One of the first steps to managing stress is to become aware. Awareness of what is going on within your body and mind are key.

Using the previous two weeks as your time frame, list all the physical and emotional symptoms of stress you have experienced. Begin by identifying symptoms; the location of where they are occurring in your body; how often they occur; and what your thoughts were just prior to and while you are experiencing them.

As you become aware of what your stress symptoms are, as well as what your thoughts are, you can begin to instantly change them with these two simple techniques. Controlling your breath and your internal dialog. It's really that simple. Few people, however, take the time to do either in a stressful situation nor recognize the need to control both oxygen intake and their thought patterns. Both of which affect the nervous system and it's coping mechanisms.

One of the best things you can do in a stressful situation is to simply breathe. Remind yourself to take a few deep breaths and continue to control your breathing. Anxiety will begin to diminish because you have redirected your focus. Breathing influences the sympathetic nervous system to regulate blood pressure, heart rate, circulation, digestion and other bodily functions.

When you are experiencing emotional stress, the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated and affects a number of physical responses. Muscles tense, breathing becomes either shallow or rapid, the heart rate increases and we begin to perspire. Breathing causes stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system which then results in relaxation and reversal of the stressful responses that were elicited by the sympathetic nervous system.

Breathing also provides oxygen to the circulatory and respiratory systems to purify our blood by removing poisonous waste products that are circulating throughout our blood systems. Irregular breathing will hamper the purification process and cause waste products to remain in circulation. The lack of necessary oxygen leads to the build up of the waste products which in turn causes fatigue and heightened anxiety states.

The second critical component to managing stress is recognizing the importance of the mind-body connection. Our internal dialog will direct our body and determine our actions. Internal dialog is so powerful it can create stress to the point of bringing on anxiety attacks. Likewise, changing the internal dialog can change your emotional states and eliminate anxiety attacks.

Much of the internal dialog that goes on is so subtle that it occurs on the subconscious level. When stress is occurring at the subconscious level, more cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands and associated with stress, is released with the potential to bring about a host of illnesses.

If your thoughts run rampant and you are telling yourself things like “I don't have enough time” or “I can't do this” or “this is just too much for me,” you are creating a snowball effect of spiraling and anxious thoughts. Some degree of hopelessness is involved with this kind of thinking.

“How” questions are much more productive to getting what you want and managing stress. “How do I?” questions want to know a way, an answer, and some knowledge of “how” to accomplish the underlying desire. For example, consider the question “How can I feel at peace?” This question presupposes you are capable of experiencing peace and that there is a way to do it.

The next step is to come up with the ways you can feel at peace. If your internal dialog consists of “why” questions such as “why is this happening to me” or “why can't I ever get a break,” your brain is in an endless loop of trying to find out why you “can't” do the thing you wish to do and creates stress and frustration. A better question to ask is “what's my next step.”

The quality of the questions you are asking yourself has a dramatic impact on your internal state. Ask better questions, breathe and relieve stress.