I spent more than eighteen years researching stress, research that led me to the most unexpected places. Along the way I had many surprises, which led me to realise stress is not at all what I thought it was. The paradox is that stress, that thing we believe is about our head, is actually about our gut. Our health, mental and physical, is dictated by our gut. I can hear you asking, “So I feel stressed because of my gut?” Yes. I know it sounds crazy but it is the simple truth, as I will prove to you.

I discovered how important plants are to our well-being and how some of the commonly accepted ‘health foods’ and ‘healthy plants’ have no place in our diet. I also discovered what we eat is fundamental to our total health because that is what dictates the chemical soup our brain and body need to function. And to eliminate stress it must function well. This is where it all starts, with this chemical soup and the way we look at life. Find this hard to believe? So did I.

Thomas Moffett, a man whose name was spelled in many different ways, was a 16th century British naturalist and physician and wrote, ‘Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die by those fated instruments more than the weapons of their enemies.’ (More soldiers in the American Civil War died from badly prepared beans than from enemy action.) And this is good news because if we can fix our gut, and we can, then we can eliminate our stress not just today but forever. Sounds too easy doesn’t it? Too good to be true? But ask yourself a simple question, where did you get your information about stress from?

So how do you cure stress? Well, you start with what you eat. Curing your stress could be as simple as stopping eating junk food. Stop the sugar, the bread, the pasta, the pizza. All wheat based products are your enemy! But you don’t have to take my word for this try it for yourself. Stop eating wheat based products for just one week and put nothing, absolutely nothing, with sugar in it or on it in your mouth. In just one week see how you feel. Now try it for two weeks – if you can get past the craving.

Good food is far better medicine than drugs and there is, and has been for over seventy years, a huge body of evidence to support that. So if you are serious about eliminating your stress for life then continue reading. And notice I used the word eliminating. I did not write manage for a very good reason. Managing your stress is utter nonsense. Can you manage drowning? Can you manage a heart attack? Can you manage a stroke? No more can you manage stress. What you can do is eliminate it.

Here’s another surprise, your stress may have a physical cause and to find out what that is there is a little tool further on in the book to help you. So, have faith, have courage - help is at hand.