f their work while still making their deadlines more difficult to achieve (How To Help Reduce Stress in Your Employees 2000).A more obvious solution is to express your feelings. We all know that by expressing feelings, we are releasing pent up emotional tension that is not doing anyone any good by staying inside. "There is evidence that resilience to stress, including disease-related distress, is associated with how people handle their emotions," (Stress Reduction Techniques 2000) according to David Spiegel, M.D., in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. This is why it is important to express your feelings, expecially your negative feelings, when you are under stress. According to various studies, doing the opposite, suppressing negative feelings and maintaining an upbeat or positive attitude, does far less to reduces stress than letting your feelings out. Being assertive in communicating your feelings, which in turn can lower your stress level, can have a signifciant effect on your medical condition (Stress Reduction Techniques 2000).Another author believes in "minibreaks." These are two to three minute breaks in which you stop working and relax. Sit down and get comfortable, slowly take a deep breath in, hold it, and then exhale very slowly. At the same time, let your shoulder muscles droop, smile and say something positive like, 'I am r-e-l-a-x-e-d." Be sure to get sufficient rest at night (Stress Management: Ten Self-Care Techniques 1986).Again we have the recurrence of slow and deliberate breathing indicating once again that it is a key factor in the relaxation process. Still another way that you can better manage stress is by becoming aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical reactions to them. You must determine what events distress you and not ignore them. You must monitor what you tell yourself about the events and realize how your body reacts to them. For example, do you becom...
