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Do you feel the wheels are turning round and round in your head without any results? As far as work goes, it’s never a walk in the park (or at least all the time). There are things that make us feel overwhelmed, under-appreciated and like we rarely accomplish anything on that neverending list of to-dos. Things like this happen all the time and unfortunately, can be a part of life.

One thing however that shouldn’t be a part of your everyday routine is feeling burned out. If you find yourself constantly stressed and experiencing a feeling of suffocation on the job, it’s important to you, your health, and sanity that you take the necessary precautions to make sure this doesn’t happen. Though we are unable to control the cards we are dealt with, we can control our reaction.

Here are ways to help prevent on the job burnout.

They’ve already rung in the new year in Hong Kong. AP Photo/Kin Cheung

We officially ring in the New Year with glasses of champagne, big parties, and perhaps a little naughty behavior. But tomorrow is only January 1. You can’t keep up the party for days on end (unless you can, in which case, invite us and we’ll swing by). But we think the early days of the year should be celebrated as well. After all, the way you bring in the year is the way you’ll spend it.

So we have nine low-cost, fun, yet relaxed ways that you can continue to welcome 2013. These options will clear the mind, bring on the good feelings, and bring the holidays to an end in a great way.

If you are like me, you are probably scrambling to get the rest of your holiday shopping done. Stretching every penny to provide for your loved ones can be a challenge but leaving yourself off of the list of people who deserve a little somethin’ somethin’ is out of the question. Here is my guide to turning you fridge into your own beauty emporium. Pamper yourself from head to toe with these make-it-yourself beauty options.

Pampering isn’t just about lying back and relaxing. We love a good massage as much as the next girl, but when money is short that’s when we’re all most stressed and a spa day might not be in the budget. Ultimately, pampering is about getting a moment to forget about the hectic nature of everyday life and soothe the brain. This list of 20 ideas is dedicated to working women, unemployed women, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, daughters and every other type of women who deserve to feel like queens every now and then. That means — You! Here’s how to nurture your body, mind and spirit.

Life can be a frenetic experience.  Work. More work at home.  Hardly Sleeping.  All that work with little downtime makes for a very grumpy and less beautiful madame.  Worse, stress and anxiety are directly attributed to chronic diseases that are often a plague for the black community–diabetes, high blood pressure, mental health issues, heart disease, and stroke.  Since many people go to church, they pray.  That’s a good thing.  Research shows that the brain makes visible changes when you pray.

If you don’t go to church, there’s always meditation, which, if done properly, will reap the same brain-changing, peacefulness you get after you pray.  Better, pray AND meditate.  Pay no attention to the church folk who think yoga is the debbil’s exercise.  They’re no doubt stressed as heck, and that’s why they’re all up in your business as a distraction.

The key with praying, meditation and mantras is mindfulness of the present.  That means you block out everything–no thought of the past, no worrying about what comes next, just be in the moment.  It’s one of the hardest things for us to do sometimes–to stop the whirring brain is for some, like holding their breath for 10 minutes.

“Mindfulness may be the mental ‘seat belt’ that protects us along the bumpy, twisting, turning road of life, whether we encounter unexpected drop-offs, terrible accidents, or smooth sailing,” says Sue Smalley, PhD and Diana Winston in their book, Fully Present.  It helps protect against unhappiness, depression, anxiety, pain and suffering, they say. So here are a few ways to practice mindfulness when you need it the most.