A popular seven-minute stress-reduction exercise widely used within the U.S. Armed Forces has just been released as a free iPhone and Android app for the general public, under the name "Cure Stress."

The app, launched recently by Richard Tytus, M.D., professor of medicine at Canada's McMaster University, includes guided audio programs that have proven highly effective in reducing the effects of stress, anger, fear, pain and nervous tension.

"Sixty to 80 percent of issues presented to family doctors are stress-related," says Tytus, who trains incoming family doctors at the Ontario-based university. "'Cure Stress' acts as a tool for physicians to help patients deal with these issues."

Noting his high success rate with the simple practice, Tytus adds: "Patients regularly tell me how their relationships with family and co-workers are improving. One woman credited the exercise with helping her quit after 35 years of smoking."

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The free seven-minute "Cure Stress" audio exercise is a short version of the longer 30-minute classic observation exercise called "Be Still and Know," which has been used for years within the military to relieve stress and increase resilience, and even to help with more serious issues like depression, addictions and PTSD.

In fact, the exercise has been highly endorsed by both the U.S. Army's top Christian chaplain and its top psychiatrist. Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Carver, the Army's retired chief of chaplains, called it a "great resource for our soldiers," with Col. John Bradley, M.D., long the chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, concurring.

Maj. Gen. George R. Harris, recently retired from the Office of the Secretary of the Army, told WND "it was fantastic" to be able to give the exercise to stressed-out soldiers returning from deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"In every case I heard of that he went through the process, it was helpful to the soldiers and their wives," he said.

Likewise, in the civilian world, the technique is valued by physicians and psychiatrists such as George M. Hayter, M.D., chief of psychiatry at St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, California.

"I must say, on the basis of 20 years' experience, that the application of this technique has made a significant contribution to the treatment of the great majority of those people who have learned it," he said.

The "Be Still and Know" exercise – like the free seven-minute version called "Cure Stress" – was developed by Roy Masters, who at 86 is the patriarch of stress experts, having taught the method since 1960 to millions. His fans include everyone from movie star John Wayne to Internet journalist Matt Drudge. He also hosts talk radio’s longest-running counseling show, "Advice Line," on Talk Radio Network, has authored 18 books and was featured on "The Sean Hannity Show" to discuss his newest book, "Hypnotic States of Americans."

In a recent message on Twitter, Masters summed up more than 60 years of work in just 140 characters: "Learn to endure cruelty and injustice without resentment and after the stress has passed you will find the fulfillment you have been seeking."

"Most stress," Masters told WND, "is simply cruelty, in one form or another, directed at us by other stressed-out human beings, who themselves have been victimized by cruelty and stress in their own pasts.

"Imagine, however, that someone said or did something cruel to you, but that you did not react in any way whatsoever – you did not become upset, resentful or even ruffled. You simply observed that this person was saying or doing something cruel, as though you were calmly observing the scene in a movie. You simply would not be stressed by what would appear to others to be a highly stressful encounter. Stress and cruelty affect us as profoundly as they do only because we react to them resentfully."

The exercise works so well, he adds, because "it enables you to become objective, a little bit separate, detached and disentangled from all your troublesome thoughts, emotions, heartaches, fears and traumatic memories – and that, all by itself, is extremely helpful, and actually healing."

The free seven-minute exercise can be downloaded for iPhone and Android here, and can also be accessed online for free here.