Great Holiday Gift Ideas for Thyroid Patients to Get and Give

I believe that for everyone-- and especially those of us with chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease -- an effective form of stress reduction -- a way to generate the proven "relaxation response" -- is essential. In fact, it's as important to ongoing health as brushing our teeth, or taking our thyroid medication -- and we should try make it part of our daily self-care routine.

Stress raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol -- which can contribute to your thyroid and hormone imbalances and aggravate weight gain. Stress also promotes inflammation, which we now know is a key factor in many long-term, chronic diseases, including heart disease.

But how do we find a way to incorporate stress reduction into our daily life? I wanted to point out three of my favorite stress-reduction products -- and these are products that I use regularly, recommend regularly, and think are simply wonderful. They make terrific holiday gifts for friends and family. And if your New Year's Resolution is, like mine, to better manage stress as part of my overall approach to wellness -- any of these terrific products would make a wonderful gift to yourself as well!

Dr. Steven Gurgevich's newest CD is called Relax Rx. Dr. Gurgevich is a hypnosis and mind-body medicine expert, and works closely with Dr. Andrew Weil. In my opinion, Dr. Gurgevich produces the best mind-body self-hypnosis programs, and they are truly effective. (His Self-Hypnosis Diet book/CD is one of my absolute favorite diet aids out there!) The Relax Rx program features two audio CDS, with guided trancework sessions. With regular practice, you can learn to achieve a relaxation response in 10 minutes that would usually take 60 minutes, and reduce physical tension, relieve anxiety, and create inner calm. Some of the sessions include:

• The Relaxing Breath — a trancework session based on Dr. Andrew Weil's breathwork method for relaxation and stress reduction
• Walk to the Sea, and Your Private Island, self hypnosis "vacations"
• Relax to Sleep — a gentle hypnotic induction to guide you into a good night's sleep

I listen to my self-hypnosis CDs from Dr. Gurgevich at night, and find that they really leave me relaxed. (And if you're especially stressed at bedtime, and find it hard to sleep, "Relax to Sleep" is truly better than a sleeping pill!)

RelaxRx retails for $19.99 and is from Sounds True and is available at their online store (but it's on sale for less this week), as well as other bookstores and online. Given the state of the economy, I may buy a carton of these and hand them out to everyone I know!

Here are two other terrific tools that I recommend for stress reduction, if you have a bit more to spend.

Wild Divine's "Healing Rhythms" -- Healing Rhythms is an interactive 15-Step Biofeedback Training Program that helps you learn mind-body approaches. This set comes with a computer program, and a device that attaches to your computer and your fingers, to capture biofeedback data -- heart rate, skin temperature, and such. But it's much more than traditional biofeedback -- it's a multi-part training program that truly teaches you the techniques of breathwork, meditation, and stress reduction, with a beautiful, interactive program to guide you. It's like having the most amazing experts -- Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra -- right there on your computer, to teach you, on your schedule. The Healing Rhythms set retails for $299, and is available from Wild Divine. You can see a video demo of the program online.

Stress Eraser is like a mini-biofeedback device. Smaller than most cell phones, you slip one finger into the stress eraser. After a few minutes to master the system, you'll be breathing more slowly, following the device's visual wave pattern, and truly relaxing. It's a great device to use when you're in a situation that makes you nervous -- like flying on an airplane, or before making a speech, or during an especially stress-filled day. Even a five or ten-minute session has tremendous benefits. You can find out more at the StressEraser site. StressEraser retails for around $150, and is available from the StressErase site, as well as various vendors. You also compare prices for StressEraser at PriceGrabber.

_{Photos: clipart.com, Dr. Steven Gurgevich, Wild Divine, Stress Eraser}