Look whose speaking. Review on Handling Stress

I may not exactly be the right person to be writing under this category for the simple reason that I hardly ever get stressed out (Yes, I mean it really. And I can swear upon any of my ancestors dating as back as to the Mesozoic era if you please). Despite the popular opinion that considers otherwise, I still insist that I am a normal human being, and like anyone else, very much prone to the ill effects of regular humdrum. Just that I have some precautionary and reliable techniques to ward off this?STRESS? monster. I would like to share some of them with you. They always work for me so hoping they help you too.

What is stress?~ Shifted to comments section, owing to 8K limits.

Time Management~ is the key. No point pondering over your workload from the shore. Just prioritize your actions, set a timetable and plunge into it. At the same time, we need to take some real time off for ourselves too. You may face?dharamsankats? at times, say like, this time you are facing a crucial deadline and loads of work still pending, hence you are all set to spend your night time at office. But as the trick of Time would have it, Ms. Rai look-alike babe you met on your last trip and desperately tried to woo 3 times earlier, is in town asking your time out for dinner before she flies away at dawn.

Such a hard time for you to decide? Relax you have 2 options. i) Dump your official business onto subordinates (which other time can you show off your boss-giri?) or plead?time please? with your boss since your mom/ pop/ grans suddenly hospitalized (rem, you have 1 set of parents and 2 sets of grand folks only, so in a short time you will run out of stock. unless ofcourse you have a huge circle of aunt uncles cousins whom you will subject to suffering strokes one by one) ii) Sacrifice:-( And after sometime tomorrow, you will be a Devdas SRK look-alike yourself. Now wasn?t that a simple selection instead of getting all worked up? (Btw, did you count how many times the word?time? was repeated there. distressed or de-stressed?)

The above was more a hypothetical situation. Lets come down to some practical tips now. During stressful times (here I go again), you may chill out with your loony buddies hanging around cinemas, discos and beer bars until late hours. But trust me, the best remedy is to simply relax at home. Some of the wonderful stress busters are all there lying around you just to be picked up. Try them.

Entertaining music~ Lata Mangeshkar, Md. Rafi are all fine and appeasing, but did you ever listen to Anu Malik singing?Dekho barish ho rahi hein, its raining? in torrential rains that has added an extra sinusitis effect to his voice which even otherwise sounds like a cat suffering from severe cold and sore-throat? Have you heard Altaaf Raja going berserk in?Piyo Ishq di Whiskey? Do you even remember Baba Sehgal? Try this: Shut your nostrils close using your fingers and without choking yourself sing?Sawan mein lag gayi aag? and there you are as good and shining as bright as pop star Mica.

Enjoyable movies~ I don?t intend horror flicks MPKDH/ Yaadein or tearjerker music videos K3G nonsensical here. I am talking about masterpieces of the like: Jaani Dushman >> undulating naag Koirala & Kohli doing conjugal?taandav nritya? atop graphically made-to-believe-but-awful Himalayan caves housing a meditating hairball, which you later realise is Amrishpuri. Rudraksh >> cat eyed Shetty, Dutt in Matrix meets Ramayana? Hero, Jaal the crap >> Sunny tap-dancing on his 2 left feet. Suryavanshi >> Sallu in borrowed from Arnold?s?Konan the Barbarian? skirt. Mother, Sanam Bewafa, English Babu Desi Mem? >> Believe me, you only need to watch them. All your stress will run miles away coz of non-stop rip-roaring guffaws these flicks effuse.

Pleasing TV watch~ I know that pleasing is the last word for this?K? deluge we are subjected to. But there is occasional silver lining in form of Des mein niklla hoga chaand, Malini Iyer, snippets of bhojpuri songs on ETC, MTV Roadies etc. You can indulge in fun games during these shows like: Try figuring out which planet Cyrus Barucha hails from or what the heck is that Roadie show all about where people don Superman, Batman costumes and roam on the streets.

Imitate Sridevi repeating?mera pati tirupati? dialog to improve your mimicry or guess whom will Aroona Irani subject next to her plastic surgery routine in DMNHC or which Bollywood reject will feature in the forthcoming T-series launch album and so on. One of the favourite bets I used to indulge in was with my brother, that Ruby Bhatia had a striking resemblance to our old school peon while my brother insisted she looked more like our dhobi. We would ask our housemaid to be the judge who would promptly write us both off, declaring that Ruby in fact resembled our neighbour?s Pomeranian Sheeba!

Sky Gazing~ Get onto terrace or balcony, lay back and gaze into the beautiful dark sky. You will be so overwhelmed with mixed feelings that all your problems simply evaporate. In fact your very own existence will seem so trivial, you won?t let your troubles bother you anymore. In daytimes, you can let your imagination wild and keep guessing the images formed by the changing outlines of the clouds. And if you had some company along, just perfect. It is very amusing when what I perceive is an image of Sonali Bendre is actually Bala Thakarey to my friend. I also get cheap thrills watching a Fardeen Khan manifesting himself into a kangaroo.

Tech solutions~ Hitting Random URLs is great fun. Type whatever you feel and suffix it with .com, .net, .org(ex: masalamirch.com, nazaare.com, iambored.com) and see where you land. But I must warn you that more often than not you may end up on some porn sites. Your mobile is a great boon too. No time for socialising? No sweat, opt for cell phone dating;-) Missing out on gala events? Have your friends promptly SMS you snippets. Join some fantastic groups on Yahoo, MSN and simply time pass. When the routine gets boring amuse yourself announcing crazy polls and stupid contests. Trust me, works wonder and some of my friends here will vouch for that.

For the classy amongst us, there are always Books, Crossword, Scrabble and Dictionary. Besides stress relief, you also gain word power and cognition (oh, I am just showing off). Alternately, you can go in for meditation and breathing exercises. However, do take care of proper procedures to follow. Spending time with your pet is one of the best ways to get de-stressed. So go get yourself a Maneka Gandhi today. I heard it?s the best breed of pooch available in town. Smiles, sleep and good food help a great deal.

Above all, Mouthshut is a great stress buster. I just log in here and enjoy all that my favourite authors churn out, catch up with newbies, get amused by controversial writers and lastly, post such dreary reviews myself to get over previous week?s tensionbaazi!