But as you may know, worrying never made any situation better yet. Rather than worrying, you have to take action or learn to accept situations as they are.

Anxiety and stress can actually stop us from acting when we need to the most. It can cause you to be hesitant and indecisive, wasting time thinking about what could happen rather than making things happen. We have internal dialogues which are only a distraction from the task at hand.

Most people who suffer from stress believe that all this thinking is useful in some way. They believe they need to think things through. In fact it very rarely helps at all. They imagine a whole course of action from beginning to end and when they do make a choice they commit to it in an ‘all or nothing’ way so that it is very difficult to go back when, as is likely, things do not work out as they imagined.

When looking at a situation which is stressful, it is usually best to act with confidence. There will be consequences to your actions of course, but the way to go is to adapt with the changing situation and keep working towards your desired outcome.

In order to do this, most people need some training. This is where assertiveness and conflict resolution techniques are very helpful, especially where the stress is caused by the demands or expectations of others, or problems such as harassment or arguments.

It is also important to have a clear sense of what is important and what is not, so that we don’t sweat the small stuff. This means having some perspective on our lives and it is often achieved by taking up a new hobby or sport, some useful activity that you can be enthusiastic about. This will stop your whole life revolving around your work, your relationship, your health or whatever it is that is causing the stress.

When you have a moment of acute stress and you need something to calm you, a slow form of exercise such as Tai Chi or yoga can be very helpful. Meditation can also relieve stress if practiced regularly. Simply slowing down your breathing will often help.

Autogenic training is a form of relaxation training that was designed specifically for stress relief. It involves 15 minute visualization sessions that you practice three times a day if possible. You can buy a CD that will teach you how to do this.

Another possibility is listening to music, although it must be chosen carefully. It needs to be relaxing. Most classical music is fine, and modern chill out music can be great too. You will not want anything with a heavy beat, loud instruments or lyrics that will engage your emotions. If there is singing it is best if it is in a language that you do not understand.

Even in our world where most of us lead very busy lives, stress is still avoidable. You can cope with stress in a variety of ways -you can even think of battling stress as a challenge to be overcome; many find this attitude to be a helpful one to take when trying to reduce stress.