Are you slowly killing yourself? If you have never read an article about stress, you have probably just landed here from some distant planet. I will also wager, that if you are an employee, employer, parent or spouse, you know the symptoms and causes of stress.

Stress comes in all shapes sizes and circumstances. There are positive stressors and negative stressors. A wedding can cause stress and so can a divorce. Winning the lottery can cause tress and so can being broke. Changing careers can be stressful and so can retiring. Change can cause stress and so can boredom. Got it? Everything is a stressor. Some are negative stressors and others are positive stressors. Heres the problem, the body doesnt know the difference. The mind may, but the body reacts the same to any stressful situation.

Stress (my definition) is your inside-out reaction to outside-in circumstances, people or events. I just summarized my all day seminar on stress.

I do not intend to rehash a lot of existing dribble or scientific mumbo-jumbo about this deadly killer. It is my objective, however, to get you to realize the negative consequences of your stressors and to do something about them before it is too late.

Each of us daily, even hourly, must confront people and issues that bring with them a great potential for stress. We cannot stick our head in the sand and ask the world to go away. We must deal in the hectic, fast-paced, ever-changing world of business and relationships. And we must survive as well as we can as we go about these daily routines. Most of us create our own stress and our stress reactions. We do so in a variety of ways.

- We create deadlines and expectations, we set ourselves up for frustration and disappointment.

--- We have unrealistic attitudes and goals. We live out of balance.

- We carry around blame and resentment. We suppress feelings and emotions. -But most of all, we fail to keep life in perspective as we move through each of our days.

I ask you will any of this really matter one hundred years from now?

So why do we do this to ourselves? And we do it to ourselves. No one does it to us.

We do it in the name of success, financial gain, profit, competition, winning, more and more and more. And in the long run, we end up with less. Less satisfying relationships, poor health, less fun, less happiness and less pure joy of living. We miss a friend's smile. We long for a peaceful day. We cheat ourselves of the simple things of life that money cannot buy. Life is not perfect. Relationships are not perfect. Business is never perfect. People are not machines. Life is to be lived one joyous minute at a time. Stress keeps you locked in the future or the past and out of the present. Stress, in my opinion, is the single greatest threat to happiness, joy and a truly rewarding life. I hope I have your attention. If you are under stress, you don't need me to tell you. Your body is doing an excellent job of telling you this very minute. You are either ignoring the signals or overriding them with drugs, pills, stimulants of some kind or activities to keep you busy.

Here are eight simple things you can do to help your body relieve itself of the impact of its stress.

One - lighten up.

Two - relax.

Three - slow down.

Four - stay in the present.

Five - laugh a lot.

Six - take time to play.

Seven - accept people and life as it is.

Eight - simplify your life.