You’re at your desk, about to log off for your lunch break, when you hear the ding of an incoming text. You read the message from your partner saying, “Meeting got moved. Can’t get kids from school today.” By the time you glance back up at your screen, an email has come in from your boss, asking about the progress of a lagging project. As you craft your reply, your phone beeps again, and you eagerly check for the life-saving words of your best friend saying she can pick up your kids, but instead, you’re greeted by a news alert about some unspeakable thing happening in what seems to be an increasingly insane world.

Fill in the blanks of your own latest text, email, and news alert, and most of you can probably relate to this scenario. In fact, the American Psychological Association (APA) recently reported that the constant checking of devices is contributing to high levels of stress for the majority of Americans. This year, results from an APA survey also showed a “statistically significant increase” in stress for the first time since the survey was first conducted in 2007. Stress is on the rise for myriad reasons that are worth examining. But here, I want to explore how to best handle the new waves of stress that have entered our lives. No matter what it is that’s making each of us anxious, we can all arm ourselves with the tools to help us stay calm, centered, and feeling strong in the face of challenges. Here are some techniques we can adopt to better handle moments of stress.

1. Get a hold of your inner critic: One thing we should realize about stress is that so much of what we worry about is based not just on what’s happening in our lives but the messages we tell ourselves about what’s happening. Facing a deadline is stressful, but it’s those nagging thoughts telling us, “You’re never going to finish” or “This is all gonna blow up in your face” that really get us worked up. Getting our kid to finish their homework is tiring, but it’s made all the worse by attacks like “You’re a terrible parent” or “You can’t even get your own kid to listen to you. What a failure!” Take the time to ask yourself, “what are the thoughts around my stress that perpetuate it?”

There are a lot of things in our lives that don’t go our way or that we can’t control, but what makes matters much worse is a “critical inner voice” we all possess that punishes us unnecessarily and escalates our stress. “How can you sleep? You have so much to do.” “What makes you think you can just relax?” “This is just too much. You can’t handle it.” This voice is a friend to our stress, paving a tunnel for it to pour in and consume our state of mind. Identifying our “inner critic” by noticing when it starts yammering away will help us peel away its negative messaging from whatever our actual circumstances may be.

2. Practice pressing the pause button: The saying that “whatever you practice gets stronger” is a useful one to remember when it comes to stress. If you practice stress, it will become the norm. If you practice calming yourself, it can also become the norm. When you feel your emotions start to spiral out or overpower you, remind yourself to take just one moment to pause and tune in to yourself. Take a few deep breaths, and slow down your thoughts. You might even put one hand on your belly and another on your heart, while you breathe in and out. This will help you feel more centered.

3. Embrace mindfulness (without judgment):  William James said, “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” Mindfulness is a practice of, not necessarily choosing our thoughts, but choosing how we react to our thoughts and not letting them take over. Mindfulness meditation, for example, teaches us to focus on our breath and tune in with our bodies. As we do this, we can notice individual thoughts as if they are train cars passing on a track. We can acknowledge each one without choosing to board the train and disappear into a land of worry.

Mindfulness teaches us to remain in the moment. The philosopher Lao Tzu said “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” So much of our stress has to do with feeling bad about the past or worrying about the future, but what many of us find is that in the present moment, we are often okay.

4. Give yourself permission to stop worrying: A lot of our stress is about what we can’t control, yet we all indulge in some degree of magical thinking that tells us that somehow worrying or considering every potential negative outcome will solve the problem or at least protect us. Rather than repeatedly setting off warnings in our heads that tell us to panic, why not give ourselves permission to stay in the moment and deal with what is rather than what might be? We could give ourselves permission to let go of the bad thoughts and feelings as much as possible. We can do this each time we’re faced with a challenge. It’s possible to confront the reality of a situation without adding the extra weight of torturing ourselves about the possible scenarios of this reality or its potential consequences.

5. Be around people who make you feel good: In a recent article in The Atlantic addressing post-election stress, Jack Saul, the director of the International Trauma Studies Program, said, “Strengthening connections with families, communities, and organizations is the most important preventive approach.” Studies show that friendship itself is a natural and effective antidote to stress. It’s important to surround ourselves with the right kind of friend, one who keeps us on the right side of ourselves.This means a friend who doesn’t perpetuate our stress by encouraging us to ruminate or wallow in our worries or who doesn’t add to it by joining in and stressing along with us. Find positive people, who have an easier time staying calm or who are more resilient and less hyper-reactive to problems.