupposition of “the map is not the territory”. Meaning, that we construct our meaning of the world and therefore how we experience it based on how we filter information. By re-coding events, we can create a new meaning from the particular stressful event.
The technique is the same in all situations whether it be for preparing for a presentation to the Board, job interviews, sports performance or resolving old or recent hurts and misunderstandings.
Benefits of Emotional Stress Release
The Emotional Stress Release points rebalance our emotions and release pent-up energy. The physical effects of ESR include a general sense of lightness and relaxation. Vision seems clearer and hearing appears to be more acute. Use it for when there is interpersonal conflict to improve relationships, to bring yourself back to a resourceful state in the moment, or any other stressful situation. Children respond to ESR quickly and easily and parents can easily hold the ESR points whenever a child is distressed. Used at night time can help them drift off to sleep.
Where and When to Use ESR
ESR can be done anywhere. When sitting at your desk, lying in bed, walking or out and about. Use it for when you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious and indecisive.
We intuitively use our ESR points when we feel overwhelmed. How often have you put your elbow on the table whilst holding your forehead with your thumb and forefingers? You are in effect holding your ESR points. Or how many of us have put our whole hand over our forehead when feeling overwhelmed, tilted back and taken a few deep breaths. Whether we realised it or not, we were holding our ESR points.
If used for decision making, after a few moments, a priority of importance in the decision making or clarity of ideas will come. You will find the overwhelm and nervousness you felt before has gone, enabling you to move calmly and confidently through your day.
How Does ESR Work?
The ESR technique activates reflexes (called neuro-vascular points) which bring more blood to the frontal lobes of the brain. Back brain thinking is the survival response mode. Here we generate automatic reactions based on the alarm and vigilance responses as well as on past experiences. Front brain thinking is creative, with new options and new alternatives. When we use the front brain we tend to find new ways of looking at old problems, new possibilities and alternative solutions.
Stress chemicals seem to have the effect of reducing from brain/back brain and left bran/right brain integration and prevent us thinking creatively under stress. ESR reverses this process. It has the effect of reducing or erasing the biochemical trigger to the old stress memories and thus relieves stress.
Photo by Rachel Lead. Kinesiology – Positive Health & WellBeing
