They say there's more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frustration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It's a state of mental conditioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.



Many writers will offer suggestions about how to manage stress and anxiety. But wouldn't it be preferable to conquer it altogether? Here are a few tips to get you started.

Deep breathing exercises can be a terrific first step toward getting stress symptoms under control. And lessening the symptoms is often a good first step toward curing the longer term problem. Try this: lie face down on the floor on a large towel, elbows bent with your hands flat on the floor. The backs of your hands should be under your chest. Now breath deeply, three or four times.

Several newly popular (and some traditional) techniques have proved helpful for many with stress and anxiety. Aromatherapy, often combined with 'mood music' does actually work in a lot of cases. There's little scientific evidence that aromatherapy has any sort of deep significance, but memories are often associated with certain smells. It can certainly do no harm.

The old phrase from Congreve: 'Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast' still has a place in contemporary society. While the effect shouldn't be exaggerated, it's nonetheless true that the right kind of music can help shift mood. Both because of its memory associations with pleasant events and for reasons not well understood, music can alter feelings.

Just keep in mind that those are all techniques to help relieve symptoms, they don't address the underlying causes. As such, they are only one (albeit important) component in curing stress. For that, more in-depth action is needed.

Chronic stress and anxiety are harmful, and very few harmful conditions are 'natural' in the sense that they are unavoidable, nor are necessarily devastating, or can not be overcome.

Even losses that are permanent - an amputated leg, the death of a loved one, a bankrupt business - are not equivalent to the loss of life or hope. Individuals can, and do, compensate. Time alone doesn't heal all wounds, but thought and effort can go a long way toward doing so.

It isn't advisable to have a over optimistic view that 'everything is always ok, no matter what'. Bad things do happen and realism requires seeing that. But that same realism can be the basis for seeing things in perspective. Things may be, in fact, as bad as they seem. But, they rarely have to stay that way.

"Quick tip - Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?"

The first step is always to increase awareness in two directions - outward and inward. Be mindful of your internal state and evaluate it as realistically as possible. Be objective about external circumstances. When you recognize a circumstance as legitimately worrisome, reacting with concern and a degree of stress is normal and healthy. Unreasonable fear and obsession are not.