STRESS - A five letter word that can cause so many issues.

STRESS - Is there anyone alive that has never experienced some form of stress in their life? If you know someone, send them my way. I'd love to meet them.

What are ways that you deal with stress? Recently I was asked to create a stress management brief for an individual. Which made me wonder, how many people take stress seriously? Do people understand the negative effects stress can cause? And if they do know, do they take action to alleviate or reduce the stress they're under?

In my training, I have always found that the first and foremost thing to do for quick stress relief is deep breathing. Good air in through your nose, bad air out through your mouth. Take it slow. Hold the breath in for a couple seconds and then expel it fully. It's amazing how just a few breaths can calm you down. Does anyone else suddenly have the vision of a prank caller doing heavy breathing into the phone? That's not the type of breathing I'm talking about when I say do deep breathing exercises. You can do these breaths silently, but it's more effective if you put forth a bit of sound when you let the breath rush out of your lungs.

Here's another tip that I've learned over the years. Start a journal. No, I don't mean write down your inner most thoughts, although that's okay to do, too, but I'm talking about a notebook of funny thoughts, poems, cartoons, that type of thing. When you're having a high stress day, pull out the notebook and flip through the pages, reading what you have. Get a laugh or two out of it and lower your stress level. The saying, 'laughter is the best medicine' is actually more accurate than you may realize.

One of my favorite quotes about stress is: "If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress, and tension. And if you didn't ask me, I'd still have to say it." ~George Burns~

Can we avoid worry, stress, and tension in today's world? Probably not. However, we can learn simple methods to deal with these things and practical ways to reduce these things in our lives.