Just about every illness is either directly caused, or made worse, by stress. That includes heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, along with:

• Back pain and headaches
• Stomach and digestive problems
• Tooth grinding
• Sleep loss and fatigue
• Skin problems
• Weight gain or loss
• Depression
• Confusion, irritability, forgetfulness and more

Since stress is something that you encounter every day, you simply must have tools to deal with it if you want to be happy and healthy. One of my personal favorites, as many of you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which involves simple tapping with your fingertips to input kinetic energy onto specific meridians on your head and chest while you think about your specific problem and voice positive affirmations.

But there are many others out there and, really, the more stress management tools you learn, and use regularly, the better of you’ll be.

The following tips from Lifehack will help you develop practices and a mindset that dissipate and reduce the inevitable stress of life itself.