I'm pretty good with dealing with stress levels these days and there's lots of good books on the subject too. Quite often if we remove/decrease the stress, other problems tend to get sorted along the way. And it also creates less problems too.
A good starting point is to realise that it's US that creates the stress, it's not the external factors.
There's quite a famous study into stress where they studied a bunch of air traffic controllers - typically believed to be a high pressure (therefore stressful) occupation. The findings? Some air traffic controllers were stressed, others weren't. It went to show that it wasn't their occupations that were causing them stress, it was their REACTION to the job.
Now, if stress if stress were completely due to external factors, we wouldn't have much control over it. But this study shows that stress is an internal thing, which is good news; it means we have some control over it.
However, it's not something that we can use will power to control; we can't say, "Okay, I'm stressed, I'll now be less stressed!", that's not going to work. What we need to control stress is a METHOD. I use a range of stuff, but I think practising meditation and mindfulness is a large part of that.
The time investment in this when you first start is small; 10 to 20 minutes a day. My suggestion is to investigate it; there's lots of scientific evidence to show that it can offer a range of physical and mental benefits. There's lots of good books on the subject too. The Art of Happiness is highly recommended.
And if you remove the stress, the problems are removed, and all the other stuff you're after help with may seem less of a problem and just stuff you need to do.
