We are a nation of highly stressed-out people. We can see signs of stress in others, and recognize them in ourselves: there is that sense of exhaustion (“I’m wiped out!”), taut facial muscles, dry skin, and irritability; there may be heart palpitations or the sinking feeling in our stomach or the sense that we are drowning in an endless sea of chores and obligations.

Stress is hard to define in scientific terms, and yet it is one of the biggest culprits in our worsening national health crisis. An estimated 90 percent of all primary doctor visits are said to be related to stress. Chronic stress disrupts nearly every system in your body and is considered to be a precursor to such serious conditions as type 2 diabetes, depression, weight-gain, back pain, and heart disease. At work, it leads to productivity losses and growing medical costs.

The problem is that sometimes reducing stress seems as stressful as, well, the very problem that had caused the stress in the first place. I regularly hear this from women for whom scheduling a 90-minute relaxation appointment with me is tantamount to performing a feat of organizational genius.

But the truth is that you can find your way to reducing stress without joining an ashram, blowing three months’ rent on a spa vacation or passing up on a new, exciting project at work. When it comes to stress reduction, you can do a lot in small increments – and on a small budget.

Here are some strategies that you can take to the office, on a business trip, or anywhere else your busy life happens to take you. The results to look for are more energy, sharper focus, a greater sense of peace and equanimity and, ultimately, better health.

Step 1: Commit to Yourself

As a holistic health practitioner, I’ve learned to accept the truth: one of the hardest commitments for us to make is one to our own health and well-being. Not only do we drive ourselves hard – we take pride in keeping on going while ignoring signals of distress from our bodies.

But by ignoring minor signs of trouble such as tiredness, assorted aches and pains and irritability, we are courting larger problems. The cracks that stress creates in our health will continue to widen until we can no longer tune them out.

So before you do anything else, make a commitment to yourself. Promise yourself – preferably in writing – that from now on, your health and wellness is one of your top priorities.

It helps to create a positive motivation. Write down why reducing stress is important for you: Is it so that you can have more energy to play with your kids? To have sharper focus, so you can accomplish more at work? To regain your sense of peace and equanimity? How seriously you take that commitment will determine the success of whatever other steps you choose to make.

Step 2: Pick Your Favorite Strategy and Stick to It

What’s the one thing you could do to help yourself relax and feel refreshed and re-energized? Is it going for a walk in the park? Knitting? Reading a book? Going for a bike ride? Wandering through an art gallery? Window-shopping? Planning your next vacation? Staring out the window? Meditating? It really doesn’t matter what it is, so long as it leaves you mentally, emotionally and physically refreshed. Pick that one strategy and make it a routine.

And if fitting it into your schedule seems like too much, think again. Even the busiest of my clients usually agree that they could allocate a bit of time during the day to doing something good for themselves. This may be 10 minutes during lunch or 20 minutes when you get back from work, during your metro ride or in between client appointments.

One of my clients likes to close the door to her office for 30 minutes during lunch and enjoy the tranquility of her office. To make sure that nobody interrupts, she puts “in a meeting” on her shared calendar. And she is, in fact, in a very important and highly productive meeting – with herself!

Step 3. Catch Your Thoughts (and Feelings)

We often underestimate the impact of thoughts and emotions on our health and well-being. But mental and emotional stress takes enormous toll on our health. A negative train of thoughts and emotions, such as anger, resentment or sadness, sets off a chain of biochemical reactions that create an unhealthy environment within our bodies. And, interestingly, it is often not so much the events of your life but the thoughts and feelings you have about them that cause us the most stress.

Learning to catch yourself before you begin descending into that negative spiral is critical. The emerging field of positive psychology teaches that learning to shift your thoughts into a positive direction can do volumes to help you reduce stress and feel happier in your life.

I often teach my clients to keep a gratitude journal, where I ask them to record all the great things that have happened to them throughout the day. The trick is to recognize even the smallest things, things that we normally take for granted, as the true miracles that they are. The sun rose, you had a job to go to (even if you hated it), a friendly stranger smiled at you on the train. Start noting these little signs of grace. You’ll be amazed at how this exercise can shift your perception of well-being.

