5 most common stress questions answered

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Before you can reduce stress, you have to understand what stress is and how it impacts your life.

The natural methods to reduce stress are numerous. One of the first ones that I always recommend as a psychologist is your perception of stress.

Flip the script and trick the devil. It's all about the perception. Secondly, look at exercise, releasing endorphins,

the feel-good hormones that help you to conquer that stress. You should look at changing your diet

and eating fruits and vegetables that help you build up your physical and emotional immune system

in order to ward off a lot of that stress. Look at getting a better night's sleep. If you are getting those Z's, if you are getting enough

of that REM sleep, then certainly you'll feel better in the following day.

It's almost as though the tea itself becomes your object of meditation, something to focus on.

So having a cup of tea in a day, whether it's first thing in the morning, perhaps mid-morning, or even at the end of the day, is a great way

to set up a-- almost like a ritual of zen. The more we get into our senses, our physical senses, the less

we're involved in the thinking, in the mind. So we can't be thinking about something and at the same time

smelling it or tasting it. So start off by just after you've poured the hot water

into the tea. Just take a moment before you even pick the cup up. Take a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth just to settle yourself,

just to ground yourself. Perhaps you're watching the steam rising from the tea. Pick the cup up in your hands.

Feel the warmth of it. Enjoy that feeling of warmth. Smell it.

What does it remind you of? Is it a pleasant sensation? And then slowly bring it to your mouth and take a taste.

Notice where in the mouth you taste it. Notice the sensation, the warmth. And sometimes if you're really attentive,

you can even feel the water as it travels down towards the stomach. So just by taking this time, by building in this ritual around

tea-- and it only need take a few minutes-- you kind of have those little moments throughout the day.

It almost, like creates some stability of zen throughout the day, where you come back to that ritual again and again.

One thing that I always say to people is find a way to cut corners. One of the things we've talked about

is this idea of being a good-enough caregiver rather than the super caregiver. And that really may mean that sometimes you cut corners.

You order dinner out. You purchase the birthday cake. You have someone else pick the kids up from school. Sometimes cutting those corners and not

feeling that you have to be perfect, which is very much a head game, but if you can let that down and let that go, sometimes that can be a way of saying,

OK, I can handle this.

Another thing I really strongly suggest to people is that you not try to create a to-do list that's 100 items long

or have 50 priorities that day because you are guaranteeing that you will fail. So a real key, then, becomes that you

have this rule of three, which is three key priorities that you must get through that day. Those could be work deadlines.

They may be related to your children. They may be related to an older parent that you're taking care of. You must get those done.

And once those are done, probably everything else will fall into place. Or maybe not, that you will find ways to cut corners,

for example, to get dinner on the table so you get the deadline done. But I do think it's about keeping those priorities manageable, finding ways

to cut corners, and more than anything, allowing yourself to realize that good enough is more than enough.

Recognition of the problem is the first step. Once you can do that, you then have to be mindful of what is causing the stress.

Some people have very healthy stress responses. They go to the gym. They do mindfulness exercises. They do-- experience time with friends.

They have things that give back to themselves so that they feel better. But most of us do things like overeat, drink too much,

do things that might be dangerous to us in other ways. It's important to at least recognize that that is a problem. Once you can do that, you then have

to be mindful of what is causing the stress. Why am I getting stressed out? What is happening in my life? Are there really practical things

that I can do to reduce the stress? Can I eat better? Can I get more sleep? Can I get some exercise? And then you want to add in things that bring pleasure

to your life, so spending time with friends, going to concerts, indulging in things you really enjoy. It doesn't mean spending a lot of money,

but maybe just sitting for half an hour listening to music is something you enjoy, which brings down your stress level and allows you not to engage in these negative and potentially

harmful things. Some typical stress responses that people experience can range from biting your fingernails,

picking at your skin, twirling your hair, sweating, overeating, using drugs and alcohol excessively,

not exercising, not sleeping. All these things are really things that potentially damage

your self and your health. So if you can replace them with alternative and healthier things, it'll build a better life for you.

How do you avoid getting super angry when provoked?

People who know how to push your buttons will push the same button over and over and over again. And it's your job to deactivate the buttons,

stop reacting in the same way. Sometimes you have to stop reacting at all. You have got to redirect your thoughts.

If we're able to step back and say, you know what? A boundary's been crossed. I need to set a stronger boundary here, or I need to walk away for now.

I need to take a deep breath. Sometimes you have to make a clear decision to change your environment or change

the dynamic of that relationship so it doesn't affect you in the same way over and over and over again.