Book excerpt: Rid yourself of stress and live a richly beautiful life filled with the joy you deserve! Using a simple method, The End of Stress shows you how to change your brain’s default reaction from stress, anxiety, and depression to calm, creativity, and happiness. Have you been struggling with your levels of stress, unable to escape it completely? It’s not your fault. We were brought up in a fear-based, shame-based culture that wired our brains’ default systems to stress and fear—triggering all sorts of stress reactions that sabotage happiness, compromise health, and block our potential to flourish. If ignored too long, long-term stress can become deadly, resulting in a build-up of toxic stress hormones in your body, shrinking your brain mass and lowering optimum brain function, depressing your emotional set point, and shortening your lifespan. There’s now proof that the deadly long-term effects of stress are reversable and The End of Stress provides four steps to better achieve success and happiness. This specific shift literally rewires the brain to deliver the full measure of intelligence, creativity, and emotional balance that enables you to thrive instead of struggle. The End of Stress: Four Steps to Rewire Your Brain guides you through an evidence-based process that achieves this powerful shift. This book is designed as a workshop-in-a-book, supported by a website of tools, audio files, and materials that can help create a new and healthier you!