Allow me to let you in on a little secret: We'll never be totally rid of stress . And trying to live in pursuit of a stress-free state of mind will only continue to infuriate us — and make us feel like we're falling short of an impossible standard. Instead, the key is learning how to effectively deal with those moments of stress (without losing sight of everything else) so we can move on with what really matters in our lives.To that end, may we suggest meditation? Go ahead, scoff all you want. But, like stress, meditation has been around for thousands of years and isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, studies have shown that meditation can help us build our mental resilience against stress, keep our reactions to stress under control , and even ease clinical anxiety . All of that is supported by research suggesting that meditation changes the physical structure of the brain in a few key areas.So, if you've got five minutes to complain and stew in your frustration, you might as well give meditation a shot instead. Seriously, that's all it takes."I wanted a practice that I could bring to my everyday life," says Ellie Burrows, CEO of MNDFL , a meditation studio in NYC, of her introduction to meditation. "[Since then,] I've become a much less reactive person — if something's upsetting me, I have a lot more space between that thing and my reaction to it."Lodro Rinzler, MNDFL's Chief Spiritual Officer, has been practicing meditation since his childhood years. "Stressful, painful things are going to happen in our lives," he says. "But, as a result of meditation, we're much more able to just touch on them lightly and come back to whatever's right in front of us — we don't get as knocked over by them."