“Doctor, I am currently under a lot of stress” – this line was the most I heard in the last couple of weeks (and have been hearing them a lot in the past few years). It is understandable that with the increasing tension levels in society and profession, one has to think before acting. However, as a human being and a psychologist, I cannot understand as to why most people tend to get themselves stressed out.

There are people who can easily find things, like relationships, school life, work and health, to get stressed out. Studies also state that one can make him/herself more stressed out (just by uttering three magic words – ‘What About Me??’) which also results in increase in the cholesterol levels.

Thinking is necessary but what might happen or what has happened is a waste of time, energy and as reported above health. Moreover, stress hampers the ability of the mind to concentrate and make well thought out and clear decisions. There are a lot of ways in which one can control his/her stress levels from rising and live a happy and relaxed life.

This doesn’t state that stressful situations won’t come, however a person would be able to deal with the stress accompanied in those situations. The first thing which can be done is to close one’s eyes and take few deep breaths. Also enrolling oneself in meditation seminars or yoga classes can also work wonders on reducing the out of control stress levels (one shouldn’t wait for stress levels to get out of control to sign up for the classes).

There are people who deal with the stress levels by using drugs. For most, this usually involves consulting with a psychologist (I myself viewed a couple of cases in past ten days) to check whether the stress levels could be managed by anything else or not as drugs are usually seen as a last resort.

Conventional methods of tackling with stress include changing the environment, taking a few days off from work, getting a new hobby or pet, channelling negative thoughts into an exercise etc. This allows one to focus and realize that stress doesn’t rule their life.