Stress Less
We Can't Stop Stress But We Can Use Proven Methods To Manage And Reduce It
Matthew Johnstone and Michael Player

If you're alive, you experience stress. It's just part of being human. For early man, stress helped us flee danger like a marauding mammoth, a hungry sabre-toothed tiger or an invading tribe. It literally helped us fight or flight. In modern society a little stress is useful, it keeps us energized and motivated to get things done, it helps us to turn up and be on time. Yet too much stress is harmful, and stress is sadly, at an all-time high.

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to avoid or substantially reduce stress in our lives. The things that make us stressed are the same things that always have: too much work, not enough time, financial woes, family needs, navigating difficult relationships - these familiar scenarios aren't likely to change. So if we can't change the things that cause us stress, we must change the way we interact with it.

When we feel threatened or endangered in any way, our body and mind react accordingly. Unfortunately, these days our brain sees many 'threats', even if they're not actually a danger to us. This 'stress' is a major problem and is now considered to be a major precipitating factor in almost all major diseases. Yet if we're prepared to learn from it, stress can be a useful teacher. Coping with moderate amounts of stress builds a sense of mastery and it promotes resilience for life down the road.

Stressed spelled backwards is Desserts. With that in mind; through this beautifully illustrated book from illustrator and speaker Matthew Johnstone and experienced clinician Michael Player, the hope is to turn one of the most unpleasant of human experiences into a sweet one.

In a former life Matthew Johnstone was a successful creative in advertising. He worked all around the world and won many coveted industry awards. He has since taken that skill of communicating simply and effectively into writing and illustrating books and public speaking. Matthew has published 9 books many of which have been bestsellers internationally. He gave a keynote to 87 representatives at the World Health Organisation of the power of imagery in understanding difficult to articulate subjects such as mental health, meditation, resilience and stress. Matthew's work has been endorsed by Stephen Fry, Edward de Bono, Google and the World Health Organisation. He is one of six, Australia wide, that have been nominated for the 2018 Australian Mental Health Awards for his outstanding work in the mental health and wellbeing space. His simple motto is 'Flicking Switches with Pictures'.

Michael Player is a registered clinical psychologist and an experienced mental health researcher. Michael is presently a researcher at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre, conducting groundbreaking research on how stress affects the heart rate patterns of miners in Western Australia. He is also a key researcher in a number of international studies looking into the relationship between circadian heart rate patterns and various mental health disorders. Michael spent the previous six years as a researcher at the Black Dog Institute working on a number of studies focused on stress, depression, suicide and adaptive coping. Michael spends the other half his time in Sydney assisting clients with all life and mental health concerns including, of course, stress, but specialising in couples counselling. His underlying clinical philosophy is that people are the panacea for their own ills and will find their own solution if they are assisted to remove the obstacles that prevent change from their path.