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Stress Prevention Tips 

While some stresses in life are unavoidable, others are completely unnecessary and, therefore, can be eliminated from your life altogether. Learning the difference between the two is key to reducing stress levels in your life. Consequently, take time to identify the sources of your stress.

Some common aspects that cause stress include:

• debt
• family
• friends
• social obligations
• work.

Once your determine the sources of stress in your life, decide which ones you can possibly eliminate. Here are a few stress prevention tips:

• Change Careers. If your job is causing you a large amount of stress, consider changing employers or even industries. While this may require you to go back to school or accept a smaller salary for a period of time, the long term relief you'll have from the physical and mental effects of stress will be well worth the short-term sacrifices you make.
  
  
• Evaluate Your Personal Relationships. If you find that your personal relationships are a source of stress for you, identify which ones cause you frustration. If it's a friendship, decide whether or not you truly need that person in your life. If you don't, then stop putting energy into it. If the stressful relationship is a familial one, then limit your contact with that family member. By only putting time and energy into the relationships that you value, you will prevent the stressful ones from affecting you.
  
  
• Don't Over Commit Yourself. Plan a daily, weekly or monthly schedule for yourself and stick to it. By laying out all of your obligations, you can be sure to not overextend yourself. While you may have to shift some items within your schedule around due to changing circumstances, you can still be aware of the time you do and don't have, preventing yourself from committing to things that you don't have time for.
  
  
• Personal time or me time. People often get stressed out when they are committed to everything but themselves. It is easy to get lost in the grind of work and family life and not set aside time to work on yourself. A great way to prevent stress is to develop a personal hobby that takes you away from everything, such as dancing, sailing or painting.
  
  
• Do Stuff Ahead of Time. Deadlines and due dates are a major stress for some people. If these are stressful parts of your life, try to get things with deadlines done ahead of time. While it's hard to stop procrastinating, you can trick yourself into it by moving the due date forward a few days for yourself. For example, if you have an assignment due in a week, up the deadline, making the due date for yourself three days from now. This will help you stay on track, reducing your stress levels.
   
• If Tasks Don't Have Deadlines, Create Them. Goals and resolutions you make for yourself generally aren't associated with deadlines. However, without deadlines, setting goals can be rendered useless. For example, if you tell yourself, "I plan to lose weight," you won't have any incentive to start because you don't have any date by which your goal must be accomplished.
  
  To eliminate the feelings of failure and the stress that comes along with them, set deadlines for your goals to help you get them done. Instead, if you tell yourself that you will lose five pounds in two months, you now have a deadline and a concrete goal to work towards.

You can prevent stress from taking over your life and affecting your overall health. Start identifying your sources of stress today so that you can eliminate the unnecessary ones from your life.