Each day, as many as 80 patients pass through the Duke South clinic where she works. She responds to messages through Duke MyChart and handles administrative tasks in her office.

It’s there where she has found a quick way to reset during a stressful day by visiting the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology’s birdfeeder webcams.

Watching cardinals, nuthatches and blue jays swoop into frame, grab a quick bite and take off, she can feel her body and mind relax.

“We’re in a fast-paced, high-intensity job, we care so much about what we do, and that’s energy we put out,” Goacher said. “So, you have to find small things to do to have some energy come back in.”

According to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America 2025 report, concerns about the nation’s future and the economy rank as the top two sources of stress for adults. Work ranks third, with nearly seven in 10 employed adults identifying it as a source of stress, highlighting why brief moments to recharge during a day can make a difference.

“Small moments of time can be big for stress reduction,” said Anna Batsakes, a Board Certified Health Coach with LIVE FOR LIFE, Duke’s employee wellness program. “Just two or three small snippets in a day can help you reset.”

With Stress Awareness Month in April, Duke experts share simple, impactful stress-management habits you can weave into your daily routine.

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Take a Breath

Stress responses such as increased heart rate and muscle tension are evolutionary reactions to perceived threats.

To calm them, Batsakes recommends breathing techniques that help the body to relax.

One approach is to take slow, deep breaths while seated at your desk, gently lifting your hands with each inhale and lowering them with each exhale.

Another is “box breathing,” a cycle of measured breaths and pauses that calm the body’s stress reactions.

“What we really want to do is notice how we’re breathing,” Batsakes said. “We know that long, slow abdominal breathing tells our nervous system that we are safe.”

For more stress-relieving strategies and helpful practices, LIVE FOR LIFE offers two 15-minute virtual mindfulness webinars each week.

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Identify Your Emotions

In more than two decades helping people navigate stress, Teri Leasure, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with Duke’s Personal Assistance Service (PAS), often begins consultations by helping clients identify their emotions.

Finding the words to accurately label what you’re feeling is the first step to learning what it is in your environment that’s causing stress.

Leasure recommends taking a moment to simply ask yourself what emotions you’re experiencing, allow yourself to feel them and then envision letting them go.

“Let yourself experience it, and then picture taking it and putting it on a cloud and then watching the cloud move by or putting it on a leaf that’s floating down a river,” Leasure said.

By creating an emotional reset, your body and mind can relax so you can attend to more pressing matters with a clear mind.

Leasure often recommends free mindfulness-oriented smartphone apps, such as How We Feel, that help users identify emotions and find strategies for managing them.

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Go for a Walk

Taking a 5-to-10 minute break for physical activity, such as a walk, can improve attention and executive function and relieve anxiety.

While walking outside and enjoying a dose of nature is ideal, Batsakes said simply getting up from your chair and walking anywhere, even indoors, for a few minutes can get your mind off stress.

“We’re thinking all the time and thinking can stress us out,” Batsakes said. “Moving allows us to feel embodied and helps us relax. Just getting up and walking can get us out of our head and into our body.”

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Try an Online Tool

Years ago, J. Bryan Sexton tested his 3 Good Things digital well-being tool with nurses in Duke’s neonatal intensive care unit. Caring for some of the hospital’s most vulnerable patients, the nurses showed Sexton why the tool needed to be quick and easy to use.

“They would tell me, ‘I can give you one, maybe two minutes, tops,’” said Sexton, Director of the Duke Center for the Advancement of Well-Being Science and Medical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Since then, Sexton and his colleagues developed and validated a range of bite-sized well-being activities that take just minutes to complete and help users relieve stress, cultivate hope, awe and self-compassion and tackle the growing concern of feeling disconnected.

According to the Stress In America 2025 report, 54% of respondents said feeling isolated from others is a major source of stress. For those feeling isolated, Sexton recommends the 1 Good Chat exercise, which encourages people to initiate and reflect on at least one authentic, warm conversation – with friends, colleagues or even strangers – each day for eight days .

“It makes you more mindful of those interactions and the cues that make those interactions warmer and more rejuvenating,” Sexton said.

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Take a Grounding Moment

Director of Duke Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) Nadia Damani-Khoja, Ph.D, MBA, helps students navigate academic and social pressures.

And when her own busy days leave her feeling stressed, one simple habit helps her clear her mind:

The view from her office window.

“What I will do when I need to take a moment to slow down is look at the trees and count the branches,” Damani-Khoja said.

Referred to as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or grounding skills, the act of spending a few moments intentionally turning your mind from the source of your anxiety and orienting your attention to the present moment can calm the threat-response system.

It can shift the brain away from spiraling thoughts and back to sensory awareness, activating areas of the brain that can help regulate fear or stress.

In stressful moments, Damani-Khoja suggests trying one common grounding skill exercise in which you pause, study your surroundings and take notice of five things you can see, four things you can touch, three distinct sounds you can hear, two scents you can smell and one thing you can taste.

Regardless of what you choose to momentarily focus on, Damani-Khoja said you don’t need much time – just a minute or two – for grounding moments to break the cycle of stress.

“This is a skill, so it’s helpful to practice it when you’re not in the thick of a stressful moment and make it part of your habit,” Damani-Khoja said. “But when you find something that fits who you are, it can ground you to reality and help you manage your stress.”

For support, visit Duke’s Personal Assistance Service (PAS), Duke’s employee wellness program offerings, and other information here.

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