“YOU can’t change what is happening around you. You can only change how you feel about it.” Pearls of wisdom from a training course this week on dealing with stress.

I wasn’t best pleased to be there. I was much too busy to take four hours out of the week to talk about stress.

But taking time out to think about the everyday pressures of life and being offered ways of dealing with them better was one of the best four hours I’ve spent.

Philosophers from ancient Greece said much the same: “People are not disturbed by things but by the views they take of them.”

The secret to an unstressed and peaceful existence lies in controlling our attitude and not being driven solely by our emotions.

Simples – as one rather stressed meerkat says. Great theory. I’ve heard it before and always say ‘of course....’ But the route between theory and practice can be rocky. The times you need a clear head are the times it’s hardest to have one! So how do you break the circle?

One way is to challenge yourself to think differently to how you might normally think.

Look for the thought patterns that you inherited or learned at an early age. They’re the ones you resort to because they’re familiar – but they are not necessarily the best.

For me it’s often leaping to the worst conclusion. Dire consequences are inevitable. But they may not be – and thinking they’re inevitable simply adds to the problem. For one of my colleagues, it was overgeneralising.

It’s happened! That means it’s likely to happen again. And if it worked out badly in the past – it’s bound to work out like that again!

They’re called ‘mindtraps’ and once they’ve snapped it’s too late. The course offered ways of avoiding them, of finding new ways of thinking about situations.

“If a friend were telling you about this situation,” they said, “what advice would you give?”

They offered the hope that after 21 days of careful, structured thinking about how you approached things that cause you stress, you would begin to see some positive results.

Watch this space. In a month’s time my family and colleagues will tell me whether it’s working. In the end, it’s not only you living with your stress – it’s those closest to you.