How to Stop Stressing Fast

Are you a stressed-out mess? Do your friends and family call you a worry-wort? Stress can literally break down your physical and mental health if you can't learn to deal with its effects. So how can you break the perpetual worry cycle and learn to separate unproductive fretting from the kind of problem solving that helps everyday life run more smoothly?

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. First, hop off the worry train. Just because you have a passing thought ("I might lose my job"), doesn't mean you need to ride that thought to reality. Worrying wastes energy. You're trying to fix every possible problem, even if none exist. Instead, think of a few things that will help whatever may (or may not happen), like pitch in on a big project even if it's not on your list of responsibilities.
2. Plan to fret. Take a planned half hour to worry intensively--then move on.
3. Keep a journal. Jot down your worries, then a few days or weeks later, write the outcome. What you'll discover is that most things usually turn out better than you think they will.
4. Challenge the likelihood of your worry. For example, if your spouse is late coming home and you imagine that they've been hit by a bus, think about the emotion behind your worry, such as you are anxious because you love them and want to keep them around.
   
   Once you have identified the emotion at the heart of your worry and allowed yourself to experience it, see if it's a reasonable worry (which it probably isn't), then let it pass rather than allowing anxiety to ruin your day.
5. Get nostalgic. Remember key life events of the past 10 years. Chances are you can't remember the worries linked with these experiences. Tell yourself that current worries will fade from memory as well.

Tips & Warnings

• Fit in at least 30 minutes of physical activity such as walking or yoga, to counteract the cortisol levels that spike in your body when you stress.