Most people aren’t aware they’re under stress and that’s a bad way to live. When you don’t realize that you’re under stress, it continues to grow. The more stress grows, the more damage it does to your health and the faster it ages you.

You might not be able to completely eliminate all the stress in your life. But once you’re aware of it, you can get it under control and controlled stress doesn’t subtract years off your life the way uncontrolled stress does.

There is a term called which  is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space and the comprehension of their meaning. This measures our response and reactions to the environment.

People need to be aware of what is going on in any environment. This provides us the means to deal with stress by understanding possible causes. This includes our interaction with others and our response.

Meditations 5. 31. [Examine yourself thus:] how have you behaved toward the Gods, toward your parents, your brothers, your wife, your children, your teachers, those who educated you, your friends, your intimates, your domestics? Have you never said or done any thing unbecoming, toward any of them? Recollect through how many affairs of life you have past, and what offices you have been able to sustain and discharge. The history of your life, and of your public service to the Gods, is not completed. What beautiful and honourable things are seen in your life? What pleasures and what pains have you despised? What occasions of vain ostentation have you designedly omitted? Toward how many perverse unreasonable creatures, have you exercised discretion and lenity?

When you’re not aware of stress, it can cause issues like high blood pressure, aches and pains throughout your body and inflammation.

Stress is very much a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can motivate you and spur you on to tackle challenges. On the other, it can seriously impair certain processes in your body, especially if your stress is long term.

One process that it can hinder is your memory. While under stress, there are lots of things going on behind the scenes that can make your memory worse. When you’re stressed, you can’t sleep – and a lack of sleep leaves you feeling confused and fuzzy with your memories.

Another issue that you’ll face with memories and stress is the forming and recalling of long-term memories. This is because of cortisol, a stress chemical, which forces you to prefer your short-term memory instead. This is something meant to help us in short term stressful situations, but it actually ends up hurting you if you’re continuously stressed out.

This can happen as you age but interestingly Seneca writes about looking forward to growing old.

Moral Letters 12.4-6 states I owe it to my country-place that my old age became apparent whithersoever I turned. Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it. Fruits are most welcome when almost over; youth is most charming at its close; the last drink delights the toper, – the glass which souses him and puts the finishing touch on his drunkenness. Each pleasure reserves to the end the greatest delights which it contains. Life is most delightful when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline. And I myself believe that the period which stands, so to speak, on the edge of the roof, possesses pleasures of its own. Or else the very fact of our not wanting pleasures has taken the place of the pleasures themselves. How comforting it is to have tired out one's appetites, and to have done with them!  "But," you say, "it is a nuisance to be looking death in the face!" Death, however, should be looked in the face by young and old alike. We are not summoned according to our rating on the censor's list. Moreover, no one is so old that it would be improper for him to hope for another day of existence. And one day, mind you, is a stage on life's journey.

One of the biggest sources of stress in anyone’s life is often finances. Chances are, you’re heavily reliant on your own income for things like rent, food, utilities, and more. These are the essentials that we need, and if at any time you feel as though you don’t quite have enough to meet this level, you’re naturally going to be stressed out, which might end up costing you even more in the long run.

Stress of any kind has a number of adverse physical effects. It can cause hair loss, weight fluctuation, blood pressure spikes, and more. It also comes with its fair share of mental effects, such as depression.

These problems can pile on top of one another and actually cause you to have further worries about your finances, stressing you out even more than you already were. If you have to get medical help for something like blood pressure, that may end up being costly.

If you were already stressed out about finances before, a trip to the doctor isn’t going to make it any better once you get that bill. In order to prevent yourself from spiraling down that kind of path, you need to make sure you have a good grip on your financial situation.

The first step is to understand the importance of not getting attached to money. This is why Stoics refer to money as an indifferent. Desiring money can cause one to be a slave to it.

Discourses 3.24.69-72  states What is your own then?” — “The right use of the phenomena of existence. He showed me that I have this, not subject to restraint or compulsion; no one can hinder or force me in this, any otherwise than as I please. Who, then, after this, has any power over me? Philip, or Alexander, or Perdiccas, or the Persian king? Whence should they have it? For he that is to be subdued by man must first be subdued by things. He, therefore, of whom neither pleasure, nor pain, nor fame, nor riches, can get the better; and he who is able, whenever he thinks fit, to abandon his whole body with contempt and depart, whose slave can he ever be? To whom is he subject?” But if Diogenes had taken pleasure in living at Athens, and had been subdued by that manner of life, his affairs would have been at every one’s disposal; and whoever was stronger would have had the power of grieving him

When your body is stressed out, it uses some particular defense methods that are beneficial for short term stress - but for long term, they’re actually quite harmful. One of these defense methods is the reallocation of energy.

Essentially, your body takes a bunch of its energy and uses it all at once in order to give you a boost, making you more likely to solve whatever problem you’re facing. However, with long term stress, your body is eventually going to run out of this energy, and that is known as adrenal exhaustion.

Adrenal exhaustion is like trying to run a car on very little gas. It might go, but it certainly can’t go for long without stopping. There are tons of negative effects that come with adrenal exhaustion, and all of them can further increase your levels of stress and make your situation worse as time goes on.

One negative effect that comes with this exhaustion is a lower tolerance for stress. Where before, you might have been able to handle a lot more without getting stressed out, now you’ll be prone to getting very stressed - very quickly. The ruling principle must be maintained to cope with this.

