What’s old in the management of stress? The same thing as always: we don’t use what we know and could be using to handle daily living stresses.

A few facts to prove the point that stress is caustic to quality living and is not going away. These are as recent as 2004, according the American Psychological Association and the National Institute of Mental Health.

• Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide.
• Seventy five (75) percent of visits to doctor’s offices concern stress-related ailments.
• In a typical workplace with 20 employees, four will likely develop a mental illness in the year.
• Nearly 15 percent of college students have been diagnosed with depression.

Two observations for your health:
First, acknowledge you are not immune to stress. Accept it.
Secondly, practice mindful stress reduction. Build at least five management activities into your daily life.

To get a read on your current level of stress take the Holmes Stress Assessment Test. Quick and easy with results instantly available online, no charge!

Next, do something, anything. Okay, so you can’t/won’t start doing five things daily. Do this one, the best: breathe deeper. If you smell the roses or any flower for that matter, you breathe deeper than usual. If you laugh, you breathe deeper than usual. If you cry, yell, run, hit something, cheer at a sporting event you will inhale and exhale with more volume. That’s the point, get the oxygen flowing.

Of course there are other more conscious and mindful ways to breathe deeper: yoga, meditation, walking, playing with children and dogs, sitting up straighter and deliberately Inhaling, and taking breathing lessons as in qui kong or voice lessons.