Usually, stress is one of those things that can’t be seen, but you know it’s there. It’s sort of like an evil entity that attacks the body and mind. You get the aches and pains, right? I think it’s safe to say that we all do at times. For some of us it is much worse than it is for others. Maybe it’s connected to work, or possibly related to your home life. Some folks even inherit high stress levels. Pretty much everything is genetic we’re finding out. And then there’s stress relieving. But, how is this done? Well, this really depends on you and what you prefer. There are several routes to stress reduction.

You can find so many books, programs and audio tapes available that focus on stress relief. Many are very good, but they are also time consuming. I found that trying to fit in the programming to relief my stress was causing me even more anxiety. I went to a conference that had several break out sessions. One of the sessions was on stress relief. The presenter had great ideas of simple things that can be done in a few minutes throughout the day to help relieve stress from building up. One of the first things he started talking about was breathing. I had heard about deep breathing in the past, but the way he presented this concept and the exercises he showed us were very helpful. Breathing is something that we do all the time and learning to breathe properly can be accomplished in minutes. I find that when I am getting stressed I take shallow breaths and also hold my breath. Remembering to take a few deep breaths and hold them in and blow them out has an amazing calming effect. I have used this technique with children and parents as we are sitting outside of the courtroom waiting to go into family court. One day one of the public defenders heard me remind his client to take some deep breaths as we were going into the courtroom. The attorney told me after the hearing that he did this also and was amazed at the stress relief he experienced. There are many things that we can do during the day to reduce stress. Sometimes simply getting out of your chair and pacing or walking to a vending machine for coffee will help clear your mind and acts as stress relief.

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