How well are you dealing with stress?

Everyday life involves stressful situations. It's unavoidable since we are humans and have emotions.
Although I almost always write about things that affect us financially, at time these financial issues end up causing a fair amount of stress so I wanted to mention a couple of things I find helpful in overcoming stress. I hope these tips can be useful to you too.

Overwhelming anxiety and empowerment are mutually exclusive.
Any time you are overcome with enough stress/anxiety that causes your stomach to produce successive acids, or make you feel like you have a notch under your belt buckle and limit your performance, try follow the steps listed below to empower yourself and regain control.
Remember, if someone or something causes your blood pressure to increase, you are unable to control the person or the event, all you can do is control how you react to it. Getting upset, angry or stressed only effect you and your health. The sooner you get over it, the faster you'll feel better and move on with your life and be productive again. It takes too much energy to stew over things that no one else (trust me about this) cares about except for maybe your Doctor or your clergy.
So, here are two out of many ways to deal with stress.
Stop Negative Self-Talk. It is not productive.
A big step in managing stress and anxiety is stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.
Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. Stop inflicting self pain.
When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, perhaps you should write them down.
Literally. Stop what you’re doing, and write down what you’re thinking.
Once you take a time to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be able to be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
You can clearly see that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” or “ever.” If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to someone you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. The truth will come out and you can determine how to either act or react. Remember, you are in control of yourself and what you do.
Your brain’s natural threat tendency is to inflate a perceived frequency or severity of an event when you feel like something always or never happens. Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts can help you escape a cycle of negativity and anxiety and move toward a positive new outlook.
Count Your Blessings
Take the time to think about and write down what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do; it also lessens anxiety because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.
Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy and substantially less anxiety due to lower cortisol levels. Another study I heard about years ago involved two groups of college students. Both were given a diary to record things in. One group was instructed to write down daily things they were grateful about. Anything no matter how trivial. The other group wasn't instructed to do so. The results showed that the first group was proven to be happier and more productive.
Another thing you can do is imagine things that give you pleasure and make you happy.
Our brain can not differentiate the thoughts or the events. This also works the opposite way.
One lust thing.
Forgive and forget
Much stress is self inflicted. When we feel someone wronged us or caused us stress in any way, many tend to hold on to these feelings. It only hurt us.
Forgive the person, or better yet, if you are the one regretting something you did, forgive yourself. I heard this on a Conant\Nightingale self help tape (yes, I know it dates me) long ago.
It's good advise however hard it is to actually do it. Forgive, forget... and move on.