Stress. We've all experienced it. Life is full of hassles, deadlines, frustrations and demands. Our jobs, marriage, children and bills all contribute to stress. Now add the holiday season to that list.

Whew! I'm really stressed now!How many times do we hear procrastinators (me included) say, "I work best under pressure." But when constantly running in stress mode, our mind and body pay the price. It can cause depression, mood swings, eating problems and physical ailments.When working properly, some stress helps us stay focused, energetic and alert, helping us rise to meet challenges. But when stress stops being helpful, it can start causing major damage to our health, our mood, our productivity, our relationships and our quality of life.Are there things we can do to relieve stress? Other than seek out the Dalai Lama and practice yoga all day long?Exercise is one of the top ways to relieve stress. When my friend was going through a period of high anxiety, she began going to the gym and now goes almost every day. I hate exercising. It stresses me out.There are many products sold to help relieve stress. I bought stress relief body lotion that was to be applied to pressure points. It worked but it made my skin break out in a rash, which then stressed me out.Music. Music soothes the savage beast. But when I play soft, soothing music I become so relaxed I tend to fall asleep, which stresses me out because I fail to get done what I need to do, which stresses me out even more.Eat right. The advice is to eat fresh fruits and vegetables and lots of fish. But if we eat too much fish, which contains mercury, that's not good for us either. Now I'm stressed just thinking about eating healthy.Drink tea. Hate it. End of story.Breathe. That makes me laugh because the alternative is a very stressful thought. The advice is to "take a deep breath." For an easy three- to five-minute exercise, sit up in your chair with your feet flat on the floor and hands on top of your knees. Breathe in and out slowly and deeply, concentrating on your lungs as they expand fully in your chest. While shallow breathing causes stress, deep breathing oxygenates your blood, helps center your body and clears your mind. You can add the little "Ohm" but don't let your co-workers catch you. Having you carted off to the Sunny Rest Funny Farm will be very stressful for your family.Sleep better. I would if I wasn't sleeping next to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Awake, Harry's the sweetest, most considerate guy. Asleep, well, I never know who he becomes. The other night I was awakened from a deep sleep experiencing great pain. The man lying next to me was painfully pulling and yanking on my breast. I had to shake him awake to get him to stop. When I asked him what he was dreaming about, he said he was climbing a mountain and was falling when he reached out to grab ahold of a tree branch, but he couldn't hold on to it. Evidently breasts are not good tree branch substitutions. But it was so funny, I laughed. Which helped reduce the previous stress of being milked like a cow by Hercules.Which brings me to the suggestion of laugh it off.So try jamming tiny marshmallows up your nose and then sneeze them out.Take a relaxing bubble bath and play with a drip from the faucet to try to figure out how Mary Tyler Moore got her big toe stuck up there.Instead of making a list of all the things you have to do (big stressor), make a list of all the things you did before 7 p.m. Now doesn't that make you feel better?Take a walk around the neighborhood. Backward. It'll give you a whole new perspective.Go to a luxury car dealer and take a convertible out for a test drive with the top down with no intentions of buying it.Find a piece of bubble wrap and pop all the bubbles.But seriously, here's the one stress reliever that I like the best.Be grateful. It is suggested that we should keep a gratitude journal to help us remember all the things that are good in our life."Being grateful for your blessings cancels out negative thoughts and worries," says Joni Emmerling, a wellness coach in Greenville, North Carolina.She says we should use these journals to savor good experiences like a child's smile, a sunshine-filled day and good health. We shouldn't forget to celebrate accomplishments like mastering a new task at work or a new hobby. Then if we start feeling stressed, we should spend a few minutes looking through our notes to remind ourselves what really matters.The holiday season is here. With it comes additional stress on top of what we already are dealing with. Try some of these stress relievers, especially the gratitude journal. We all need reminders of what is good in our lives and not dwell on the ones that causes us to stress.Like having to wear an armored breastplate to bed.