Stress! It’s a part of everyday life, and it isn’t necessarily bad for you. Sources of stress can be positive: the birth of a child, preparing for a holiday, marriage, or a new job. However, you may feel overwhelmed by the pressures in your life: work pressures and deadlines, financial worries, family responsibilities, your health, or just never having enough time. When you are under stress, and especially over the long term, you can become depleted in many nutrients, especially the B vitamins, and you can experience conditions such as high blood pressure, immune suppression and increased risk of infection, adrenal exhaustion, depression, anxiety, headaches, insomnia, digestive problems, and weight problems. Stress is unavoidable, but there is much you can do to better cope with it. Good whole-food nutrition, with little or no caffeine, alcohol, and sugar; proper sleep; physical exercise, especially yoga; and relaxation exercises such as deep breathing are all necessary to bolster your system against the ill effects of stress. Because our requirements for the B complex vitamins go up when we are under stress, supplementing with B vitamins can be essential to support the nervous system and nourish the adrenal glands.