Staying Steadfast in Combating Corruption

In a speech to the Ghanaian Parliament, President Barack Obama made clear why fighting corruption is important:

"No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves or if police can be bought off by drug traffickers. … People everywhere should have the right to start a business or get an education without paying a bribe. We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don’t, and that is exactly what America will do."

At a Washington symposium earlier this year, David Luna, Director for Anticrime Programs, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, cited a new international treaty as a major means to advance the President’s anti-corruption goal: “Working with other partners, the United States helped to successfully negotiate the first comprehensive, near global treaty against corruption, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.”

This treaty obligates 147 countries, including the United States, to criminalize many corrupt practices, such as the bribery of public officials and money laundering. It provides new and groundbreaking measures to prevent corruption, and to recover assets illicitly acquired by corrupt leaders. Most importantly, it establishes an international framework for countries to cooperate through mutual legal assistance, and to expand extradition to bring corrupt officials to justice. Today the United Nations Convention Against Corruption is a key pillar of international cooperation in numerous multilateral forums including G20, APEC, and other anticorruption initiatives.

In a message given in honor of the International Anti-corruption Day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reaffirmed the anti-corruption message:
"As we work together to eradicate corruption in our own countries, we should also maintain the highest standards of transparency and accountability in our development efforts around the world."

"Corruption in emerging markets and fragile democracies undermines the confidence of citizens and investors alike," said Secretary Clinton, "while responsible governance helps to foster sustainable economic development and political stability."

It is rare that the silent majority speaks. It most often happens at certain times and under very strict parameters.

Elections are one of those times. Other, not scripted examples usually represent a catharsis. An emotional outburst of pent-up frustration. A reflexive reaction to righting a wrong or fury over a blatant miscarriage of justice.

Such eruptions can be mild to turbulent. Until this week , we saw the genesis of another “people outburst” when community figures bonded together through various initiatives to express their contempt at the farcical nature of anticorruption efforts in the country. We have witnessed the agitations of Anna Hazare and others who have vociferously fought against corruption . We have also seen the silent people of various states voting out the governments that were corrupt especially in states like Tamilnadu.
The people’s frustrations with corruption can be quantified into three issues: First, the depth and widespread nature of systemic corruption where everyone seems involved.

Second, the endless inaction with which each case is met. No longer is prosecution of a corruption case a deterrent, the fact that nothing ever seems resolved or perpetrators get away with it — even in jail — only discourages those who would be honest.

Graft convicts have become celebrities. Their prison escapes, plush cells and unremorseful attitude teach the nation that crime doesn’t pay, but corruption does! Now the country is awash with one case after another. Murky, convoluted and dim. Most destined to be swept under a rug of neglect many months later.

Third is the fear that these cases become commodities for political actors to trade and hold against each other. Each protagonist knows of the other’s skeleton in the closet.
What’s more disconcerting is that in the game of leverage, the most important tools in dismantling corruption – the agencies that are supposed to curb corruption are slowly being rendered toothless.

Most recently we have seen a continuation of that trend, employing the same script, for the same malicious self-serving political ends.
We fully endorse and lend our editorial support for this moral movement to strengthen the anticorruption drive. We also re-pledge our well-known track record of exposing corruption either through silent protest or by explicit demonstrations. The most important message made last week through the efforts of Anna Hazare, was to remind the silent majority against being apathetic or losing hope in this fight.

We urge everyone to extend their moral voice to the righteousness of this movement. As long as a handful of decent individuals and institutions remain steadfast in this effort, there is more than ample hope for a better future.

Glorious Steve

Hi dear friends,
From the way politics is moving, we feel frustrated. Yet there are ways in which we can meaningfully participate in each others lives. Suggest some ways of bringing meaning to our daily lives. Some simple tips please!

Glorious Steve

“They Cause Happiness wherever They Go!”

I had the privilege of training profit organizations, non-profit organizations and various groups of religious congregations. In all these organizations people come and go. Trust me –volunteer organizations are difficult to lead; much more difficult is to lead a religious congregation. The reasons are plenty. I don’t intend to get into any controversy over that. But, would like to dwell on the bonding between organization and the members of the organization and the problem of leaving an organisation.

John C. Maxwell makes an important point with regard to the term ‘leaving an organization.’ He says nobody leaves an organization. People who leave, leave the people they live within an organisation and not an organization. He presents four reasons why people leave an organization particularly religious organization: 1. People quit people who devalue them. 2. People quit people who are not trustworthy. 3. People quit people who are incompetent. 4. People quit people who are insecure.

