There is a situation that has been around for a long time, we live in an age of anxiety. People now report more worries about stress and anxiety than any other health concern, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. It seems it´s time to find a way out of this overwhelming stress spiral.

Stress and anxiety have weighed in as primary medical concerns for Americans, according to a Health + Wellness 2019 study revealed by the Hartman Group.

Given that what more than six in 10 people report as their top health need is managing or reducing their feelings of stress, we need to learn how to deal with this health crisis. The first place to start is in your home, in your own life.

First you can start here:

Identify the real reason behind your stress.

Many people assume that their life “if only” would be better. I wish that colleague wasn´t such an incompetent person. If only your boss could see your potential. I wish your partner could appreciate you more. I wish you could choose a different career, live in a different part of town, or be of a different age.

If you discover that you have a long list of irritating worries underneath your stress, you can start a “Worry List” to get rid of all the stressors and put them on paper. So you can turn them into a list of actions and cross out what you did to solve them. For things you can´t control, you can turn them into a prayer list.

Minimize or eliminate any stressors you can.

Learning to deal with stress and anxiety is a top priority, but there are also some ways to reduce the amount of stress in your life. For example, do you serve on every board or committee required of you in your workplace? Have you signed up to provide 50 cupcakes for the school benefit cake sale? And even though you have a big report at work the same week?

Reducing stressors starts with setting limits to yourself and your time whenever possible. Sure, it would be great to go watch your son´s baseball games, but that same time of year, with tax season, you can put an overload on your accounting firm.

Your day is literally filled with opportunities to do more or have more. Even thinking about all the options can be tiring at times. This discomfort with prioritizing and saying “no” to people and opportunities has even led to the popular culture idea of FOMO (fear of missing out). But sometimes it´s better for your health to miss out on an activity and the stress that comes with it.

Laugh at this.

There is a reference in the Bible that says that a wise woman “may laugh in the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25). Who can do this? Only people who are confident, relaxed, spiritual and find humor in any situation, maybe even stressed ones.

Laughing is healing. No one knows this better than comedian Charles Marshall, a humorous motivational speaker who has been making people laugh for over 25 years. Marshall began life as a musician with a dream for years. However, an emerging health issue devastated Marshall´s music career.

But from this setback, Marshall found a new opportunity: to make people laugh and motivate them in the process. Thus, after years of stand-up comedy, he is now a highly sought-after keynote speaker, author, and columnist.

While humor is an effective healer for grieving hearts, it also helps people relieve stress and combat anxiety.

So how? Marshall recommends getting started simply: follow funny people on Facebook or subscribe to humor channels on YouTube. Most importantly, make cheerful friends to spend time with.

Never let your job take over your whole life.

Another way to beat stress? Keep the job in your workplace and don´t overestimate it in your life than it deserves.

If you don´t make time for other things in life, you miss out on life and get stressed as a result.

There is a simple stress reliever available to everyone. Whether you are at work, at home or on the go, there is always something you can do. Depending on what it is, you can do it early in the morning, any time of the day, and maybe in the middle of the night. This is one of the fastest and most effective ways to reduce stress, reset your emotions, and calm down even in the midst of the toughest times, just do it.

The most important and necessary stress reliever known is breathing, or rather, deep breathing.

Quality breathing is as natural as routine breathing. Yet many of us don´t pay any attention to our breathing unless something is disturbing it, such as when you´re choked with a cold or after a hard workout. But a certain type of breathing—deep or diaphragmatic breathing—does more than deliver oxygen to your body.

Daily Exhale

Deep breath

You probably spend most of the day taking short, shallow breaths from your chest. To breathe through the diaphragm, you have to breathe from your "belly". In other words, your abdomen should expand as you inhale and contract slightly as you exhale. As a result of this type of breathing, your breathing slows down and your inhalations and exhalations may become deeper, maximizing the amount of oxygen you take in.

Best of all, it´s pretty simple to do. Let´s see how it goes:

• Sit, stand or lie down in a comfortable position with one hand on your belly. Inhale slowly through your nose, gently feeling your stomach expand.
• Hold for a second or two, then exhale fully. (If you want, you can count from one to four as you breathe in.)
• Take your next breath slowly and repeat this process for a few minutes.
• You can do this several times a day when you need a quick stress relief.

So, whenever you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or unusual, take time to practice breathing and take a deep breath. This strategy, which may seem insignificant at first, will make you feel better in the short term and increase your chances of staying healthy in the long term.