11 Ways You Can Beat Stress

By Christina Frank

Would it be great to be able to do a simple nose twitch, like Samantha on "Bewitched," and -- poof! -- magically obliterate life's stressors as they head your way? One little wiggle of the proboscis and suddenly your boss is wearing a halo, your desk is immaculate and all stop-and-go traffic barring your way simply disappears.

Since such sorcery is unlikely to be within your powers any time soon, the only earthly solution is to take charge and save yourself. "The human body was never meant to deal with chronic stress," says Pamela Peeke, M.D., M.P.H., assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and author of Fight Fat After 40 (Viking, 2000). Release of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the neurotransmitter adrenalin is absolutely healthy under short-term stress, like when you need to run away from an angry dog and such hormones keep you alert and focused. "The problem is when we lead lives that make us feel like we are constantly running from an angry dog," says Peeke. "Increased levels of cortisol and adrenalin on a chronic basis are known to be toxic to almost every bodily system."

Before stress undermines your sanity, and your health, embrace these 11 simple ways to come to your own rescue.

Rescue Yourself
1. Worry about one thing at a time. Women worry more than men do. In a study of 166 married couples who kept stress diaries for six weeks, Ronald Kessler, Ph.D., a psychologist and professor of health-care policy at Harvard University, found that women feel stress more frequently than men because women tend to worry in a more global way. Whereas a man might fret about something actual and specific -- such as the fact that he's just been passed over for a promotion -- a woman will tend to worry abstractly about her job, her weight, plus the well-being of every member of her extended family. Keep your anxiety focused on real, immediate issues, and tune out imagined ones or those over which you have zero control, and you'll automatically reduce stress overload.

2. Focus on your senses a few minutes a day. For a few minutes a day, practice being mindful -- focusing only on what's going on in the present -- whether it's during your workout or taking a break from your work, says Alice Domar, Ph.D., director of the Mind/Body Center for Women's Health at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Cambridge, Mass., and author of Self-Nurture (Viking, 2000). "Take a relaxing 20-minute walk and don't think about your job worries or anything else," suggests Domar. "Pay attention only to your senses -- what you see, hear, feel, smell. If you can do that every day, it makes a huge difference to your emotional and physical well-being."

3. Talk about -- or write out -- what's worrying you. Writing or talking about the things that prey on you -- in a diary, with friends, in a support group or even a home computer file -- helps you feel less alone and helpless. One study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at people who had either rheumatoid arthritis or asthma -- conditions known to be stress-sensitive. One group chronicled in a perfunctory manner the things they did each day. The other group was asked to write daily about what it was like, including their fears and the pain, to have their disease. What researchers found: People who wrote at length about their feelings had far fewer episodes of their illness.

4. No matter how stressed or busy you are, exercise. "Exercise is probably the most effective stress reliever there is," says Domar. Researchers recently found that after spending 30 minutes on a treadmill, their subjects scored 25 percent lower on tests that measure anxiety and showed favorable changes in brain activity.

"If a woman has time to do just one thing a day for herself, I would say exercise," asserts Domar. If you can't hit the gym or trails, even a brisk 30-minute walk at lunch or getting up several times a day to stretch and walk around will help relieve stress.