Right now, do a survey of your body. It will tell you if you are stressed or not. Feel the muscles in your neck, your jaw. Are they tense? Notice your hands and arms. Are they tense and searching for things to "play" with (including a cigarette)?

Bring your consciousness to your back. Is it tense? If any of the questions (or all of them) received a yes answer, you body is stressed, and it is affecting your entire system.

If you can, relax them by thought, and you will be one step ahead in your management of stress.

The effects? Higher rates of blood pressure, nervous disruption directly affecting your ability to concentrate, breathing irregularities that also affect your heart. As you see, your whole body can be disturbed. If this is a daily event, it is taking years off of your life.

The answer will not be in the easy to use cigarette (besides everything else, an anti-depressant), or a bottle of alcohol. The answer lies in your management of the stress. Since many things you cannot change, change those stressors that cause it, you then change your reaction to it.

What are the stressors?

They can be internal (such as too much coffee, drugs, faulty thinking, being a perfectionist, a liar, a "yes"-person, closed minded, and having unrealistic expectations for example) and external (everyday situations, traffic, dominant boss, fears, irrational rules and procedures, and crowds to name a few). Be they internal or external, the result is the same. You are damaging your health and happiness by inappropriate management of them or no management at all.

What can be done?

Really a great deal can be done to manage stress. The basic element is that you must be, as is an athlete, in good shape when the stress comes. This means sleeping regular hours, elimination of as many internal stressors as possible, having daily chill-out sessions where you relax and regain your internal composure, eat well, and force your body to relax by either meditation or massage or both.

The next factor is being ready when the stress comes. Be a natural problem solver, and when that stress comes, see it as an opportunity to solve a problem. This is a bit like a game, but it works. As in any game, call a "time out" and if possible, disappear for a while to the nearest restroom. There you will wash your face and hands with cold water a number of times, till you feel the stress passing from you.

Stay happy, even though the stressor is negative and threatening. Try not to take it too personally, and see it objectively, as an observer. Try not to be negative, and see the solution as a near obtainable goal. Even when you are attacked by unreasonable people, if you hold this attitude long enough and strong enough, you will prevail.

Finally see things in a positive way. There are always two sides to anything and everything in the universe.

The stressor may be negative, or appear so, but it will have its positive side. Try to see it, feel it. If you are a religious person, you can feel that there is nothing in the world that happens by mistake, and it may be God that is sending you a test or trial for unknown reasons.

There are many ways to see stressful events, and if you keep a positive view you will have learned to manage the stress well.