Same thing can be applied to the new entrants to Brotherhood vocation. If Brotherhood vocation is devalued by us, the Salesians, or if we are not trustworthy or if we are incompetent and if we are insecure, there is a danger that we will not have enough brothers vocation and it would be difficult to retain the existing brothers from leaving the brotherhood to become priests. Often the slow growth of the brotherhood vocation is portrayed as a problem of people not interested in joining us. Instead we must have the courage to say it is because of the above said problems with us Salesians.

I was deeply impressed when I read what Fr. Juan E. Vecchi wrote about the influence of Bro Zatti’s intercession on Fr. Pedro Arrupe, the then Father General of the Jesuits when he kept praying for lay vocations to his congregation through the intercession of Blessed Zatti. It is remarked by Fr. Vecchi that he had 18 brothers in that year to enter Jesuit order. Fr. Pedro Arrupe himself said that those who entered as brothers were after the heart of St. Ignatius.

But, against the calculations of some within the Salesian congregation, the brotherhood vocation is flourishing. It is partly because of the leadership roles played by many brothers who kept on till the end in spite of lack of encouragement and support from others. Take the case of many brothers who take lead roles in many segments of our Salesian life and mission. Many are in the helm of affairs not necessarily with the governance of the congregation, but primarily with the government circles, students circles, ITIs, Polytechnic Colleges, Youth Centres and among youth in general.

Today, Salesian brothers have become a new brand of committed people who have started transforming the face of the Salesian world. The seriousness attached to the forthcoming Brothers congress, with the many meetings, planning sessions, deliberations and scrutiny, is a sure sign that there is going to be an astonishing leadership from the brothers in reaching out to the young and an in returning to Don Bosco.

Wherever I was, I saw brothers radiating joy and happiness to all around them. They are truly a band of people after the heart of Don Bosco. Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Some cause happiness wherever they go. Some cause happiness whenever they go.” Truly, a salesian Brother is one who causes happiness wherever he goes particularly amidst the young. This work of radiating joy will be the witness and continue to be the challenge to all the brothers and priests who truly desire to see the Salesian congregation full of brothers in the active ministry of radiating that joy.

The End And Reward Of Toil

The first day of the month of May commemorates the “ International Workers Day.” In many countries it’s a public holiday. It is also celebrated as Labour Day. It has an interesting and revolutionary beginning in the US on May 1, 1886. On this day several labour unions across the US went on to protest, demanding a standard workday of eight hours. On May 4th there was bloodshed in Chicago’s Haymarket Square as a result of a bomb blast masterminded by a revolutionist leading to the death of a dozen people and the injury of over 100 people.

The protest brought about favourable results in obtaining the eight-hour work days in many countries including India. Church officially declared May Day as worker’s day in 1995 in order to uphold the rights of workers and the dignity of labour.

Though this day is marked with a lot of protests, rallies, demonstrations and speeches, there is still another reflection that is more central to the May Day as it also coincides with the summer holidays. That is the truth about hard labour and rest.

On the one hand many students are happy that they completed their exams, we also read from newspapers about the increasing death toll due to over enthusiasm about the forthcoming holidays. There is a hidden message that coincides with the May Day.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometime on the green grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means a waste of time. Moments of inactivity, relaxation, picnicking, watching good movies – all these can put us at ease with ourselves and with others and give us fresh energy to start our life of work.
All of us love to rest. Many of us look forward to spending long hours sleeping while others look forward to spending days relaxing in a resort far away from the place of work. Stress is also very much connected to the present day labour, particularly in white collar jobs. I used to wonder if there was so much stress those days when there was so much of human labour! I don’t even remember the word ‘stress’ being used so often. People having stress used to be a rare phenomenon those days.

What has happened to us in these last few years? Why is there so much of stress on ‘stress’ ?

