Ways to avoid stress.

According to professional stress consultants, the first step to beat stress is cut down on the caffeine. It keeps people on an emotional roller-coaster as they lurch from caffeine hit to caffeine hit. Instead drink lots of water.

• For instant relief, keep a small bottle of famous stress-beaters such as lavender essential oil and use them when the going gets tough.
• Learning to breath properly. When we are stressed, we often hold out breath. Deep breathing is essential. Close your eyes and switch off for a minute, breathing deeply and calmly while you focus on yourself.
• Learn to say 'NO'. Practise "no", a word that women especially, seem to have trouble articulating.'
• Keep an uncluttered environment. An untidy work space makes you feel like your mind's cluttered and leads to a feeling of lack of control. spending just a few minutes each day sorting, filing throwing things away can clear your head and send stress levels plummeting. Don't react so impulsively.
  
• Don't watch the news. Bad and distressing events on the news often makes you feel stressed and helpless. Read a book instead.
  
• Get enough sleep. A priority. Stress and insomnia can be a vicious circle but if yo learn some end-of-day wind-down techniques that will help you to sleep better, you are likely to find your stress level improves enormously.

Good stress

Some stress professionals suggested learning tricks for turning life's hurdles into opportunities. In fact, we all need a certain amount of stress in order to function well. Andrew Slaby, MD, American author of several stress handbooks, observes; "The fires that lead to burnout also fuel success. Conversely, the formula for success can be the same as a formula for nervous breakdown. The difference is your perspective."

Dr.David Lewis, a stress-busting psychologist who has run workshops for companies such as IBM, explains that there are two kinds of stress; good (for which the word eustress was coined) and bad stress (or distress). "If the phone rings, it's stress. If it's a bill collector calling, it's distress. If it's some offering you a better job,it's good stress. We need some stress to get us going ,but not so much that stop us functioning."

Illnesses cause by stress

According to Anne Woodham, author of Beating stress at work, "In the UK, an estimated 270,000 people take time off every day because of stress0erlated illness, a cumulative cost in sick pay and lost production of around 7 billion pound a year and rising. These are just reported cases.

Doctors' surgeries are filled with sufferers from countless illnesses that often fall into the category of 'stress-related' like high blood pressure, anxiety, ulcers, depression, tension, exhaustion, insomnia, diabetes, eczema. PMT can also worsen when we're under high pressure. Ultimately, in fact, it's believed that stress can depress the immune system, leaving us prey to every bout of cold and 'flu (or more serious complaints) many of us manage conveniently, to schedule those illnesses for our free time, a syndrome that's recognized by doctors. Work till Friday, get a cold on Saturday, back to work Monday..

There are those brave enough to risk black marks against their names for daring to complain while their colleagues put up with equally stressful workloads. But suing your boss could become the latest bandwagon. According to Anne, "stress occurs when life's out of control and suing your boss is within your power." Some stress professionals suggested learning tricks for turning life's hurdles into opportunities.

Stress Out!

This was supposed to be the decade we finally got to put our feet up. Discovered hobbies. Found ourselves with time on our hands. And it didn't happen. Just try to think of a woman who isn't suffering from a bad case of too much to do, too little time. According to Anne Woodham, author of Beating Stress At Work, it's worse for women, "because we have to juggle two roles. A woman might have a high-flying job but it's likely she then has to go home and run a house and the whole thing can fall apart because the nanny's sick. Even if you're not actually doing the caring, you're organizing it. It's very common for women to feel like they're not fulfilling any one role to the best of their abilities but instead being spread around like a very thick layer of margarine."

Another factor, women may feel they have to perform better and try harder to prove they really were the right choice for the job even if that pressure exists only in their heads. As a result, we are all, to a degree, the girl who can't say no.

Everyone has a personal stress limit beyond which cracking the whip will lead to burnout. The number one cause of stress for people working in tech office is , the office. In a survey of over 5,000 office workers in 16 countries, conducted by Harris Research for Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment, on in five people said they've taken time of work through stress. One in three said they were currently under stress at work an nearly half said the amount of stress had worsened in the last two years. work was higher up the list stress-triggers than money worries (29 percent) and family worries (20 per cent).