The One Secret to Stopping Stress

Unlock the tranquility of the present moment and banish the stress that plagues us everday . Wellness expert David Delrahim joins Roland to reveal the transformative power of mindfulness and the five essential elements of human health. Journey through the complex interplay between stress and time perception for a healthier tomorrow. David illuminates the often-overlooked physical toll of stress, including inflammation, and offers a lifeline through simple, yet profound practices like deep breathing. Embracing the present isn't just philosophy—it's a science-backed path to serenity.

From the producers of PBS's American Health Journal and Innovations in Medicine. Thank you for listening to Better Wellness.

Chapters

• 0:02 Overcoming Stress Through Mindful Living
• 5:31 Manage Stress Through Present Awareness
• 21:24 Embracing Mindfulness for Better Wellness

Transcript

Roland Perez: 0:02

Are you stressed out and stuck thinking about your past or worrying about the future? There are ways you can learn to live mindfully in the present. Welcome to Better Wellness, a podcast that explores the newest innovations and true wellness. I'm your host, Roland Perez, as the executive producer of the American Health Journal for more than 25 years and produced over 530 minute award-winning healthcare television shows and aired nationally on PBS with an audience of over 100 million viewers. But Better Wellness is more than that not only keeping your body healthy, but developing the mindset and balance that prevents illness.

Roland Perez: 0:43

Our guests are experienced experts in the world of staying healthy, young and well. Our guest is David Delrahim, wellness expert and noted visionary. David has some valuable insights on how stress can be overcome by first understanding the source. Hi, David, thanks for coming into the studio today. Someone says to you I'm stressed One of the causes is that we're dealing with the fear of the past or the fear of the future, and that future develops stress. Can you have too much to think about? Then the stress happens, anxiety and stress happens. Is that something you've found?

David Delrahim: 1:27

Absolutely. There are three stages of life past, present and future. When we go back to the past, with or without the fear, it creates sadness and depression. When we have, fear about the future creates uncertainty which creates anxiety. Anxiety is never about the past, it's always about the future. And there comes the third part, which is present. So where is peace? Only in present. Is that in the past? Is that in the future? That's why we try to be grounded, we try to be present, Because that's the only place where the peace is.

Roland Perez: 2:25

The difference between stress and a little worried is a big difference between a little worried, a little concerned, a little bit. Stress is that changes your body. The cells in your blood actually changes after you get angry or you get stressed, so it's harming your body. It's really actually harming your body. What is the cure for stress? For instance, what can you do to get yourself in a position where you're not so stressed?

David Delrahim: 2:58

As we are looking at the human's health, that we are looking at the five elements of human health, it has an element of spirit, which is the spirituality. And why it is? Because we are a spiritual being. That's why we are being connected is an automatic thing, because that's who we are. So ourselves have intelligence and then the entire billions of cells that we have that become who we really are as an individual, as a human being. There's a collective consciousness, so the cells have consciousness, which is the intelligence, and then us, all of those conscious billions of consciousnesses, becomes a collective consciousness. They know they live the truth all right, because they do not have those cells, they do not have ego. We have ego. They are connected to divine.

David Delrahim: 4:07

When we have stress that comes from the anxiety, that comes from uncertainty, everything is reversed to our connectivity with divine, and that is the stars. I think this is not where I want to be, that those individual consciousnesses, the cells, are saying this is what this is against who I am, that's not our own. So they become defensive. That defensive mechanism creates infelimations. So stress creates inflammation, pain, and we know the root cause of all discomfort is inflammation.

Roland Perez: 4:58

So the cure for stress, or what you can do to do, let's say, someone. I'm very, very stressed. I know when, the small time that I was a police officer, people would be very stressed and I would say to them relax, take a deep breath. And it was amazing how many people said that in other departments. When I ran across people, ambulance drivers and everything else they would do that. Tell me about relax and take a deep breath.

David Delrahim: 5:31

Stress is the byproduct. So let's go through the chain of stress. We got stress that came from anxiety, that came from uncertainty, that came from being way into the future and not feeling that you are in control, all right, and the fear and all of this. So it's like a chain, all right. And then, once you get to almost to the end of the chain, reverse engineering. It really came from your ego, all right. So, in order to really disconnect this chain and interrupt so we don't get to the stress, or, if we have this stress is a manageable stress, is the stress that we talk about. This stress is always going to be here, it just is. It's just. You know that's a life on planet earth. All right, it's competitive. You know this, that.

