Quick tips to relieve stress

When stress is ongoing, this constant physical reaction can significantly raise your risk of colds, diabetes, heart disease, back troubles and almost every other major health concern. Yet stress can be relatively easy to manage. All it takes is mental commitment and an open mind. So give some of these approaches to stress management a try.

• Practise some difficult assertiveness skills such as declining a project, telling someone that you cannot talk now, expressing disagreement or disapproval or recommending an alternative.
• Increasing your assertiveness skills can greatly reduce your feelings of stress at work and increase your sense of self-confidence. Be assertive in a friendly but firm way.

• Put sticky notes on your bathroom mirror, on your car dashboard and on your office computer that say "Slow down" and "What's the rush?"
• Your brain takes many cues from your body, and sometimes it misinterprets the cues, so use that to your advantage.
• Slowing everything down – by walking instead of running, say, or listening to slow music and speaking more slowly – will trick your brain into calming down your stress levels, too.

• Sometimes diverting your thoughts momentarily to those who love you, who matter most to you and who bring you pleasure helps you to put things instantly in perspective during very stressful moments.
• Have a pet? Studies find that pets, particularly dogs, are some of the best stress-relievers and health promoters around.

• Until you do this exercise, called progressive relaxation, you won't even know how tense you really are.
• It works like this: starting with your toes and working your way up, clench each muscle for 10 seconds, then thoroughly relax them. You'll feel as if you've just undergone a massage.

• We've all heard of sensory deprivation. That's the theory behind flotation tanks in which you float in body-temperature water in a dark, enclosed capsule. To mimic one, find the darkest room in your house or office.
• Turn off all the lights, close the curtains or blinds and shut the door. Slip an eye mask over your eyes and stuff earplugs into your ears.
• Then lie back on the couch or a few pillows, get comfortable and let the relaxation take you away.

Slip in a CD of solo piano music from Chopin. Or Enya, Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye – any soothing music, researchers find, actually produces slower brain-wave patterns, like those in people about to fall asleep or who are taking certain medicines.