We live in a stressful society. Period. Care to rebut that? Probably not, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this in the first place.

Nevertheless, there is not a single person in existence who has NEVER felt stressed out by work, or life in general. Undoubtedly, there is no denying the eventual onslaught of this stressful foe. What you can do, however, is lessen the effect of it.

What might surprise you is that a few lifestyle tweaks can increase your defense system in shielding you from this monstrous foe, known as “stress”:

• Meditate First Thing in the Morning

Meditate more often. This could be a prayer time, a silent time, or whatever you decide to make of it; it just needs to be a 15-to-20-minutes quiet time of respite to gain insightfulness of what’s going in your life and what needs to get done.

You might even get more in touch with your inner spirituality. If you can do that, you will never have trouble finding peace as you calmly progress throughout your every day.

• Exercise at Least 30 to 45 Minutes a Day

Take at least 30 minutes to 45 minutes a day to exercise. The exercise doesn’t have to be anything complicated or fancy. Mind you, you don’t need to torture yourself with long-distance marathons but just engage your body in something as simple as walking, jogging, or jump roping.

Take your time to discover what you enjoy physically doing with relative ease. Don’t overdo it, have a little fun, and this will lead stress levels to dwindle over time.

• Diminish Your Caffeine Intake

If you are serious about preventing stress, then you will want to be less anxious and reduce your heart rate. We’re talking about “caffeine” here as the main culprit. As much as most early morning birds can’t forego their daily cup of Joe, there are some who rely on caffeine overindulgence.

If you are one of those folks, then lower your caffeine intake to gradually move your body away from this excessive caffeine tolerance threshold that is not ideally healthy. Admittedly, the withdrawal period might make you cranky at first, but diminishing your caffeine intake will train your body to function properly and mind to think clearly without it down the line, of course, minus any crash-and-burn anxiety. It’s a positive progressive push forward.

• Incorporate Self-Defense for Your Mind

Really? What does self-defense have anything to do with stress management? Being a practitioner of self-defense isn’t all about protecting oneself externally from outer harm of another individual wanting to bash your teeth in but protecting oneself internally from any inner emotional turmoil like our good old foe, stress.

The discipline of self-defense can keep you grounded and centered and help you navigate through stressful time and situations; it’s a mental as much as a physical cultivation. Specifically, self-defense involving slow movements, like “tai chi,” can calm your stress, clear your mind, and refocus your energy; and it can be performed during breaks at an isolated area or after work. Practicing self-defense as a spare-time recreation or lifelong self-development is a beneficial pursuit for anybody.