Use the following strategies to cope with stressful situations. Please note that these are personal observations and are not backed by any medical justification. They just seem to work for me.

Strategies to cope with stress:

• Meditation: Simple breath awareness seems to help. Please avoid rigorous pranayama techniques such as Bhastrika or Kapalbhati. They might exacerbate the stress.
• Exercising: Exercising doesn’t have to be strenuous. We underestimate the importance of getting out of the bed early and going out for a walk or jog. It really uplifts your mood and get you out of the rut.
• Eating good food: Can you eat a desert or ice-cream and be stressed afterwards. Good food can really help.
• Watching horror movies: Watching horror movies might be linked to reduction in stress. It might bring down your stress levels by making you scared.
• Progressive muscle relaxation: Facial expressions such as frowning, sulking, clenching fists, grinding teeth seem to help you get out of a tough situation. However, use them judiciously.
• Crying: Crying or mimicking crying seems to offer some help.
• Splurging: Spending money seems to be therapeutic.
• Fixing things: Doing anything that has immediate gratification seems to help. It might be solving a problem, fixing a broken thing etc.
• Breaking things: Breaking things can actually help release tension.
• Not pretending to be sane: Pretense can add to stress. Accept that you are stressed and accept that it is fine if everyone knows that you are stressed. It’s okay to let them know that you are going through it.
• Making a bad face: Not sure exactly why but making a bad face (face that you can never make in public) might help in relaxing facial muscles and thus help reduce stress.
• Being sad: If you become sad, you seem to be not stressed. Let the stress make you sad and let it win. You seem to become untangled when you do it.
• Being angry or yelling: If you can afford to be (if the situation and people permit), be angry or yell. It really helps.
• Gazing: Gazing at any object and letting emotions flow.