STRESS MANAGEMENT AT HOME

1. Measure Your Stress. To lighten your load, first find out where you're carrying it - in piled-up bills, career worries, sleep difficulties, weight problems. Graph your stress peaks and valleys, and draw up an action plan to change what's working against you.

2. Consolidate Your Errands. Bundle the chores you find irritating, time-chomping downers; errands, bill paying, laundry, shopping. Do them all at once, instead of in lurches that produce stabs of stress. There's a real rush of satisfaction when you whack `em all off your list in one simple crack. Plus, it leaves more time for unwinding on the other days.

3. Pet a Pet. Having a dog or cat to care for and cuddle is a proven stress releaser. According to one study, after a heart attack(the ultimate stress wakeup call), pet owners had only 20 per cent of the recurrence rate of than without pets.

4. Designate a `No Stress' Zone. Pick a place to be your sanctuary from stress. No problems are thrashed out here. No bills are paid here. No newspapers are read here. No hassles, no worries. It could be a whole room or just a comfortable chair in a quiet corner.

5. Tune Out Irritants. Whose phone(fax, beeper, TV, radio) is it anyway? Just because you have a houseful of communication gadgets doesn't mean you have to be at their mercy. If noises and interruptions plague you all day at the office, shut them off at home, at least for an hour or so.

6. Put a Lid on Your Worries. Make an old shoe box your `worry box'. If you wake up during the night with distressing thoughts, or you can't even get to sleep, write what's bothering you on a slip of paper, put it in the box, close it, and tell yourself that now is your time for rest and you'll open the box in the morning when you can deal with the contents.

7. What has been discussed above is managing your stress in generic terms. For each personality different responses are required to control stress and this must be realised by oneself. So identification of real cause is the crux of the problem and solution will automatically come to you.