I guess we got used to a cozy and comfortable life that demands more rest and less work.
What will enhance our work and our rest will be the way we proportionately spend time for both. When a lot of time spent on work and a little time for rest, it will create the right balance in our life and energy.
There is a nice little verse from Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene,’:
“Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please.”
It is true that it is rest that helps us to form virtuous deeds. It gives us time and forms our mind to fashion our brain to move towards good deeds; but, if rest exceeds the hours spent on work, it becomes a vice. Rest is sweet after strife and not all through your life.
Rudyard Kipling tells us about signs of the appropriate time for rest this way:
When earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
This should be guiding principle for us particularly these days of rest and vacation. At the same time, “Absence of occupation is not rest; a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed,” said Cowper in his book retirement. For Don Bosco change of occupation was rest. He never needed rest. When he needed little rest, all that he did was to switch over his activity to another that needed attention.
Too much of rest will become a pain. That is why we believe that only the end and reward of toil is rest. All other kind of rest will only add pain.

Stress Free in 10 Minutes

7 ways to chill out and recharge

With problems small or large, finding a quiet oasis from stress not only preserves sanity, but can be a lifesaver. Constant stress can harm the heart and even promote clogged arteries. New findings show it can cause a surge of stress hormones in the blood—stream that can weaken the body’s immune defences, making us more susceptible to infections like colds and flu. Everything from heartburn and cold sores to asthma and cancer are linked to high stress levels—they can even exacerbate memory loss as we age.
But relax. There are proven ways to quell stress. At an American university, scientists taught 59 adults a meditative approach to stress management. Afterwards the volunteers not only felt less anxious, but also reported fewer stress symptoms, such as headaches. When students at a university in Australia learned easy ways to defuse pressure, they had fewer sick days and faster recovery from colds. And a study in Miami found that HIV-positive patients practising stress reduction could boost the number of immune cells circulating in their bloodstream.
You don’t need to turn your life upside down to tame stress, says American psychologist Frederic Luskin. “A lot of people say they’re too busy to stop and deal with stress. But things you can do anywhere, and that don’t have to take more than a few minutes, can stop the stress response before it goes out of control. The truth is, by learning to clam down, you can actually feel less busy.”
Try a different one of these techniques each day this coming week. Some will work better than others. What’s important is finding two or three you can turn to whenever your stress metre climbs.
Do Nothing
Here’s How: At least once during the day, take five or ten minutes to sit the day, take five or ten minutes to sit quietly and do nothing. Focus on the sounds around you, your emotions and any tension in your neck, shoulders, arms, chest, etc.
“It’s one of the hardest things for many people to do,” says Robin Gueth of a California stress management centre. “We’re so used to thinking of our worth in terms of what we get done. Doing nothing can be a real struggle.”
Just sitting quietly slows heart rate and reduces blood pressure, countering two of the most obvious effects of stress. It can also change your perspective an increase your sense of control over events. “Studies show that the most stressful situations are things we can’t control,” says psychologist James Carmody. “We can’t change the past. We can’t predict the future. The only thing any of us can control is the present moment,” he explains. “When people in our programme practice this technique, they regain a sense of control—and ease stress.”
Laugh Out Loud
Here’s How: Keep something handy that makes you laugh. It could be a collection of your favourite comic strips, or a funny e-mail from, say, your child or a friend. You could even take a few moments to think about watching your favourite comedy serial. Turn to this every so often during your day.
One of the most effective stress-busters occurs nightly, says California researcher Lee Berk—when many people turn on their favourite serials at the end of a long day. Berk’s studies have shown that a good laugh reduces levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine and boosts immunity. What’s more, the beneficial effects of a good belly laugh last up to 24 hours.
Even looking forward to laughing clams people. In results reported last year, Berk and his colleagues found that telling volunteers they would participate in an experiment that involved watching a funny video created a more positive mood and lowered their stress levels on the spot.