David Delrahim: 6:33

So it is that, but you know. But where it is really truly harmful is the unmanageable becomes like a wild fire. So so we're going from stress to anxiety. Well, what can I do with the anxiety? Nothing, really. You know what. You can have a couple of pills, but that's really masking it. All right. What else I'm reverse engineering. Oh, before that is uncertainty. Ah, I want to pause in the uncertainty because that's something that I can have control. I do not have control over anxiety, because the anxiety is the symptom, just like a stress becomes from uncertainty. Uncertainty I can do something with that. The uncertainty is my thought, is my emotions, is something that I can do something about it. What can I do? You just remember the past, present, future. The only place is present. Am I present?

Roland Perez: 7:52

When.

David Delrahim: 7:52

I have uncertainty. I am not being present. I'm into the future.

Roland Perez: 7:58

So you put yourself in the present.

David Delrahim: 8:00

Yes, you bring yourself to the present if you want to disconnect from a lot of uncertainties.

Roland Perez: 8:08

How do you do?

David Delrahim: 8:09

that Exactly. So how do we do that? You know it's being grounded, it is being present. It's just like when we are having a conversation, a very casual conversation. It could be with our family members, spouse, friends, anyone. If it is even a five-minute conversation, that is about 300 seconds. How many seconds of that 300 seconds we're really here. The rest of it we're not. We're talking about what I did this morning, that I shouldn't have, what I did, what was going to happen this afternoon. What is he going to say? So I'm having internal conversation with myself. I'm not here, I'm somewhere else in this space. So by doing the meditations and being present and being in the space of right here, right now, that is when I'm here, I'm not in the future. So I'm cutting the anxiety, I'm cutting the uncertainties and in order to put ourselves in that path, it is really like wearing two different kinds of lenses. You just need to put that lens down and put the lens of present.

Roland Perez: 9:46

Okay, now that you say that one of the things that one of the paramedics did in front of me once was a woman who was hysterical. He told her to take a deep breath and she, she tried, she didn't, and he got into her face, into her space and he says now listen to me, listen to me carefully. And her whole composure changed because she came into the present.

David Delrahim: 10:15

That's correct. We're not there so when we are, so part of you know about the creating, you know about the really deep anxiety, to a point that you might even think that you're experiencing a heart problem or heart attack is lack of air, you know, but we just do not have enough oxygen.

Roland Perez: 10:39

Let's talk about that. Yeah, that deep breath.

David Delrahim: 10:42

That deep breath we forget. It is really interesting when we are not present, we forget to breathe oxygen. A typical person uses only 30% capacity of his lung. We just do not breathe right and when we breathe we forget to exhale. So the accumulation, all of these CO2s, it creates anxiety because ourselves, they thrive on oxygen, they want oxygen when they don't receive proper oxygen. So when we are talking about the spiritual component and then the science behind it, the definition of the science has always been there. We can Google that. But there is a spiritual backing as well, parallel to the science, and it cannot be ignored. It can't because we're a spiritual being. So lack of oxygen creates anxiety. How did we get to the lack of oxygen? We forget. How did we forget?

David Delrahim: 12:07

Because we're not present, we're not here, we're somewhere else in this space, we are out of touch with ourselves when we are not here. When we are here, this whole collective consciousness is together. There's a togetherness. When we are not, we're not, they're here and we are somewhere else, there is no togetherness.

Roland Perez: 12:33

Some people soak some of that stress in alcohol and drugs from what I believe not just treating. It's just treating the symptoms. It's not bringing you back to the present, it's just taking you out of the present, the past and the future. When you drink and you take alcohol correct, I mean it's not going to do you any good.

David Delrahim: 13:04

Having a glass of wine in celebration carries different consciousness than when we are in fear and we are trying to escape. We're not willing Because we are in fear. We're not willing to deal with what is in front of us Because we have so much fear from it and we're using those substances to escape temporarily. But we know that once we come back it's the same thing. It will always be the same thing, because that's not going to go away. We go away temporarily for a few minutes, for a few hours, and we come back to the same thing. And then they have more alcohol or more drugs and more and more, and unfortunately, you know what that path would lead to.

Roland Perez: 14:03

I had a friend of mine who was very stressed out and we'd always meet in a bar. Unfortunately, that's what his thing was to get away from the stress. And then I just said to him. I said you know, next time let's go someplace else where we're not in a bar, somewhere. Just why don't you come to my house? You know, on a Saturday, come over to the house. And I did.

