Living in a faced paced modern day economy means that most working adults have to face the ever present ‘S’ word. Yes, you’re right, we’re talking about stress. Usually stress comes about when you have a deadline, quota or task to complete in a rather short time. Your success in completing them and dealing with stress will ultimately define whether you are successful or not.

It’s no wonder that nowadays, people come up with creative and unusual ways to deal with stress. So if you find that the usual activities like playing computer games , watching TV, or going for a run isn’t working for you, try these inventive and slightly offbeat methods:

• Drink lots of lemon or orange juice. The high vitamin C content in these drinks aren’t only good for health, studies have shown that they elevate stress levels too!

• Put little toys on your desk like a rubrics cube, Lego pieces, puzzles or the like and take short breaks from your work to play with them. Make sure they are fun and colourful so that they cheer up your desk.

• Get more house plants as research has shown that being around plants helps you calm down faster and is good for the overall psyche.

• Carry around a ‘worry stone’ which is a smooth pebble, or any other small object you can hold in the palm of your hand. Whenever the pressure gets too much, you can rub the stone and visualize ‘transferring’ all your stress into the stone.

• Buy a stress ball or rubber ball that you can squeeze. It really helps to channel a lot of frustration and anger you may be bottling up inside.

• Eat a banana or two as the potassium in bananas can help regulate blood pressure which tends to shoot up when the going gets tough.

• You know how cats and dogs relax when you rub them behind their ears? Well humans have that reaction too, so take a few minutes and rub your ears to relax.

• Eating slowly is one way you can fool your body into slowing down. When you have a slower lunch or dinner, the brain will think that all is well and there’s no emergency, thereby bringing your stress levels down too.

• Treat yourself to some comfort food, dishes that are familiar and remind you of happy times, like cakes, chocolates and nasi lemak.

• Laughing is a scientifically proven way to relieve stress, so just start laughing for a few minutes. If you’re afraid people at the office will look at you funnily, do it outside or pretend you’re watch a funny Youtube video.