Tune In
Here’s How: When you face a daunting task, play soothing music—be it classical, country or jazz. At work you can use the CD drive on your computer to keep the music at the ready.
In an Australian study, two groups of students were told to prepare an oral presentation. Some worked in silence; others listened to classical music. Stress caused the silent workers’ blood pressure and heart rates to climb. Not so the volunteers in the musical group, whose measurements remained steadier. They also reported feeling much less stress.
Is there music you shouldn’t listen to? “A lot of people find classical music most relaxing, but not everyone,” says psychologist Elise Labbe, who has been testing the calming effects of music. “Our volunteers select everything from concertos to country music. Whatever music feels most calming to you is the one hat’s most calming to you is the one that’s most likely to help ease stress.”
Think Happy
Here’s How: Focus on someone or something you care deeply about for anywhere from 15 seconds to five minutes. Or picture a scene from a peaceful vacation. A phrase that makes you feel positive about yourself and the world can also work.
It sounds like advice from a greeting card, but thinking happy, calming thoughts can counteract the physiological changes that occur when we’re under stress. “A lot of the stress we experience comes from negative emotions we carry around with us—grudges, anger, hurt,” says Laskin, who studies the healing power of forgiveness (he’s also the author of the book Forgive for Good). “Just thinking about someone you’re angry with—a boss who’s a jerk, or a friend who hurt your feelings—can cause damaging stress hormones to flood the system. Thinking of people and things you love can have the opposite effect.”
Hit the Road
Here’s How: Get up from your desk, the couch—wherever you may be—and take a ten-minute walk.
Most People have an intuitive sense that walking helps calm them down. Now scientists are finding proof. In a 2002 American investigation, researchers looked at people who were taking care of relatives with dementia—as stressful a situation as almost any of us will face. Those who began walking four times a week, the scientists found, reported feeling less distressed and sleeping better. Tests showed that their blood pressure was also more likely to hold steady when they were under stress.
Don’t have half an hour to spare?
Don’t sweat it. Taking five- or ten-minute walks whenever you’re under pressure may be just as effective.
“Our research suggests that the best strategy is to take a few minutes—or even a few moments—to calm down whenever stress levels start to climb,” says psychologist Luskin.
Breath Easy
Here’s How: For five minutes, slow your breathing down to about six deep—belly breaths a minute. In other words, inhale for about five seconds. Exhale for about five.
We tend to take quick, shallow breaths, especially when we’re feeling tense. Taking a few deep breaths forces you to stretch your shoulders and loosen up tight muscles.
Slow breathing has other unexpected benefits, according to an international study from 2001. Researchers found that when people practice yoga or recite a prayer, their breathing slows to the five-seconds in, five-seconds-out rhythm, which, it turns our, matches a ten-second cycle fluctuation that naturally occurs in blood pressure. By synchronizing breathing to these underlying cardio-vascular rhythms, people not only feel calmer, but may also improve the health of their cardiovascular systems.
If your day is full of small hassles and frustrations, Gueth recommends putting a white dot on your wristwatch or the clock on your desk. “Every time you see that white dot,” she says, “take two or three long, deep breaths. You’ll be amazed how quickly it calms you down.”
Rise Relaxed
Here’s How: Right before bed, and after the alarm goes off in the morning, take five minutes to relax your entire body. Start by tensing your toes; then consciously relax them. Move on to the muscles in your feet, and then your calves, upper legs, buttocks, moving upwards until you end by scrunching up and then relaxing the muscles in your face.
If you start your day feeling tense, chances are you’ll feel tense all day, says stress expert Gueth. If you take your troubles to bed with you, they’re likely to disrupt your sleep. And that can mean even more tension. People deprived of sleep, research shows, experience increased stress hormone levels. Gueth’s advice: Begin and end each day by taking a minute or two to consciously relax.
One effective approach is called progressive relaxation. In a 2002 study, 46 volunteers who were taught progressive relaxation experienced a significant dip in heart rates, perceived stress and levels of cortisol. “Too much of my day is spent running around,” says Shelly Wahle. “I don’t want to start it that way. So I take five minutes before the craziness starts to quiet my mind. It’s not always easy. But once it’s part of your routine, you don’t feel right without it.”