Meditations 11.18 part 7 states that it is not men's acts which disturb us, for those acts have their foundation in men's ruling principles, but it is our own opinions which disturb us. Take away these opinions then, and resolve to dismiss thy judgement about an act as if it were something grievous, and thy anger is gone. How then shall I take away these opinions? By reflecting that no wrongful act of another brings shame on thee: for unless that which is shameful is alone bad, thou also must of necessity do many things wrong, and become a robber and everything else.

The smallest things will be able to rile you up. This can put some serious strain on your relationships with friends, family, significant others, and even coworkers. The teachings of Stoicism need to be adhered in situations like this.

Overthinking might not seem like a bad thing, as it is when you analyze and think a lot about things, situations, and decisions to be made. It isn’t always bad, except when the overthinking leads to a lot of stress in your life. This can definitely happen if you make overthinking a habit, that ultimately leads to excessive worry, fear, and anxiety.

Discourses 2.6.17-18  states For if you call what surrounds you circumstances, everything is a circumstance; but, if by this you mean hardships, where is the hardship, that whatever is born must die? The instrument is either a sword, or a wheel, or the sea, or a tile, or a tyrant. And what does it signify to you by what way you descend to Hades? All are equal; but, if you would hear the truth, the shortest is that by which a tyrant sends you. No tyrant was ever six months in cuting any man’s throat; but a fever often takes a year. All these things are mere sound, and the rumor of empty names.

Tere are some things to understand about overthinking and why you might need to switch up your mindset a little.

Do you worry too much? Having worries and fears is a part of being a human adult, but at a certain point, your worries go beyond what is normal and realistic.

For some people, they think about their worries so much that it leads to severe stress and anxiety. In fact, this is one of the reasons some people deal with chronic stress, where it never really seems to go away.

When you worry about stress you become passive to it. Negative emotions result like a ripple effect.  to it

Meditations 10.25. states He who flies from his master is a fugitive-slave. Now, the law is our master; and so the transgressor of the law is the fugitive: and he, also, who is grieved, or angry, or afraid, because any thing has happened, or is happening, or formerly happened, of these things which are ordered by him who governs all: Who is the law, appointing to every one what is proper for him. He, then, who is afraid, or grieved, or angry, is the fugitive-slave.

Anything going on in your mind can become mind clutter. It often starts very simple and innocent, like remembering to pay your bills, catching up on laundry, getting the kids to soccer practice, and running errands over the weekend. Unfortunately, the clutter adds up very quickly, to where you start to become stressed and overwhelmed.

Suddenly, you have a chronic headache, your back never stops hurting, you are having trouble eating and sleeping, and your anxiety is worse. This is all the result of too much stress, which started with too much mind clutter.

This takes away your focus and negatively affects the reasoning mind.

Moral Letters 113 8-9 states If Justice, Bravery, and the other virtues have actual life, do they cease to be living things and then begin life over again, or are they always living things? But the virtues cannot cease to be. Therefore, there are many, nay countless, living things, sojourning in this one soul. "No," is the answer, "not many, because they are all attached to the one, being parts and members of a single whole." We are then portraying for ourselves an image of the soul like that of a many-headed hydra – each separate head fighting and destroying independently. And yet there is no separate living thing to each head; it is the head of a living thing, and the hydra itself is one single living thing. No one ever believed that the Chimaera contained a living lion or a living serpent;[5] these were merely parts of the whole Chimaera; and parts are not living things.

Are you experiences issues at home and at work? Is your energy suffering, but you still can’t sleep at night? Are you having major mental or physical changes that aren’t related to anything else? If so, it might be that stress is leading to severe overwhelm in your life, which means it might be time for a mental break.

For some the idea of a mental break may be unrealistic but it is necessary to keep you mind at peace.

Meditations 4.3 Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest. For with what art thou discontented? With the badness of men? Recall to thy mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily; and consider how many already, after mutual enmity, suspicion, hatred, and fighting, have been stretched dead, reduced to ashes; and be quiet at last

The hard part is recognizing that your stress level has worsened to the point where you need to make some changes.

Stress among teens and adults has increased quite rapidly in recent years, and continues to climb every year. As of 2018, the American Psychological Association stated that most people in the U.S. have moderate to high stress, and over 40 percent of people say their stress has increased in the last few years.

There are many reasons for this, from social media and technology influences, to daily stressors, work and finances, and so much more.

While it is common to have stress, and you are definitely not alone, that doesn’t mean you are going to handle it well. Stress should not be considered a normal part of life when it is overwhelming you and leading to a nervous breakdown or full burnout mode.

Discourses 3.25.1 states which of your undertakings you have fulfilled, which not, and wherefore; which give you pleasure, which pain, in the reflection; and, if possible, recover yourself where you have failed. For the champions in this greatest of combats must not grow weary; but should even contentedly bear chastisement. For this is no combat of wrestling or boxing, where both he who succeeds and he who fails may possibly be of very great worth or of little; indeed may be very fortunate or very miserable; but this combat is for good fortune and happiness itself.

The advice you get for relieving stress can vary quite a bit based on the source, since there are so many different options available. However, one thing you might hear from nearly everyone is that you need to practice good self-care.

It is incredibly important that you pay attention to your own needs, make your health a priority, and understand what you need for your own well being..

Meditations 3.14. Quit your wandering: for you are neither like to read over again your own commentaries and meditations, or the actions of the ancient Greeks and Romans, or the collections you have made out of the writings of others, which you have been storing up for your old age. Make haste, then, to your proper end: cast away vain hopes and speedily succour yourself if you have that care of yourself; you may at present. Here are some reasons why self-care is so important for stress relief.