Stress is a killer, and not necessarily a silent killer, either. It can cause heart attacks, cancer, stroke, stomach ulcers, severe headaches, shortness of breath and pains that your doctor may or may not find with his sophisticated instruments. Scientists have proven that stress is capable of sending nerve transmissions from your brain to your blood vessels and cause them to constrict.

Constricted blood vessels will elevate blood pressure, reduce the amount of blood and oxygen flowing through your body and can cause chest pains in the least.

Fortunately, we are hard-wired to handle at least some degree of stress, but the problem as I see it is that we are not equipped to handle the AMOUNT of stress that we encounter in our modern lives. I say “modern” because we have not evolved as a species to keep up with the rapid evolution of our technology. Thus, we find ourselves, for a good example, traveling at 75mph on the highway when the fact remains that in the natural world, according to our biological makeup, that kind of speed is completely disharmonious to us. Or, we sit behind a desk for nine hours then drive in a car then sit in front of the TV — none of these activities are natural to us. Worse, we fight traffic, argue with customers on the phone then worry about our finances. STRESSSSSS!

Can you avoid stress? To a certain degree, yes. And it seems that the best YOU CAN do is handle stress more efficiently. Here are some Stress Relief Ideas that have been proven to work:

1. Daily exercise. When you get your blood pumping, oxygen goes into your brain, heart and extremities. Certain hormones are released and you ease your mind.
2. Mind exercises. Meditation is scientifically beneficial to the stressed mind. The Buddhists have 2500 years of practice and study in this field and have shown that proper meditation can relax blood vessels and muscles and relax the mind.
3. Avoid junk food and sugar because both of these deplete nutrients from your body that are needed to combat and avoid stress.
4. Eat enough of the vitamin B complex foods. Vitamin B tablets do not do the job. We recommend eating the proper foods, which you can also eat inside of BFood Complex whole food supplement.
5. Go to a spa! Massage, facials, steam baths and lounging around in a pool is great relaxation. If you can’t take time or don’t have the money for a spa vacation, invest in a massage or go to one of the day spas. You can even have your spouse spend at least a half hour massaging you with coconut butter to relax your muscles and lower your blood pressure.
6. Therapy. There are some wonderful forms of psychological therapy that are still being honed as you read this. NLP, biofeedback, brainspotting and hypnotherapy may be helpful in reframing (or finding a new way to look at) your stressful problems that keep you from sleeping at night.