Free Yourself From Stress!

The word ‘stress’ is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a state of affair involving demand on physical or mental energy”. A condition or circumstance (not always adverse), which can disturb the normal physical and mental health of an individual. In medical parlance ‘stress’ is defined as a perturbation of the body’s homeostasis. This demand on mind-body occurs when it tries to cope with incessant changes in life. A ‘stress’ condition seems ‘relative’ in nature. Extreme stress conditions, psychologists say, are detrimental to human health but in moderation stress is normal and, in many cases, proves useful. Stress, nonetheless, is synonymous with negative conditions. Today, with the too many diversification of human activity, we come face to face with numerous causes of stress and the symptoms of stress and depression.
At one point or the other everybody suffers from stress. Relationship demands, physical as well as mental health problems, pressure at workplaces, traffic snarls, meeting deadlines, growing-up tensions—all of these conditions and situations can be valid causes of stress. 
People have their own methods of stress management. In some people, stress-induced negative feelings and anxieties tend to persist and intensify. Learning to understand and master stress management techniques can help prevent the counter effects of this urban malaise. 
The Dynamics of Stress
In a challenging situation the brain prepares the body for defensive action—the fight or flight response by releasing stress hormones, namely, cortisone and adrenaline. These hormones raise the blood pressure and the body prepares to react to the situation. With a concrete defensive action (fight response) the stress hormones in the blood get used up, entailing reduced stress effects and symptoms of anxiety.
When we fail to counter a stress situation (flight response) the hormones and chemicals remain unreleased in the blood stream for a long period of time. It results in stress related physical symptoms such as tense muscles, unfocused anxiety, dizziness and rapid heartbeats. We all encounter various stressors (causes of stress) in everyday life, which can accumulate, if not released. Subsequently, it compels the mind and body to be in an almost constant alarm-state in preparation to fight or flee. This state of accumulated stress can increase the risk of both acute and chronic psychosomatic illnesses and weaken the immune system of the human body. 
Stress can cause headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, eating disorder, allergies, insomnia, backaches, frequent cold and fatigue to diseases such as hypertension, asthma, diabetes, heart ailments and even cancer. In fact, Sanjay Chugh, a leading Indian psychologist, says that 70 per cent to 90 per cent of adults visit primary care physicians for stress-related problems. Scary enough. But where do we err?
Just about everybody—men, women, children and even foetuses—suffer from stress. Relationship demands, chronic health problems, pressure at workplaces, traffic snarls, meeting deadlines, growing-up tensions or a sudden bearish trend in the bourse can trigger stress conditions. People react to it in their own ways. In some people, stress-induced adverse feelings and anxieties tend to persist and intensify. Learning to understand and manage stress can prevent the counter effects of stress.
Methods of coping with stress are aplenty. The most significant or sensible way out is a change in lifestyle. Relaxation techniques such as meditation, physical exercises, listening to soothing music, deep breathing, various natural and alternative methods, personal growth techniques, visualization and massage are some of the most effective of the known non-invasive stress busters. 
Stress can be positive
The words ‘positive’ and ‘stress’ may not often go together. But, there are innumerable instances of athletes rising to the challenge of stress and achieving the unachievable, scientists stressing themselves out over a point to bring into light the most unthinkable secrets of the phenomenal world, and likewise a painter, a composer or a writer producing the best paintings, the most lilting of tunes or the most appealing piece of writing by pushing themselves to the limit. Psychologists second the opinion that some ‘stress’ situations can actually boost our inner potential and can be creatively helpful. Sudha Chandran, an Indian dancer, lost both of her legs in an accident. But, the physical and social inadequacies gave her more impetus to carry on with her dance performances with the help of prosthetic legs rather than deter her spirits.
Experts tell us that stress, in moderate doses, are necessary in our life. Stress responses are one of our body’s best defence systems against outer and inner dangers. In a risky situation (in case of accidents or a sudden attack on life et al), body releases stress hormones that instantly make us more alert and our senses become more focused. The body is also prepared to act with increased strength and speed in a pressure situation. It is supposed to keep us sharp and ready for action.
Research suggests that stress can actually increase our performance. Instead of wilting under stress, one can use it as an impetus to achieve success. Stress can stimulate one’s faculties to delve deep into and discover one’s true potential. Under stress the brain is emotionally and biochemically stimulated to sharpen its performance.
A working class mother in down town California, Erin Brokovich, accomplished an extraordinary feat in the 1990s when she took up a challenge against the giant industrial house Pacific Gas & Electric. The unit was polluting the drinking water of the area with chromium effluents. Once into it, Brockovich had to work under tremendous stress taking on the bigwigs of the society. By her own account, she had to study as many as 120 research articles to find if chromium 6 was carcinogenic. Going from door to door, Erin signed up over 600 plaintiffs, and with attorney Ed Masry went on to receive the largest court settlement, for the town people, ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in the U.S. history—$333 million. It’s an example of an ordinary individual triumphing over insurmountable odds under pressure. If handled positively stress can induce people to discover their inherent talents.
Stress is, perhaps, necessary to occasionally clear cobwebs from our thinking. If approached positively, stress can help us evolve as a person by letting go of unwanted thoughts and principle in our life. Very often, at various crossroads of life, stress may remind you of the transitory nature of your experiences, and may prod you to look for the true happiness of life. 
Stress Throughout Evolution
Stress has existed throughout the evolution. About 4 billion years ago, violent collision of rock and ice along with dust and gas, led to the formation of a new planet. The planet survive more than 100 million years of meltdown to give birth to microscopic life . These first organisms endured the harshest of conditions—lack of oxygen, exposure to sun’s UV rays and other inhospitable elements, to hang on to their dear life. Roughly 300,000 years ago, the Neanderthals learnt to use fire in a controlled way, to survive the Glacial Age. And around 30,000 years, Homo sapiens with their dominant gene constitutions and better coping skills, won the game of survival. Each step of evolution a test of survival, and survival, a matter of coping with the stress of changing conditions.
Millions of trials and errors in the life process have brought men to this stage. Coping with events to survive, has led men to invent extraordinary technologies, beginning with a piece of sharpened stone. 
From the viewpoint of microevolution, stress induction of transpositions is a powerful factor, generating new genetic variations in populations under stressful environmental conditions. Passing through a ‘bottleneck’, a population can rapidly and significantly alters its population norm and become the founder of new, evolved forms. 
Gene transposition through Transposable Elements (TE)—’jumping genes’, is a major source of genetic change, including the creation of novel genes, the alteration of gene expression in development, and the genesis of major genomic rearrangements. In a research on ‘the significance of responses of the genome to challenges,’ the Nobel Prize winning scientist Barbara McClintock, characterized these genetic phenomena as ‘genomic shock’. This occurs due to recombinational events between TE insertions (high and low insertion polymorphism) and host genome. But, as a rule TEs remain immobilized until some stress factor (temperature, irradiation, DNA damage, the introduction of foreign chromatin, viruses, etc.) activates their elements.
The moral remains that we can work a stress condition to our advantage or protect ourselves from its untoward follow-throughs subject to how we handle a stress situation. The choice is between becoming a slave to the stressful situations of life or using them to our advantage. 

