Stress follows us around each and every day. There is really nothing that we can do about it either, or is there? Stress is caused from bad things and from good things, basically common stressors are caused from finances, friends, spouses, family, work, the neighbors, the mail, and even driving home from work or waiting in line at the gas station. People always want to be stress free but that day will never come where you will be completely free of stress. Stress causes anxiety, depression, and many other disorders and medications dispersed from doctors for these conditions are raging out of control. It seems that no matter who you talk to they are Prozac. Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil, Xanex, and the list just continues to grow. Even while these medications are zapping through our brains and regulating neurons and neurotransmitters, we still have to deal with the stress as the medicine certainly will not make it disappear. There are however, two types of stress. One is positive stress which is the one that makes sure that life does not get boring and then there is the negative stress which is the one that makes you wish that your life was boring. Unfortunately, stress just loves to follow change and thanks to technology, the environment, and society, we have certainly dealt with our share of change. Hence, manifested stress. Now, the questions is, exactly how much stress are we under and what can we do to cope with it? Are your muscle tightened, is your blood pressure high, do you feel your heart pumping, is your digestion system out of whack, do you feel anxious, frustrated, angry, and are you physically rundown? If so, these are definite signs that stress is getting the best of you and you need to make some changes. Maybe you will be fortunate enough to find out exactly what it is that is causing your stress and if you do, sometimes that source can be eliminated and sometimes not. Others, you may be able to at least keep under control or maybe avoid. The first thing that you should do is try to always remain optimistic rather than pessimistic. Thinking good things rather than always expecting the worse, relinquish some control and just hand it over to someone else and let them deal with it. Keeping the most positive attitude that you can keep will really benefit you in your war against stress. One thing that people who are under a lot of stress find almost impossible to do is to relax, and this is simply something that you are going to have to do. Read a book, buy a relaxation tape, get hypnotized, but do something as soon as possible. You have to completely retrain your thoughts and hypnosis can really make a difference. A combination of hypnosis and relaxation audio tapes can make a world of difference. Your subconscious will allow you to relax through hypnosis and then when you follow up with the tapes, you will learn how to completely relax every part of your body. The tapes will encourage you to one by one, tense up each muscle in your body, hold it and then release it. This is called your relaxation response and will make your body so calm. It alone is almost hypnotic.