One day when I was around my early to mid twenties, I went to the hairdressers for my monthly trim. She asked me if I had heard about the car crash, that had happened over the weekend. I hadn’t and she then went on to describe what had happened.

Three young men who were all aged twenty-two, were on the way for an evening in the local pub. One of them decided he would drive and on the way there, partly due to the fact that he was driving too quickly, he lost control of the car. His vehicle had then careered straight into a large tree, all three of the people in the car had died at the scene.

She continued that one of the men which had died, had worked in the butchers, which was only two doors away from her shop. She described the man in question, which turned out to be a person that I knew, just to say hello to. This was a person I would walk past on the majority of mornings and we would say a quick hello to each other.

During that evening my mind thought about this man. Even though he was friendly, he always looked quite stressed and did not seem that happy. My guess is that he would have perhaps been more care-free and positive had he known that he did not have long to live.

It should not have taken this kind of tragedy to bring me to my senses, but it did. I suddenly realised that we are all terminally ill as we all will die at some point in the future. I am sorry if that is a bit morbid, but it is true. Not all of us will live until retirement age, of course, and our lives could end tomorrow.

I have always been a bit of a worrier, mainly about my speech I suppose as I had a stuttering impediment. I did eventually manage to gain fluency via an intensive one-to-one stuttering therapy course but even then I started to worry about business; I work for a company which offers a DVD replication service.

I now have learnt to stop stressing so much – life, I have now learnt, is just too short.

I am a person who used to stress in a big way. At one point a work colleague made a comment that he thought that I walked around with the weight of the world’s problems on my shoulders. Things though had to and were about to change.

I then went about reading lots of books about mind over matter and positive thinking.

I soon learnt that worrying and stressing about a situation does not make it go away or make it any easier. I have to say that it actually makes things a lot worse. The important thing to remember is that in life all you can do is try your best. When a negative thought or worry enters your head you need to immediately ignore it and to change your thought processes into thinking about something which makes you happy or smile. You have to treat these demons as your worst enemy and fight them away. Treat it like a war and be determined not to let them win the battle of minds.

I had always been a worrier; this is something that commenced in childhood probably due to the fact that I had a stutter. I did attend stuttering treatment however I only managed to overcome my stuttering problem when I was aged twenty-two after watching a seventy minute stuttering therapy DVD which I bought from The How To Stop Stuttering Centre in Birmingham, England.

I also learned to become a much more care-free person and I also now appreciate what I have in life rather than worrying about what I do not have.

These things have helped to improve my life in a big way; as an example I am now a successful business man offering London IT support and I also work part-time for an egg donation company.

I hope the above stress-relief tips help other people as much as they have helped me.

Stress is when your peace of mind is interrupted and your emotions are worked up. You can feel stress in your home, work or your child can feel stress at school. If not handled properly, it can mess with our minds and our health.

Stress feels like you are carrying a large burden on your shoulders. You have a lot of responsibilities that seem like it all falls toward you and no one else. You have feelings of anxiety and frustration.  Stress can contribute to health issues like gum disease.

There are times when you will get angry because so much has come upon you and it seems to be overwhelming. You feel overpowered to do anything so it’s easy for you to get into worrying about things that you can’t control.

It doesn’t have to be big things that will cause stress. It could be some of the smallest things that can set you off and make you tense.

There are different things and events that can cause you to be stressed. What may cause stress for one person may not be the same for someone else. It’s basically different strokes for different folks when it comes to stress.

Stress can be physical, internal, emotional and external. They can be caused by a loss you’ve experienced, overworking yourself, sickness, arguments and other problems that you face.

You can also experience stress from office politics. This is not something that you should get involved in. It is not good for you mentally, especially if you’re dealing with other problems. Office politics can be very brutal and you have to know how to deal with it. The last thing you want to do is to bring it home with you.

One of the worst things you can do is to turn to drugs or alcohol to relieve stress. You will be on a never ending loop and things can go further south from there. If you do develop that gum disease we talked about, try the hydrofloss or therabreath mouthwash for better oral hygiene.  So, therefore it is extremely important to watch over your dental health during times of stress. This would include pregnancy when the risk of getting gum disease rises. 

Getting rid of stress is important for many aspects of your life.  Stress levels vary, but if you learn could stress management techniques, you might live a happier, longer and more fulfilling life.

One day when I was around my early to mid twenties, I went to the hairdressers for my monthly trim. This woman enquired about whether I had heard about the tragic car crash that had recently occured. I hadn’t and she then went on to describe what had happened.

Three young men who were all aged twenty-two, were on the way for an evening in the local public house. One of them decided he would drive and on the way there, partly due to the fact that he was driving too quickly, he lost control of the car. His vehicle had then careered straight into a large tree, all three of the people in the car had died at the scene.

She continued that one of the men which had died, had worked in the butchers, which was only two doors away from her shop. She described the man in question, which turned out to be a person that I knew, just to say hello to. I actually saw him on most mornings and we often smiled at each other, and would say something like, hi there.

Later on when I was at home, I started to think even more about this particular person. Even though he was friendly, he always looked quite stressed and did not seem that happy. If he had known what was about to happen to him, I am sure he would have made the most of the time he had left.

It should not have taken this kind of tragedy to bring me to my senses, but it did. Morbid as it is I pondered on the thought that we all have to die at some stage and that none us know when that day will come. I am sorry if that is a bit morbid, but it is true. Not all of us will live until retirement age and our lives could end tomorrow.

I have always been a bit of a worrier; mainly about my speech I suppose as I had a stuttering speech impediment. I did eventually manage to gain fluency via an intensive one-to-one stuttering therapy course but even then I started to worry about business; I work for a composite door company and for a business cost reduction specialist on a part time basis.

I now have learnt to stop stressing so much – life, I have now learnt, is just too short.

Up until a few years ago many of my friends and family used to call me “a stress head”. Why you may well be thinking? Well quite simply because I seemingly stressed about anything and everything.

So what was the cause of all of this stress? I suppose if I am truthful the majority of my problems at the time came about due to the fact that I had a stutter. This speech impediment had developed when I was at the age of four. As you may well imagine it is something that destroyed my overall confidence levels. Therapy for stammering, at the time, was less than impressive which did not exactly help the situation.

My low self-esteem had a bad affect on many areas of my life, not just my speech. I would worry about what other people thought of me, I would stress about my height and my weight. I was so desperate, for whatever reason, for people to like me. I have to say that this now seems so bizarre however at the time I was being plagued by an army of demons that had taken over my brain. It even affected my career which is within the cheap mobile calls and cheap holidays industries.

As I entered into my twenties I decided that enough was enough. I could no longer live in this way – there surely had to be more to life than this.

There was only one person who was going to get me out of the mess that I was in and that person was me.

I started to work very hard at learning how to increase self-esteem for example. I watched the way in which great fluent talkers spoke and tried to compare it with the way that I spoke. I hoped this would result in me finding the solution to my stuttering problem.

Progress was far from quick however after around a year of battling against my demons I did manage to overcome the stutter and I did manage to discover ways to stop me stressing – it is all about attitude and the way we approach life – think positive and believe in yourself!