1. Don't overwork: Your brain can tolerate only so much work. If you overwork, you will stop enjoying what you do and you find yourself being cranky with your family and friends. People will avoid you. Don’t be burnt-out. Avoid swing shift. This is guaranteed to cause you marital, family and health problems in the long run. Your bonds will break down with your spouse, especially if she, too, works, Your kids will grow up not knowing you. You will have few friends. Your social life will dwindle. Your sleep debt will rise. You will soon find yourself having little energy, patience and ability to focus.

   Avoid sending the spouse to work, especially when kids are of school age. When parents don’t spend enough time with their children, they do poorly in life. By exposing your kids to baby sitters, you are risking traumatizing them emotionally and physically. You must find time to have dinner with your family everyday.

   Find time to have fun with your family. Weekend outing, picnicking, vacationing, hiking, boating, etc. are activities that help families bond closely.

2. Buy modern conveniences such as fax machine, cellular telephone, computers, beepers, etc., only if these would save you time and money in the long run. Don’t buy them to complicate your life further. For example, an answering service could save you a lot of headaches from having to take frivolous calls. On the other hand, you could tell them to beep you every time someone called which could stress you out soon. Cellular telephones could be turned on only when you want to make a call, or you could keep it on all the time and take calls all day long. The choice is yours.

3. Prioritize time: You have only twenty four hours in a given day. The question is how you slice it up so you have enough time for what are important aspects of your life. The more time you spend on unnecessary thing, less time you have for important things. For example, if you spend two hours a day commuting to and from work, you have lost that time which you could have spent with your family. You need at least eight and one half hours a day for sleep, cleaning up, meeting various body needs. You will be at work at least 8 hours. That leaves out seven and one half hours a day. You need to distribute this time to meet various other needs: fun, entertaining guests, television, movies, reading, hobbies, children, spouse and what have you. Most stressed-out people have problem in prioritizing their time. I have lost count of people who canceled their appointment with their doctor claiming they had other important things to take care of. When pinned down, they revealed the more important thing: “I had to keep my appointment with my hairstylist;” “My housekeeper said she was coming at the same time;” “I had to go to the post office,” and some such thing.

5. Managing relationships:

The commonest cause of conflict between two persons is when one tries to impose his views, beliefs, and ideas on the other. To some extent this is acceptable in work situation since the worker is paid to do things as per the order of the boss. But in personal relationship such as friendship or even spousal relationship, there is no room for this. When parents try to control their grown up children it leads to conflicts between them. When a spouse tries to control hi/her partner, conflict results.

There are a few basic attitudes we can adopt that would help us minimize conflicts with people we love:

1. Do not be a control freak: In your relationship with your family members and friends, avoid telling them what to do unless they ask for your opinion. Unsolicited advice rarely works. If they do really indulge in terrible behavior, just register your true feelings and refuse to be party to it. Let people make their own mistakes and learn from them.

2. Let go of relationships that you consider as detrimental to your mental, physical or financial health. Remember that all relationships end sooner or later due to death, breakup or move.

3. Let go and let God: When it comes to your relationship with your children there are only four good things you can do for them: Good food for their body; good education for their mind; good values for their soul, and goodbye for their happiness. Once they have turned eighteen, put them in the hands of God and ask Him to take good care of them.

4. Develop an attitude of equanimity in your relationships: If you want to be my friend, fine. If you don't want to be my friend, that is fine too. If you like me, fine. If you don't like me, that is fine too. So on and so forth.

5. Learn to say no. Don’t get involved in an activity just because someone you know urges you to. You must have your priorities clear; your family comes first; your job comes next; then come other activities. It is not hard to say, “I am sorry, I have other commitments. May be some other time”. Or, “I am sorry. I can not contribute to this cause this year. May be sometime in the future. If they hassle you still, you should not hesitate to say, “Thanks for the call. I must let you go now. Bye!”.

6. Don’t let anyone abuse you, whether at work or in social circles. If anyone attacks you personally, just tell him/her. “Why don’t you just tell me what your problem is so I can work on it, instead of indulging in personal attacks against me?”

7. Have at least one person in your life you can confide in. If possible, go for long walks with person two or three times a week. Have a circle of friends and relatives to socialize with. They will form the core of your support system. Your coworkers, neighbors, doctors, pharmacist, dentist, accountant, etc. are also part of your support system.

8. Forgive and move on: In our relationship with others, we are often hurt by the actions taken by them. We must cultivate an attitude of forgiving them for their actions and move on with our lives. Instead, a lot of people stay angry, bitter, hateful, and become vengeful. These toxic emotions will slowly kill them from inside. Put the pain behind you and move on!

9. Let a set of principles and code of conduct guide your behavior in your relationship with others: “I don’t want anything that is not rightfully mine” is an example. This code translates into paying your taxes on time, not stealing money from your customers, not overcharging your clients, not ripping off people who are at your mercy. Most of us have these codes and principles ingrained in us guiding our behavior. These codes help us to keep our relationships with others clean. The list of these codes is literally unending. Ten commandments is such a list that has guided billions of people over two thousand years.

10. Overcome inner weaknesses that interfere with your relationship with others: Give up greed and cultivate generosity; give up insecurity and develop self-esteem; give up timidity and develop assertiveness; give up jealousy and develop contentment; give up stinginess and develop altruism; give up hate and cultivate love; give up deceitfulness and cultivate honesty. Again, this list is literally unending. Overcoming our cultivated weaknesses will help our God-given inner strengths to emerge.

11. Build your self-esteem by doing your best at your job and by being productive and creative. When people compliment you for being a good person and for doing a great job, say, “Thank you” and accept the compliment. Gradually this will become integral part of your self-identity. People who received little praise and a lot of criticism when growing up can use all the compliments they can to cancel out the damage done by their childhood experiences.

Ten Lessons on Coping with and Managing Stress

1. Cultivate self-awareness.
2. Express emotions in a healthy way on an daily basis.
3. Develop problem-solving skills and avoid being trapped in a life problem.
4. Learn to cancel-out your painful emotions through changing perception, putting things in perspective, reasoning, neutralizing and by developing a sense of humor.
5. Cultivate spiritual values: Generosity, compassion, love, kindness, forgiveness, etc.
6. Control weaknesses (insecurity, greed, dishonesty, etc.) with a set of codes of conduct.
7. Balance quality of life with standard of living. Prioritize time and money.
8. Take good care of the mind: Do not indulge in denial and burying of emotions.
9. Take good care of your body: Avoid excesses and meet body’s basic needs.
10. Develop a good social support system. Do not impose your view on others. Avoid conflicts in relationships.