Regular exercise, of course, builds stamina that can help anyone battle stress. But even something as casual as a walk around the block can help you throw off some of the tension a rough business meeting or a family squabble leaves you carrying around. Exercise is what your body instinctively wants to do under stress: Run or fight. One, it burns off some of the stress chemicals tension produces. And two, a tired muscle is a relaxed muscle.

Easier said than done? Not if you know how a simple technique called progressive relaxation can produce immediate and dramatic reductions in your senses of stress by releasing physical tension. Start at top or bottom, tense one set of muscle in your body at a time hold for a few seconds, then let them relax. Work your way through all major body parts: feet, legs, chest, and arms, head and neck-and then enjoy the sense of release it provides.

This application of acupressure-the oriental system that use pressure points to relieve and treat pain in a variety of ailments-work indirectly. Massaging nerves in your temples relaxes muscles elsewhere-chiefly in you neck.

Essentially everything we feel has a physical manifestation. A lot of us respond to stress with muscle tension. Ideally, we'd prefer to eliminate the cause of the stress, but stretching the muscles at least reduces the sensation of stress-the muscles relax, we feel less tense. And given that we often can't do anything about the source of stress, that's important. And for many of us, that's all we need.

Taking a mini-vacation in your mind is a very good way to relieve or manage stress. Visualize yourself lying in warm sand on a beach in the Bahamas, a cool wind blowing in off the ocean, the surf rolling in quietly in the background. It's amazing what this can do to relax you.