Healthvues

The Backstory
This DVD was actually part of the very first idea I had that would eventually become Healthvues. About 6 years ago, I was inspired by a television program I saw on PBS that was basically aerial footage of famous locations set to music. I found myself becoming relaxed while watching - and thought that maybe there were programs I could purchase that would give me a feeling of flying, like a bird, that I could use as a relaxation tool. More on my findings - and the results of which that led to our experiential DVDs - in the Guided Relaxation DVD backstory blog. But what I found not only lacked the elements of a true immersive experience (I talk about that in the GR blog), but what was out there only served as what I’d call a “band-aid” solution. In other words, while I watched or listened to the programs I purchased, I was relaxed. But soon after, I began to feel the same stresses I had before watching/listening. I was not addressed the underlying causes of why I felt the need to watch these programs in the first place.

I have a teaching background, having been a graduate assistant and later an adjunct professor at Syracuse University. Also, one of my hobbies is restoring and hot rodding old cars. So my mindset is this: In order to fix a problem, you must first recognize the symptoms of that problem, identify the causes of the problem, and have access to the tools that will help you fix (or respond to) that problem. If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day - but if you teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. Simple…universal…and not altogether original. Same goes for stress reduction - in order for these relaxation tools to be more effective, you must understand where stress comes from, how it’s hardwired into our biology, what external forces makes us stressful, how it affects our health and what came we do about it. Only then do these relaxation programs become not an end-all, but another tool in our box of techniques to help us change our lives.

I actually began production on this title first while developing the initial site map that would become Infertility Explained. However, when Alice Domar came on board for IE, we determined that it would be the more marketable DVD and we wanted to take full advantage of Ali’s contacts and the doors she opened for this DVD. So S&RE was tabled until IE was finished. But I kept Ali in mind this title, since she is one of the foremost experts in mind/body medicine and relaxation after all!

Once IE was released and it was met with critical and commercial success, I approached Ali about helping me finish the stress DVD. While there are many relaxation CDs and DVDs on the market (including ours), there were only one or two programs that dealt with the underlying causes - and none that explored these topics to the extent I wanted to. She was interested, and seeing how IE was received by the participants and the public, she agreed to help develop the stress DVD - adding to the content I had mapped out.

I had always thought this DVD would be effective as a three-part program. Part 1 would explain how stress is evolved in our bodies (the fight-or-flight response); its physical, emotional and health effects; and an overview of the common techniques one can use to effectively respond to stress. I believe that an effective video program is one that provides a connection for the viewer - if the viewer can identify with the content, then the video is more effective in communicating its goal. This is true for all the programs I produce for my corporate, medical and broadcast clients under iMed Design - and this is especially true for this program.

So in Part 2, I wanted to show to viewer that these stressors are universal and that the average person is experiencing these on a daily basis, just like the viewer might be. We hired a “patient” to prove this point. We wanted a real person to go through real relaxation techniques, then tell us how they felt. Ideally, we wanted to find someone who had never used relaxation techniques before. We conducted interviews and found our perfect candidate in Julie. She is a single mother, owns her own business and has experienced all the normal problems with relationships, work, life, etc. that most of us experience. Most importantly, she was willing to be honest about them. The icing on the cake for us was that she had been experiencing stress and depression and had seen her physician about it. Her doctor wanted to prescribe medications, but Julie did not want to immediate resort to drugs to help her, but rather find altenative methods to deal with her reactions. She had never practiced relaxation techniques before, but knew she needed to be in a more peaceful state. In her words, she knew what she wanted but didn’t know how to get there. We conducted her two-camera shoot one evening (during a blizzard, I might add) to make sure what we did was real time, not edited. Nothing was rehearsed or scripted. We first interviewed her about her background, her childhood, her present situation, and explored what is was about her current life that makes her stressed out. Again, all universal stuff. Then we guided her through a relaxation experience to show her (and the viewer) how to use the relaxation tools we talk about in Part 1. Finally, we wanted to see her reaction - if she was truly in a relaxed state - and she was. This was the perfect illustration of helping the viewer identify with our content and showing the viewer that it works.

In Part 3, I wanted to give the viewer a sample relaxation experience that they could then do on their own, using the newfound tools and background information they learned in Parts 1 and 2 to help them help themselves. It also serves as a sample of what you can expect on our Guided Relaxation experiential DVDs.

Not only have we finally finished what was supposed to be our first title, but we’ve are very pleased to discover that our original idea was right on the money. Stress & Relaxation Explained was recognized this year with a national Telly Award for excellence in health and wellness programming. It has received a lot of press attention (with more to come). And we have been approached by and included in the catelogs of colleges, educational distributors in the US, Canad and Europe, and several on-line distribution companies. S&RE has been a rewarding experience for us on many levels and serves as a foundation for the rest of our Relaxation Series.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 10:49 am and is filed under Healthvues Products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.