Do you have any major stressors in your life? Illness? Money problems? Problems with family or at work? Other major life challenges? Even if you don’t have a major source of stress, we all encounter...

Do you have any major stressors in your life? Illness? Money problems? Problems with family or at work? Other major life challenges? Even if you don’t have a major source of stress, we all encounter stress in the form of ‘daily hassles’ (Weiten and Lloyd 2003). Imagine your day starting like this: you oversleep and realize you will be late for class/work. You jump into the shower and find that there’s no hot water. Toweling yourself off, you race to the refrigerator, pull out some milk and gulp it down, only to find that it’s sour. You gather your clothes, and discover that you have no clean underwear. As you run out the door, you see your bus pulling away from the stop. And all this in less than an hour! What will the rest of the day bring? Stressors can take many forms, but daily hassles are perhaps the most common (as Buddhist doctrine states, ‘life is suffering’!). What can you do to deal with these situations? Can you change them, or change your response? Meditation and relaxation techniques can reduce our stress response, and possibly change the way we perceive frustrating situations; regular exercise is also beneficial. Pursuing one of these options, or even seeing if there is a course in stress reduction available in your community, could provide major benefits in your life.