Almost anything that leaves you feeling upset or angry in some way can cause stress. As soon as stress starts to kick in you may be tempted to dwell on the issue at hand and allow the stress to continue to build. These tips can help you deal with stress.

If you find yourself feeling overextended or highly stressed, think of a relaxing scene. Picture yourself at home, in the shower or the tub, with the water carrying relaxation with it as it flows over you and carries your stress away with it. You can also try to transport yourself to a happy memory or relaxing place.

Take whatever is stressing you out and number it from 1-10. Using this scale, one would be small problems and ten would be major issues. This method will help you learn what situations you shouldn’t really stress over and put the moments into perspective.

A professional massage can help you eliminate some of the stress you might be feeling. Tense muscles are a byproduct of your body carrying around extensive stress. A massage can relax your muscles and help you to feel less stressed and more relaxed.

You can use music to help relieve stress. Music has an incredible power over people. There are studies that have shown that music can change our frame of mind and take our focus off negative things. The types of music that can have this calming effect varies from person to person, so find the type that makes you feel calm and reduces your stress.

Writing about your problems can help to reduce stress. There are often things that cause stress that we do not want to talk about with other people, it will help with the stress if you just write them down. Keep a journal containing the things that stressed you out, and how you solved them or relieved your stress, that way you can refer back to it.

Pay attention to your daily activities for unexpected sources of stress. You might play video games to help you unwind and relieve stress, but if you are sitting and playing for five or six hours a day, you are cutting into the time you need to take care of yourself and increasing your stress. You could be losing out on time for sleep, or time to eat a healthy meal.

For a easy trick to reducing stress, pick up some spearmint or lavender oil. If you begin to feel stressed, apply a dab of it on your neck and temples. Feeling calmer will help reduce how much stress you feel.

Going out with your significant other to a nice, candlelit dinner can be a great way to forget about your stress. By focusing your attention on that person, the stress creating incidents of the past or future will not be at the forefront of your mind.

Be aware of the clenching of body parts when stressed. Often these are your shoulders, lower back muscles, teeth or fingers. Once you locate the points where you direct your stress, make an extra effort to stretch those body parts to dissipate that stress. This will reduce the tension in your muscles and help relax you.

A natural method of eliminating stress is to lead a lifestyle that is healthier. Things like improving your diet, getting more exercise, or getting a good nights rest all help your body to fight off stress and anxiety. When you are living a healthier lifestyle, you will find yourself in control and that will cause you to be more at ease.

If there is a subject at school that you are not doing well in, consider hiring a tutor. This will help you to get the assistance that you need so you are not stressing out when it comes time to take your test. When you feel prepared, you will automatically be less anxious.

Visualize calming pictures in your mind to help lower your stress level. There is scientific evidence to suggest that this mental visualization really does help lower stress. Even if you do not have access to pictures, just imagining a sunny beach where you can lay back and listen to the gentle sounds of waves crashing ashore while you soak up the sunshine or the invigorating and soothing feel of a steamy bath can make a huge difference is successfully envisioning stress leaving your body. When you take those few minutes to imagine peaceful scenes to help you relax, you will undoubtedly feel less stressed out.

Try limiting the caffeine that you drink every day. Caffeine raises cortisol levels. Cortisol is called “the stress hormone”, so the more coffee you have, the more stressed out you will feel over time. Green tea can be a better choice and will not increase the feelings of stress.

Breathing calmly should help. It may be hard to believe but simply breathing deeply can increase the oxygen in your bloodstream and relax your body rapidly. Typically, people are inclined to breathe from the upper chest when they experience high levels of stress. Shallow breathing will increase your stress level by speeding up the heart rate and adding tension to your chest area.

Schedule time to allow yourself to stress. Instead of feeling stressed all day long, minor stress and worrisome thoughts can wait.

Make plans for entertainment. When you have something in the future you are looking forward to, you tend to stop dwelling on any stressful situations. Plan to see a concert or a movie, for example.

Don’t be a yes-man; be a no-man instead. You will have much more stress than necessasry if you’re always saying yes to everybody. Be honest when someone’s request just isn’t feasible for you. Recognize that sometimes you need to put yourself first.

Stressed thinking creates more stress, and turns into a circular process that can drag down even the most strong, optimistic people. The good thing is that once you start implementing ways to reduce stress, you will find it becomes even easier to keep reducing stress.