With exam results just around the corner, you might find your stress levels at all all-time high. Although stress is a common response to high-pressure situations, you can take simple steps to help you relax and reduce your worries. Wednesday 15 August is National Relaxation Day: the perfect opportunity to dedicate some time to exploring the everyday tactics you can use to beat stress.

The Reading Well for young people booklist has a section especially dedicated to how you can handle stress. The Teenage Guide to Stress by Nicola Morgan takes on stress in three helpful sections. Section one describes how stress works, especially for young people. Section two looks at the issues that cause the most stress in teenagers, which a specific section on coping with schoolwork and exam pressure. Section three gives practical tips on how to deal with stress, and gives wellbeing advice for stopping stress before it starts.

Fighting Invisible Tigers by Earl Hipp offers step-by-step techniques that you can use to manage stressful situations in school, at home, or with friends. With useful activities and quotes from students about how they’ve taken on school stress, this book can help you through the results day panic.

However you decide to tackle stress on the lead up to results day, remember this advice from Noughts and Crosses author Malorie Blackman: “Exams, whilst important, aren’t the be all and end all of life, the universe, and everything”.

Get involved

• Borrow The Teenage Guide to Stress or Fighting Invisible Tigers from your local library.

• Leave a review on the Reading Well website to let us know what you think.

• Tweet at us @readingagency and share your strategies for stress using #RelaxationDay.