Roland Perez: 14:31

I walked in the room a small house in the valley somewhere, as I recall and family members started to show up. It was around 12.30, one o'clock, and family members started coming from the backyard, from the bedrooms in the kitchen, and in about 10 minutes I was stressed. It was the family that was stressing about it. There were four very strong personalities in the room. What of them living in the past, always saying that, one of them always trying to drag him into the future, what are you going to do about this? What are you gonna? He was being torn apart inside the house. So stress in the family is that's a very important factor is to Either avoid or correct the stress that you have where you live right.

David Delrahim: 15:24

So Everything in life is energy. We are energy. Joy is energy. Stress is energy. Energy is a. Stress is the energy of chaos. It's chaos and peace Is a completely different energy. All right is.

David Delrahim: 15:52

What we like says is it is a safe Space, is a safe energy. That's why we would like to be, is a certainty, I Am good, I am protected. Then the word sanctuary that's what it means. Home should be sanctuary. When home has chaos in it, it is no good. It is no good. So what? How do we deal with that?

David Delrahim: 16:26

Everything in life is a byproduct of choices that we have. We often say what is not my choice is so-and-so. That's not how it works. That really takes us to taking responsibility responsibility For your friend that was in chaos. He has a choice and he has to take responsibility. He is there, but he has a choice to be out of there and or, as a choice, to create boundaries and limitations with everyone. This is my sanctuary, so I choose my home to be my sanctuary. Anyone who is bringing the energy of chaos is not welcome, I tell you. And the energy need to leave or you need to switch your channel. It's a channel, because energy is channel is like a, m and fm is Frequency. The frequency of chaos is not welcome.

David Delrahim: 17:33

So there's boundaries you have to set. No, it is boundaries and limitations, boundaries you create, for it is your space, is your space of present, is your space of sanctuary, and you guard that, make sure that others will not get in and do not encroach With that energy of chaos. It's a choice and when they do, there are two ways to approach it. You ask them to reframe themselves from inviting that energy and or you'll remove yourself from that energy.

Roland Perez: 18:19

If someone comes up to you and says I have a lot of stress in my life, what can I do this minute, this moment that we have together, to lessen my stress? What would you say to someone who is very stressed out? They're looking for a little relief in their stress.

David Delrahim: 18:40

I had a case that a gentleman was extremely stressed that he was suicidal and I had to make a decision right at the spot to help him out because he was ready to pull the trigger. I said just pause for one hour. Pause After one hour, do whatever your heart desires. He said I love you so much, I will honor you. What do you want me to do?

David Delrahim: 19:11

I know that stress is the energy of chaos, and energy because we are energy we attract. When we are in chaos, we attract energy of chaos. It's a law of attraction. So the quickest way to get rid of those energies that we have attracted is to get them cleansed in ocean water. I said how far are you from the ocean? He said 20 minutes. I said I have one hour with you. I want you to go into the water, immerse yourself, make sure the water stays over your head because I was doing energy cleansing for the entire body and come out and call me. I'm waiting. He said I will do that. He called me in about 45 minutes. I said how are you? He said I love life. I said that's all I needed to know.

David Delrahim: 20:19

It was towards the end of November, so it was cold day. I knew that the ocean water was cold, which is really good for to get rid of the inflammation. Cold water, yes. Then you have salt. It's even better Then. Energetically, ocean is an amazing place in terms of energy cleansing and it really worked. It really worked. So that was a great example of what I would do.

Roland Perez: 20:58

Not everybody lives near the water Right.

David Delrahim: 21:00

So what I would do? You know what? Get into an epsilon salt bath. Cold epsilon salt bath, I would do it. Just make sure you need to go under the water. Put your head under the water even for a few seconds, and you come out, so that gives you an immediate relief. Because it's energy. Gotta get rid of that energy. I can ask him well, you have to take responsibility. You have to start meditating. It's a long process. It's a long process. I don't know if people really wanna do it. Unfortunately, in this society, we have programmed to seek for immediate relief right now. Take a pill right now. So that is the best way to really get rid of the energy. Get a cold shower, cold shower. You know what? When we are really cold, we don't think about the future, we just wanna warm our body. That's one way to bring yourself to the present. Bringing yourself to the present, yes.

Roland Perez: 22:16

David, thank you for coming in. I appreciate your thoughts. I hope our listeners can join your journey of getting to know you better. All listeners can join your journey of mindfulness to enhance their lives and remember. The Better Wellness Podcast is available just about anywhere, including Spotify, amazon Music and iHeart Radio. So, once again, thanks for supporting Better Wellness. I'm your host, roland Perez. Thanks for listening.