In fact, some people actually find stress motivating and even helpful

Now, if stress is affecting your life, in this video, I'm going to teach you two on-the-spot stress relief techniques that anyone can do to help.

Now, before we begin looking at these techniques, it's important to remember that stress can affect each individual differently.

It can affect you physically, it can  affect you mentally, and it can even change the way that we behave.

So, if you're not quite sure how you feel and whether it is stress or not, I will of course leave loads more information in the description below for you.

The NHS also have a really useful mood self-assessment tool which is an online thing.

I will link it in the description below as well.

It's really, really helpful so I'd highly recommend you do check it out.

Now, let's learn the actual stress relief technique step by step.

So the first technique that I'd like to discuss with you is what we call the emergency stop technique.

Now this one is really helpful when you need to cope with a really stressful situation and then you'll have time later to relax further.

So step number one: acknowledge the fact that you're feeling stressed.

So learn to recognize those symptoms and feelings that you get that we discussed earlier.

Step number two: Say the word "stop" to yourself really sharply, and if the situation permits it, if there's nobody else around, say it out loud.

There's no problem with doing that, and this is going to help you stop fussing and getting so worked up.

Step number three: Breathe in through your nose and hold it for a couple of seconds, maybe one to two seconds, and then breathe out.

Now generally speaking, you shouldn't really pause when you're breathing, but for a really stressful situation, it can actually be quite helpful.

I wouldn't advise that you pause your breathing for more than two to three seconds.

Now as you breathe out, breathe out through your mouth and then repeat the cycle again.

And whilst you're doing this, slowly relax your hands and your shoulders.

Moving on to step number five: As you breathe in and out, slowly start relaxing your forehead face and jaw.

And step number six: it's good to stay quiet for a few seconds and then slowly go back to what you were doing.

Now, if the situation doesn't permit for that, and you have to speak, you can speak a little lower.

And also a bit slower, and then slowly build yourself back up again.

Now what I really like about this technique is that you can actually do it without anyone realizing, so if you're surrounded by people, most of the time, most of them won't really realize you're doing this.

Now in spite of your feelings, you will feel that your tension does begin to ease, and for a slightly more advanced version of the emergency stop technique try breathing from your abdomen.

Now this tends to be more calming than shallow breathing from your upper rib area, so to do this all you really need to do is put your focus on your abdomen and feel it swell when you breathe in and feel it sink when you breathe out.

Once you've got the hang of it it is actually very easy to do, and it will be very useful too.

So step number one: Spread your fingers.

Now my fingers and hands would be on my thighs right now, but you can't see in the shot, so I'm just gonna hold it up here so you can see it.

So spread them out like that, spread your fingers, spread your thumbs, and hold it like that for a few seconds then gently relax it back to its normal position - nice and relaxed.

Step number two: Relax your jaw.

Now, it's a little tricky to do on camera because I'm talking at the moment, but what you need to do is drag your jaw downwards and feel it relax in your mouth.

In fact, try it right now whilst I just said it.

Drag your jaw downwards and just feel it relax and see how good that feels.

So by doing this you should feel that your throat relaxes and your tongue gets nice and loose.

Also another useful thing to do is your lips.

Keep them very gently touching, and this can help a lot as well.

Step number three: Pull your shoulders down towards your feet.

Feel that distance growing between your ear and your shoulder and then hold it there, let it rest.

Step number four: You need to push your head back whilst your shoulders are nice and loose and low as we mentioned in step three.

Try and keep your chin pointing towards your feet.

Now the resulting position should be very comfortable.

And step number five: Loosen your arms and shoulder muscles by shaking your sleeves down.

You can actually do this without being noticed at all.

So now that you know what you're doing, it's useful to try and keep count and relaxing each body part.

So for example, counting one two and then your arms relax, three four and then your neck and shoulders relax, and keep counting  and relaxing each body part

Now please remember that these techniques that we've discussed will need practice for you to get better at doing it.

The more you practice it, the more useful you will find it.

It's also important to remember when and where to get help for stress, especially during difficult times.

So what I am going to do is I'm going to leave loads more information about this in the description below, and I'd highly recommend that everyone reads it.

I really do hope that my video helps you.

Please do let us know how you get on by leaving a comment below, and also if you have any of your own tips, if you have anything that works really well for you, leave a comment below too because I'd love to read it, and I'm sure everyone watching this video would too.

Always remember you're awesome and I will see you next week.

I'm going to teach you two on the spot spress, spress... spress!

Hey guys thanks for watching this week's video, make sure to click that like follow or subscribe button now to stay up to date with new weekly videos