If you feel like the IRS has you by the back of the neck and those 1040s, 1099s and Schedule Cs are one big blur of stress, then look no further for the key to de-stressing yourself.

Kathryn Zimmerman, a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, has opened The Studio in downtown Ames where she teaches people how to consciously change psychophysical habits, especially those related to stress and human efficiency.

“Teaching this work is extremely interesting for me,” Zimmerman explained. “I get to use the observational skills of an anthropologist and the friendly intercommunication skills of a tour guide to take each student on a personal exploration of their self — physically and psychologically simultaneously.”

The Alexander Technique is named after F.M. Alexander, who was born in 1869 in Tasmania and developed some vocal problems at a young age. Alexander could not find a doctor who could help him, so he set out to help himself.

He developed a technique that enabled him to regain his voice without any medical attention by changing the way he used his “self.” Zimmerman describes the technique as a “pre-technique: It is a method of learning to keep your eye on your self while you go about the tasks of living.”

Alexander’s Technique has been around for more than 100 years and has had significant influence upon the works of many of its students, including Nikolaas Tinbergen and Sir Charles Sherrington, both of whom are Nobel Laureates in physiology and medicine, Raymond Dart in anthropology, John Dewey in philosophy and education and George Bernard Shaw in literature.

In his 1973 Nobel Prize acceptance speech for Medicine in Physiology, Tinbergen allocated half of his Nobel address about “Ethiology and Stress Diseases” to the discoveries made by F.M. Alexander and the benefits he and his family gained from students of the technique.

“Misuse with all its psychosomatic, or rather somapsychic, consequences must therefore be considered a result of modern living conditions of a culturally determined stress,” Tinbergen said during the 1974 speech..

Zimmerman explained that the technique is sometimes described as an “alternative medicine,” but it is not. It is about health and discoveries for the individual’s well-being.

Alexander teachers are observers and set out to help an individual stop habits that interfere with good posture, effortless movement and conscious decision-making. The results of this technique are poise, balance and ease in activity.

Zimmerman offers workshops as well as classes for the Alexander Technique. Tonight from 6 to 8 p.m., a workshop will be held to introduce the basic concepts of the Alexander Technique through learning games.

“While a great portion of students interested in this work are professional performing artists, more and more people with chronic pain are coming for lessons,” Zimmerman said. Zimmerman is highly focused on the domain of health education as a teacher of the Alexander Technique.

Other classes Zimmerman teaches are six-week classes and four-day intensive classes, as well as private lessons. In addition to private lessons, workshops and an assortment of related classes, Zimmerman also provides the 1600-hour teacher-training to become a professional teacher of the Alexander Technique.

For more information on classes and workshops, call 232-3320.