Step 4. Take Your Brain Out for a Walk

The benefits of walking extend beyond physical exercise. Turns out that it’s great for our brains too. According to EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing – a psychotherapeutic methodology frequently employed in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD), anything that alternately stimulates both sides of our brain – lateral eye movement, alternate hand-tapping, and walking – can help your brain file away worries, concerns and anxieties more quickly and efficiently.

Mark Word, a Silver Spring-based licensed social worker who uses EMDR to help returning warriors to overcome PTSD, says: “The brain processes stress in a more adaptive way while feeling sensations on the left and on the right. People have been going out for walks, and finding solutions to their problems in the process, for centuries. Walking reduces stress for many different reasons, perhaps, but surely the bilateral stimulation to the brain from hitting the ground with our feet left and right is part of this.”

So bring your problem along for a walk. Give yourself 20-30 minutes. You may gain an insight or a new perspective on an issue or, at a minimum, reduce the emotional strain associated with it, which, in turn, will help reduce your stress load.

Step 5. One Task at a Time

Research shows that, despite what our busy lives and job descriptions demand of us, multitasking is not only unhelpful – it is, in fact, unproductive. When attempting to multitask, we are actually forming bottlenecks in our brains. So even as we congratulate ourselves on being successful jugglers, we may be failing at the task we’re trying to accomplish.

Focusing our mental energies on one task at a time will help reduce your stress levels. Allocate a set amount of time for each task and pursue it for that amount of time before switching to something new. Reduce interruptions as much as possible. (Studies show that it takes our brain up to 20 minutes to refocus our attention after the interruption.) You will have the side benefit of becoming more productive, thus preventing further potential causes of stress.

Step 6. Eat, and Sleep, Well

Stress often causes us to shift our eating and sleeping habits, as if we are trying to sabotage ourselves on purpose. Just when our bodies cry out for more rest, we stay up late surfing the net or watching TV reruns. The next day, we pump ourselves full of caffeine and sugar-laid snacks in an attempt to break through the haze of tiredness, and the cycle continues.

But it’s precisely during the times of stress that our bodies need the most support. Not only do refined carbs and caffeinated beverages do nothing to reduce our stress on the physiological level – they actually increase the stress load on our systems. Refined sugar leads to excess production of insulin and adrenaline. And lack of sleep impacts your levels of thyroid and stress hormones. This, in turn, can negatively impact your memory, immune system, metabolism, cardiovascular health, and lead to weight gain.

If there are only a few things you can do to help your body weather high- stress periods, eliminate sweets and caffeine, and go to bed early, – preferably by 10 pm. Not only is the number of hours you sleep important (a minimum of 7 is recommended) – so is the time you go to bed. Some of our bodies’ most important repairs – including those conducted by our immune system – take place between 10 pm and 2 am. And that’s precisely what your body needs when it’s under stress.

Step 7. Keep Things in Perspective

If all else fails, reminding ourselves that the current stressful situation is temporary (“this, too, shall pass”) can do us a world of good.

Meditative and other spiritual practices have long been used to help one re-center and re-connect to something beyond oneself. Something magical happens when we realize, beyond any reasonable doubt, that there is a larger reality out there.

If sitting quietly is not your cup of tea, take a meditative walk, or engage in a project that serves a larger purpose. Rather than dwelling on the negative aspects of the situation, ask yourself how you can use it to grow personally and spiritually.

Sometimes difficult situations are stressful for us because they make us feel powerless. It helps to recognize that, while there may not be much you can do about it, you always have the choice in how to respond.

Consider your options, and see if you could take the higher road. In choosing your response, consciously and with care, you will help yourself regain your sense of strength and balance. The other 6 strategies can help you with the rest.

Izabella Tabarovsky, MA/HTCP, is a Washington, DC-based holistic wellness consultant, energy medicine practitioner, aromatherapist, and life path / career path coach. She teaches frequently throughout the area and nationally. She holds a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. For more information, please visit www.izabellatabarovsky.com or www.facebook.com/holistic.health.dc