Use Skills, Not Pills

Stress is the most commonly used word in today’s busy world. Many health hazards are immediately connected to stress. While it is said to affect the most busy business people, the reality that it affects even children who are burdened with too many lessons to study and too many home works to complete, saddens us.
Some people want to reduce their stress so much that they are willing to pay large sums of money to do so. People spend thousands of rupees needlessly on stress vitamins, tranquillising pills, sleeping pills and many more products in the hope of eliminating the harmful effects of stress on their health.  
Sometimes stress becomes really severe, in spite of all your efforts. Then even small details become overwhelming. If you find yourself chronically unable to function because stress is so overwhelming, it may be time to seek outside help. 
Perhaps that is the time when people caught in stress begin to look for any product or service that can bring you a little relaxation and tranquillity. Today one needs to be aware that any product or service that can bring you relaxation can take your money, and make empty promises that it will bring a 
soothing relaxation. 
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it,” said General Douglas MacArthur. Stress is the by product of entering into a war without a will to win. For those who are determined to win and courageously enter into any risk, stress has no place.
Wise time management can also help you to minimise stress. When students say that they spent all week studying for their exams, it actually means that they spent six days worrying about the exams and just spent one day studying. Thus, instead of worrying too much if we can make the best use of time, stress can 
be released. 
All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people. Perhaps you can choose the moments of stress to listen to others and humbly receive some helps from others, so that you don’t lose your inner peace and calm.
Helen Keller said, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Perhaps stressful moments open new horizons for anyone caught in stress. The saddest reality is that those under stress remain looking at the door that is closed instead of the new horizon that has opened up. 
Stress comes into the life of so many people primarily because many of us want to be men of success rather than men full of values. Human mind can easily work out a clear plan without taxing your mind or body in such a way that it can lead us to a stress free life. Instead of relying too much on the artificial ways of removing stress which in turn may bring additional problems, it is better to opt for a simpler and personal solution to the problem.
The exact opposite of the stress response is the relaxation response. This response reduces blood pressure, slows the pulse, quells anxiety, and releases tension. Relaxation permits your body to recover from the effects of stress, and you can will it to happen, even in the midst of a stressful situation. You can relax anywhere, any time. You can simply tune into a tranquillising thought or word and relax. For most people, though, relaxation is first learned through a formal exercise. 
Leonardo Da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more 
readily seen.” 
You need to develop many personal skills to handle your stress. The best relaxation will always come not from outside, but from inside. Because, relaxation, happiness and peace are inside jobs. The skills you develop to handle your worries will guard you against stress. 
Relax! Enjoy your life! For tranquillity, you don’t need pills. All you need 
is skills.