Stress is capable of wearing you down in two distinct ways - physically and mentally. So it makes sense to get stress out of your life. Here are a few ideas that can help you to lower the stress levels in your life and, in the process, improve both your mental and physical health.

Don't shortchange the amount of sleep you get - no one works their best when they haven't had a good nights sleep. And if this sleeplessness goes on for a while, we tend to become irritable, short tempered, and more stressed.

Millions of people in this country have trouble sleeping. So many, in fact, that sedatives are one of the most sold drugs in the country. So, if you have problems with insomnia, there are a couple of things that you can do to put your body more at ease. One is to slowly stretch out in the bed and hold that stretch position for 30 seconds or so. Do this a few times. Another is to take deep, slow breaths. The combination of doing these two things together will relax your muscles and make it easier for you to fall to sleep.

Deliberately set aside more time for yourself and your family - the majority of of us have to hold a job if we want to live. However, if we are are working all of the time, there is an awful lot of family time that we completely miss out on. When we work too hard for too long, we can become stressed out without even knowing it. Taking scheduled time out for relaxation can help enormously in relieving your levels of stress. If you learn to take only 5-10 minutes out of each hour to meditate and reflect, and you do this regularly, you will be amazed at how relaxed you feel.

Stop being a "yes" man - have you even made a commitment to do something that you did not really want to do because you didn't want to hurt the feelings of someone? We all have occasionally done this. It's part of living in a civilized society. But doing it continually will gradually cause you to begin to silently resent people. And suppressed resentment often leads to depression, rage, or both. Learning to say "no" will help improve your self esteem. It will also help to keep you relaxed.

Life is not always easy. In fact, for almost everyone, there are times when it is almost unbearable. However, to a certain degree, you control how much you are willing to let stress affect your enjoyment of life. Although I've listed a few things that can help you relieve stress, there are many other thins that you can do as well. The key is to find ways of relaxing that fit your personality. Do this and you can live a stress reduced life with fewer problems.