Life is naturally stressful. Some stress is good for you. It makes life exciting. Too much

stress is bad for you and can wear you out. Too much stress creates both physical and emotional problems. It can also affect your daily life at home and work.

Too much stress leads to irritation and frustration as well as poor concentration, attention, and memory. It makes it hard to get through the day.

When you are stressed out, you make mistakes and any job you are doing gets harder. Efficiency and productivity go down as you stop to correct the errors you made or to sooth the feathers you may have ruffled.

Now, the problem with stress is that you can't make it go away. You can't be stress free. So, the challenge is to learn to how to "undo" what stress does to you.

You might remember that the symptoms of a stress reaction are tense muscles, an elevated heart rate, raised blood pressure, rapid breathing, and a tight stomach as well as the emotions of anger or fear.

The stress reaction is your body's way of preparing you for fight or flight. Your body is trying to help you directly confront stress by either resisting it or by running away. In modern life this strategy does not work. You can't fight or run away from most modern stress. It's just a part of daily life.

You can, however, cope with stress by learning to relax. This is a special kind of relaxation in which you quickly and intentionally relax all the muscles of your body. Once the muscles relax, they need less oxygen allowing your heart rate to slow down. This lets your blood pressure come down. Your breathing now slows to a deep, regular pattern, and the stomach calms. You begin to feel peaceful and refreshed with more energy to face the rest of the day. Relax like this twice a day, and you will undo stress what stress does to you.

How do you do it? Well, you take ten minutes. Sit in a chair. Start with your hands. Tighten them into fists. Hold the tension 10 seconds then - relax. Feel the difference. Notice how the muscles are relaxing. Do the same thing with the biceps. Raise both arms and create tension. Hold it 10 seconds and relax. Work your way up from to your face and forehead and then down to your chest and belly and then to your legs to your toes. Create and hold tension in all the major muscle groups. When you finish, you will be relaxed and refreshed. You will have undone what stress was doing to you.

Practice this simple exercise everyday and you will be more in control of stress and how it impacts you.