Dealing with daily stress is foreign to most people since they assume massive amounts of stress is the American-way, but stress can lead to physical health problems.

1. Know your body. How does your body react to increased stress, do you begin shaking, sweating, have an upset stomach? When you are under a great deal of stress is your heart racing, mind racing and all you can do to get through the day is try and make it to your next meeting or appointment?
2. List your priorities. It has been scientifically proven that list-makers are more successful. Do not make a list that is unrealistic by trying to fit an entire week into one day; you will only increase your stress by doing so.
3. Create a realistic list of activities for the day, week, month and year. Make sure you divide the lists into daily tasks that are manageable. For instance, don’t create a list that has you going across town 15 times in one day, picking up the kids from the sitter, making dinner, and creating a 15-page spreadsheet. You are setting yourself up for failure and more stress.
4. Make sure your list includes some type of relaxation activity that relaxes you; it could be yoga, meditation, a hot bubble bath or soothing music. You must take time for a relaxation session each day even it if is just 30 minutes, this time is “me time” and helps to keep you focused and thus reducing stress.
5. Try single-tasking instead. Many people are trying to multi-task even though it goes against their nature and by doing so they create additional stress. Try finishing one project at a time before moving to the next.
6. Lastly – make sure you are getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night. If you are trying to operate at full speed on 2 hours of sleep each night, you are going to burn out fast. Your body needs sleep or it will suffer physically.
7. Daily stress is part of life but the way you deal with it will make it manageable or overwhelming.

In the world in which we find ourselves, there is more daily stress than we have ever known in any other time in history. One reason for this is the technology age has allowed us to do more things simultaneously so that we have become a multi-tasking world. But multi-tasking has brought about additional stress to those who work full time and manage to raise a family and still find time to relax. The problem arises when there are not enough hours in the day and the relaxation is placed on the back burner.