Ten tips to manage your stress. How to manage your work stress? How to manage your everyday life stress? How to reduce stress? How to relieve stress? How to be better at stress?

If you are stressed, and seeking the virtual world for help, a simple online search will suggest to you the above titles. Many of those blogs, articles, books, etc. are written by professional therapists and experts who know what they are talking about.

But me, and you, we know our stress. You live through the stress. You know the cause of the stress more than any expert on this planet. You might not know the solution, but you know what and who (if anyone!) are causing the stress in your life. You also know if the stress is manageable or not.

There is no magical solution to relieve your stress. There is no doubt that some stress is manageable. Tips work. And many times, we as individuals are able to reduce our stress. For example, I find it helpful when I take a deep breath at work; inhale with a count of six and exhale with a count of six. But I know that this is a temporary solution that would help me make thoughtful and mindful decisions over the next few hours. But stress level doesn’t decrease if the root causes are not dealt with.

Here is the first question to ask: is the stress manageable? Not all battles are worth fighting. I find many articles on how to build resiliency. But resiliency doesn’t mean accepting the unacceptable. For instance, if stress is caused by toxic environment, then that’s not manageable. We have no control over the external surroundings. We can control our reactions. Sometimes, it’s worth fighting back. But sometimes it’s not. It’s okay to remove yourself from stressful situations when there are no solutions to the root causes of the problems.

Inhale. Exhale. Ask yourself: is this battle for me? Is it worth fighting back?

Let’s not normalize stress. Taking pride in working under stress is not healthy. Not all stress is manageable. Choose your battles.