Take A Breather
Deep breaths raise your body’s blood oxygen levels, which can help increase your energy and alertness by lowering blood pressure and slowing your heart rate. The idea is to breathe deeply into your belly, not your chest. While sitting upright, inhale slowly through your nose and feel your abdomen push out, then exhale slowly through your mouth. Alternatively, a method used for quick energy in yoga calls for quick inhaling and exhaling through your nose while your mouth is closed. It is recommended to take 3 of these rapid breaths within a second, and repeat up to 15 seconds.

Move Around
If you have an office job like so many Americans, try getting a little exercise either on your lunch hour or if you get a shorter break throughout the day. A study from California State University, Long Beach suggested that the participants had a longer time of increased energy after taking a 10 minute walk than they did if they ate a candy bar or other sugary quick fix. The reason that a little brisk exercise works better than a store bought solution is that walking pumps oxygen through your veins and muscles.

Drink More Water
Your brain is made of 83% water, so it just makes sense that if you’re dehydrated it’s not going to function as well as it could or should. Fatigue isn’t the only symptom of dehydration of course, it can also cause depression, confusion, aggravation, constipation, and headaches. Make sure you drink plenty of water, or eat foods that have high water content like fruits and vegetables. Excess caffeine can cause dehydration, so be sure to balance it carefully.

Headaches
Whether you realize it or not, you clench your jaw when you’re under stress or anxiety.  This puts pressure on the muscles that connect your jaw and your temples and will usually lead to a headache from the tension.  Try putting a pencil or a pen between your teeth to naturally relax your jaw.  Make sure you don’t bite or chew on it though, because you’ll be right back where you started.

Hypertension
New research from the University of Florence in Italy suggests that people who are already on a medication to help lower blood pressure saw even bigger drops when they relaxed while listening to music for at least 30 minutes a day.  Meditation and focused breathing are also beneficial, but listening to your favorite tunes can help alter your mood too.

Hiccups
It is believed that sugar can affect the nerve muscles that will normally cause the muscles in the diaphragm to contract in spasms, causing hiccups.  Swallowing a teaspoon of dry sugar can put an end to hiccup fits within minutes for most people.  Alternatively, you can use a teaspoon of peanut butter.  Some people can see relief from holding their breath, or gargling with water to confuse or “reset” those same muscles.

Warts
A study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine shows a method that was effective in eliminating 85% of warts within 2 months, and I’ll bet you already have it around the house: duct tape.  If you clean the area and place a small piece of duct tape over the wart, remove it and file down the dead skin every 3 days until it goes away it has shown to be more effective than freezing, which was about 60%.  It’s believed that some chemicals in the tape will suffocate and kill the wart.

As our lives become busier and faster paced, it’s hard to remember to take the time to “stop and smell the flowers” as they used to say. Stress can build up to enormous levels that will seem insurmountable to most, and lead to some serious health risks if not dealt with in a timely manner. Everyone is familiar with the feeling of being ground down by the daily events and unexpected emergencies that can arise in our day to day lives, but many people aren’t aware of the long term effects that can be left by it. Here are just a few of the lesser known conditions that can be caused or affected by stress:

• High cholesterol
  
• High blood pressure
  
• Insomnia
  
• Headaches
  
• Hair loss
  
• Weight Gain
  
• Acne
  
• Wrinkles
  
• Cancer

One way of combating stress that won’t cost you anything more than your time is meditation. Whether or not you have any of these kinds of conditions, you can feel the effects of meditation even if it’s just for five minutes a day. Just like with exercise though, the more you can do it, the better. There are many types of meditation, but whichever you choose, do it as often as possible. Whether it’s during the day, or when you lay down to go to sleep at night.

For a quick meditation, try these few steps:

1. Take a deep breath, hold it, and count to four, then release it. As you release it, feel the tension in your body begin to drain away.

2. Repeat the deep breath, but this time hold it until a count of eight and again feel the tension lift as you exhale. Try to allow your entire body to go limp.

3. Take a third deep breath, and hold it as long as you comfortably can this time. Feel your entire body relax as you let it out.

4. Concentrate on your breath. Try to imagine seeing the air going in and out of your mouth, expanding and relaxing your lungs.

5. Imagine the oxygen filling your lungs and entering your blood stream as fresh, new energy. Energy that will revitalize your whole body. Imagine the air you breath out to be all the stress and anxieties you may carry with you.

6. Repeat this whenever you can.