For many of us, time is one of the major sources of stress in life. It often seems like we don’t have nearly as much time to do what we need to do, that we are up against deadlines to finish a variety of both important and mundane tasks, and we often see time flying by and have the experience of regrets and missed opportunities. Not to mention the fact that we all have limited time on the planet, a fact that I generally avoid thinking about to the extent that I can! Indeed, the fact that we are both alive and at some point won’t be is considered to be one of the major human existential struggles that we all deal with to some degree. On to more mundane matters, however. How can we cope more effectively with everyday time stress? Well, a good starting point is to ask yourself whether there’s anything under your control that you could change and experience less time stress. As an example, when I travel to my office downtown a couple of times a week, I often find that I feel very tense and rushed while I drive to the train station, dash frantically to the 24 hour newspaper stand, and try to buy a ticket before the train arrives. Why am I in such a hurry? Because I’m trying to fit in too much stuff in the morning before I leave the house. My plan, therefore, is to reevaluate my morning routine, see what I might be able to give up or reduce, and possibly to set the alarm about 10 or 15 minutes earlier. One way to deal with time stress, such as in this example, is to use straightforward problem-solving. Another way is to use the skill of mindfulness. Even if you are under the gun to finish something via particular deadline, have more than you can humanly do on your plate for the day, etc., it is still possible to use mindfulness to anchor yourself in the present moment. Try to bring your full awareness to each thing that you are doing, without spending a lot of time worrying about the next thing or when it has to be finished, and so on. Make each task you do, each moment of your day, the only moment. If you’re able to do this even for just a few minutes of each day, you will probably start to feel quite a bit less overwhelmed. You might even start to notice that time stops being such a major source of stress. -Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.