A New Approach to Self-Help - excerpts from the book "Make Room for Happiness"

How to Improve Your Quality of Life

The pursuit of happiness involves three things: identify what makes you unhappy, let it go, and learn what makes you happy. This book and website will help you do all three.

Tension is the main obstacle to the pursuit of happiness. When you're tense you tend to do what's familiar and wrong instead of what's new and right. This website takes a new approach to self-help. You will improve your life by letting go of the tension that’s getting in your way. You will improve your health, relationships, and your happiness by reducing your tension.

You can use this website in a few ways.

  • Learn a simple and powerful relaxation technique.
  • Learn the health consequences of tension and how relaxation can help.
  • Prevent and reverse heart disease.
  • Learn four laws of happiness and how they will help improve your life.
  • Enjoy better relationships.
  • Treat anxiety. Overcome depression.
  • Prevent and recover from addiction.
  • Improve your self-esteem.

Read the medical evidence and decide for yourself. The information in this website is based on medical facts from peer-reviewed articles that show how relaxation techniques improve your quality of life. Almost every page in this website and every chapter in the book has a section that gives the supporting medical evidence.

What are my credentials? I'm a medical doctor who has had the privilege of working with people and helping them improve their life. Some of those people were just like you. That's why I know the techniques in this website will work, because I've seen them work.

What Tension Is and How It Causes Unhappiness

There are four basic causes of tension:

  • Not being in the moment
  • Resentments
  • Fears
  • Trying to control things that you can't control

When you're not in the moment, you're either dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. You replay events from the past again and again, as if you want to come up with a better ending. But how many times do you have to go over the same thing? Most of the time you’re just spinning your wheels. The time you spend worrying about the future is usually just as unproductive. You worry about things that will probably never happen.

Resentments are about people, and your deepest resentments are usually about the people closest to you. It's been said that resentments are like drinking poison, hoping that the other person gets hurt. The more you dwell on your resentments, the more you poison yourself, and the more the other person wins.

Fear is the most difficult cause of tension to recognize. The most common fear is the fear of being judged or criticized. It affects everything you do, from what you say to what you wear.

What you try to control usually are the actions of other people. You know you can’t control people, but the more tense you are the more you try to control them. When you are tense, it feels as if things are happening to you instead of happening around you. Therefore you try to control them. It feels like people are going out of their way to irritate you when you're tense.

Tension affects almost every aspect of your life. Reducing tension is not the only thing you need to do in order to be happy. But it is one of the most overlooked parts of happiness. If there is anything else you need to do to be happier, you will see it more easily and deal with it more effectively when you're more relaxed. [For a more detailed explanation of the causes of tension and how they contribute to unhappiness, please see Chapter 2, "What Tension Is and How It Causes Unhappiness."]

The Book "Make Room for Happiness"

This website is based on the book "Make Room for Happiness." Click here to learn more about the book Make Room for Happiness, and to preview its table of contents. The book is based on 20 years of experience, and contains techniques that have been proven to improve people’s lives.

Praise for the Book

"This book is so clearly and beautifully crafted that just reading it reduces tension. Dr. Melemis has taken a complex subject and distilled it into pure therapeutic magic. Put simply: this book will heal you." – Hugh Prather, author of Notes to Myself

"This book could prove very beneficial to many people. I especially like the distinction between stress and tension and the clear instructions on how to engage in the various practices of relaxation." – Thupten Jinpa, official translator to the Dalai Lama

Learn Mindbody Relaxation

Learn how to relax your body and mind. Mindbody relaxation is based on the idea that it's easier to relax your mind if you first relax your body. It combines traditional meditation with psychology and medicine to produce a modern approach to relaxation.

  • Learn the essential components of mindbody relaxation.
  • Learn the benefits of mindbody relaxation.
  • Find recommended books and resources on mindbody relaxation.

Website Summary

Learn how to improve your life.

Improve specific areas of your life.

Read about the book and the author.

The following information is included in the book. You will learn about tension, chronic stress, a mindbody relaxation and meditation method, stress management, and the relaxation response. Official website of the book Make Room for Happiness.
Learn about how to Make Room for Happiness, the Pursuit of Happiness and the Art of Happiness. Read a self help book and practical guide to free self help and self improvement advice. Read how to change your life, and how to be happy. Read about Self Esteem, how to build and boost Self Esteem, and How to Improve Self Esteem.
Learn about Weight loss, How to Lose weight, a Free Weight loss program, and Healthy weight loss. Read Health information and Health tips about Heart disease, how to reverse heart disease, Life extension, Longevity, and Healthy aging.
Learn about Pain management, Natural Pain relief, Chronic Pain management, and Chronic pain treatment. Read about Depression, the Prevention and Treatment of Depression and Anxiety, Anxiety attacks, Panic attacks, Overcoming anxiety, and Treatment for Generalized anxiety disorder.
Read a book about how to Make Room for Happiness, the Pursuit of Happiness and the Art of Happiness. Read the review by Hugh Prather, author of Notes to Myself, and the review by the official translator of the Dalai Lama. You will learn about Mindbody Relaxation and Meditation, Cognitive behavior therapy, CBT, Anger management, Cognitive therapy for depression, Anger Management counseling, and Psychotherapy. Addiction Counselling and Cognitive behavioral therapy Counselling Toronto. Read how Mindbody Relaxation can change your life from the book, Make Room for Happiness by Dr. Steven M. Melemis.