The BBC TV show about Stress in the modern world and how to deal with it.

The Truth About Stress.

Try a Free Mindfulness MP3 at http://www.markpowlett.co.uk

The Truth About Stress aired on Thursday 4 May 2017 on BBC One as part of a season of films on mental health, across TV, Radio and online.

Following on from previous successful shows The Truth About Meat and The Truth About Sugar, this time the BBC is tackling stress.

The documentary will try to discover why people are experiencing increased amounts of stress, and what we can do to reduce it.

The season includes a two part programme on BBC One following a group of 10 runners affected by mental health issues as they prepare to run the 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon, to a Horizon Special on BBC Two looking at schizophrenia and advancements in the treatment of psychoses; a documentary on stress for BBC One and a documentary from mental health campaigner Jack Rooke for BBC Three.

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The World Health Organisation has described stress as 'the health epidemic of the 21st century'. In this programme Fiona Phillips wants to understand why we are experiencing increased amounts of stress in our lives and what actions we can take in order to reduce it.

Fiona speaks openly about her own experience of stress and her desire to find better coping mechanisms in the hope of improving her health and happiness. A key question driving Fiona's discovery is whether or not some types of stress might actually be good for us and drive us towards better performance and confidence at work and a healthier approach to the pressure and stress we might face at home. Fiona investigates this latest scientific thinking and learns how to turn stress into a weapon rather than a woe, simply by changing the way we perceive it. We reveal exciting new research about stress that could help us to lose weight - particularly those suffering from diabetes or obesity.

Alongside a team of experts and a number of willing volunteers, Fiona puts herself on the front line and in a number of high-stress situations to truly understand the meaning and power of stress, and find out if we can actually learn how to use it to our advantage.

Fiona explores some of the very latest scientific research behind stress and demonstrates a number of techniques and lifestyle changes which are designed to keep our high stress levels in check.

The Guardian reviewed the show saying...

 This helpful and well-intentioned programme may have been hampered by the inescapable fact the best remedies for stress are simple and well-known: diet, exercise and mindfulness were the recommended top three. And for God’s sake: just tick the box that says you want them to redeliver the package next week.

The Daily Telegraph said..

In a brisk hour of rudimentary fact-finding, Fiona Phillips looked for symptoms before moving on to potential palliatives. Stress, she found, can have any number of root causes. Traffic jams. Rapid-fire maths tests. Proximity of tarantulas. Or in Phillips’s case, getting up at 3.30am to present breakfast TV while looking after small children and two parents with dementia.

TV Show Bull shows you how to Hypnotise someone to commit a murder..or does it?

If you are a fan of Bull starring Michael Weatherly you will already know that despite the air of complex mind work, it’s really a confectionary of a show. You will probably already work out who did what before Bull does. Despite that fact it is still an entertaining way to spend an hour.

This week in episode 20 called “Make Me” Hypnosis and mind control took centre stage.

From the opening scene where we watched two friends playing golf on a driving range something was up. Suddenly one of them picked up a golf club, and with a steely gaze started clubbing his friend to death. At this point, I had already worked out that this would be a take on hypnosis before Bull had even appeared on screen.

“Troy Dickerson is 25 years old...he enrolled in an alternative learning centre” says a doctor. Bull already thinks it is a cult.

At this point we find out that in fact they were not just friends, he had actually killed his father, and here we learn that he doesn’t even have any memory of the incident. After a lie detector test and an MRI  he seems to be telling the truth. According to the video taken at the golf club, it is clear that he killed his father...but was he aware?

Do you forget everything when you are Hypnotised?

So, we are already being shown that according to this people can just forget what happens in hypnosis.

Bull, uses his own hitherto hypnosis skills to hypnotise the suspect with a coin. It’s not unlike that watch that people think hypnotists use...like the one in this video?

Bull instantly starts asking questions and after about two minutes he decides that “A young man, highly susceptible to brainwashing, was brainwashed to kill.”

Once I stopped laughing I was at least able to give the show credit for the fact that they did explain that hypnosis can be used to help people quit smoking and change bad habits.

In this case he was hypnotised to kill his father and then a trigger made him kill his father.

Off they all go to find out who really did this. Off I went for a cup of tea. As I say it’s all interesting as a show but it won’t surprise you to know that you can’t hypnotise people to kill people.

Hypnosis is a natural and normal state, and you can’t make anyone do anything that they don’t want to do. Unless Troy wanted to kill his father, then he wouldn’t want to kill him.

Spoiler Alert...

So, if you haven’t seen the show yet, I will give away a little more about what happened so you may want to come back after you have watched it.

The Biggest challenge?

Bull says that the biggest challenge is to convince people that hypnosis is real. If you want to find out about the power of suggestion then you can watch the video below where I hypnotise your arms to move...in different directions..

The Cult leader.

When we see the cult leader we do see how they use language to their advantage. Is that hypnosis though, or simply preying on people who are vulnerable? Much has been written about this elsewhere.

So, in this show the cult leader had a private session with the suspect, but in a twist that noone saw coming, it turns out that the cult leader was the actual target and in fact it all went wrong. The defence for the jury still rests on understanding how hypnosis works.

I wasn't sure why they were making such a big deal about it. Then again, it's possibly because of TV shows like this one making out that you can do things that you cannot. It's like pop culture is eating itself.

According to the expert on the show you can use hypnosis to make someone commit murder.

Well that's Bull on Bull. You simply can't make someone do something that they would normally do. We are off into Lala land now in the show. I think if people were going around hypnotising other people to murder you would probably hear a little more about it!

They proved hypnosis exists by saying th word "RED" a lot, and then the next day everyone on the jury wore red without even realising. That was interesting. I couldn't help thinking that if I had been on the jury I couldn't have worn red as I don't have any red clothes! 

Enjoy the show, take it with a pinch of salt and check out the video below that talks all about myths about hypnosis...