Talk to a close friend, a family member, GP, counsellor or psychologist. Don’t bottle it up.

We know compassion and caring for others, and feeling supported by them releases chemicals in the body that reverse some of the effects of chronic stress.

Spending time with people you care about, and who care about you, is an important part of managing ongoing stress in your life.

Spend time with friends and family, especially those you find uplifting rather than people who place demands on you

Having predictable rhythms and routines in your day, or over a week, can be very calming and reassuring, and can help you to manage your stress. Routines can include:

• Regular times for exercise and relaxation
• Regular meal times, waking and bedtimes
• Planning ahead to do particular jobs on set days of the week.

Make sure you are eating healthy food and getting regular exercise.

Take time to do activities you find calming or uplifting, such as listening to music, walking or dancing.

Avoid using alcohol, tobacco or other substances to cope.

It is very helpful to be able to identify early warning signs in your body that tell you when you are getting stressed.

These vary from person to person, but might include things like tensing your jaw, grinding your teeth, getting headaches, or feeling irritable and short tempered.

There are often known triggers which raise our stress levels and make it more difficult for us to manage.

If you know what the likely triggers are, you can aim to anticipate them and practise calming yourself down beforehand, or even find ways of removing the trigger.

Triggers might include late nights, deadlines, seeing particular people, hunger, etc. 

Our thoughts constantly interpret things in the past, present and future. These can be unrealistic, unhelpful, repetitive, or self-critical and create a lot of unnecessary stress.

If we learn to identify these thoughts and how to generate more helpful and realistic ones we can reduce our stress.

Some common unhelpful thinking styles can occur in our thinking when we are stressed. Try to observe which ones are the most common for you from this list:

Start noticing when you are stressed, irritated, down or anxious during the day, and note down the thoughts you are having.

Then check the list of unhelpful thinking styles and ask yourself if any of these are present in your thinking.

The final step is to start challenging these unhelpful stress generating thoughts with some questions, such as:

• Is that really true? Do I have evidence for that?
• Is there a more realistic alternative explanation?
• Is this thought useful, or unhelpful to me?
• What would be a more useful and helpful thought right now?
• What would I tell a friend who was going through this situation?

Sometimes we are faced with problems which cause us to worry. Worrying may not be the best approach when we can deal with the problem through problem solving.

Have a look at the guide here to take you through this process.

Make time to practise relaxation. This will help your body and nervous system to settle and readjust. Consider trying some of the following things:

• Learn a formal technique such as progressive muscle relaxation, meditation or yoga.
• Make time to absorb yourself in a relaxing activity such as gardening or listening to music.
• Plan things to do each day that you look forward to and which give you a sense of pleasure, like reading a book.

Take your annual leave each year and make sure you have a proper break from work.

Get out of the workplace during lunch – even if it’s just for a 10 minute walk. You’ll feel refreshed and more productive in the afternoon.