do you use valium? or other pills?

nicotine is stress-relieving albeit addictive

lol quite true

This is not true in my case. As I get jittery and jumpy when I smoke(which I rarely do for the same reason anyway). If you want to fight stress you should:
1. Pick the right genes
2. Plan your life ahead of time (pick the right family to grow-up in, stay in school long enough to get a good job, make a lot of money when you get the job, find your perfect cupid match)
3. Don't have any children untill you are rich (and try to have no more than two, preferably both males, as
males are cheaper and more worry-free to rear )
4. Spend your money wisely (and, oh, very important: never, ever worry about money)
5. Seek the healthy pleasures of life and finally,
6. Have the folloing pills readily available in case all other fails: Chill pills, happy pills, trip pills and suicide pills.

It's all so simple, isn't it? Damn, you're funny.

I gave up smoking years ago. Toughest thing I ever did. Nowadays, the expense alone (isn't it up to like $50 a pack now?) is enough to drive a person to take all the pills listed in #6. 'Course, if you're rolling in money, that wouldn't pose a problem, especially if you don't mind maddening addiction, emphysema or cancer. I myself could have handled all of the above, but what terrified me the most was the threat of premature wrinkles...

The natural tendancy of the body is to heal itself.
If you are sick or break a bone what does a doctor tell you to do? Get rest.
After a long day of activity you sleep at night and the body settles down to remove the stress that is accumulated at night.

A cell can only do one of two things. It can either be working (metabolizing) or eliminating toxins such as nicotine and other air pollutants, or murcury from the fish you ate or pesticides from the salad greens and vegetables you had for dinner. What is the requirement for a cell to eliminate toxins? Rest.
Similarly, the organs of the body cannot heal themselves effectively when they are active. Rest is required. The deeper the rest, the more stress can be dissolved.
Whenever we are sick, what is the best medicine? Rest. Why? Because then the body can heal itself more effectively.

The rest of sleep at night relieves most of the stress accumulated from the day's activity. Lactic acid, plasma cortisol and other fatigue toxins are eliminated because of this rest; we usually wake up feeling more or less as conscious and healthy as we were the day before.
But over time, it becomes obvious that the rest of sleep is simply not deep enough to remove enough of the fatigue, stresses and toxins: the body starts aging and failing. We don't normally wake up the next day healthier and younger than the day before. Over time, the effect of stress is obvious.
What is required for ever-improving health and increased longevity is deeper rest than sleep.

So Joesus, you believe that the perpetual state of rest, such as a coma, is the ideal state? At least activity can be productive, whereas rest defined as the absense of activity, never is, unless it enhances later activities. The lazy and slothful will always expound on the blessings of rest; to them, rest is mana, food from the gods.

Also, since everything a cell does falls under metabolism, your statement about cells only being able to metabolize and remove toxins is incorrect.

Did I say Coma?
Some activity is yes, but I wouldn't say all activity is productive.
Now your actually making an intelligent choice in thought, rather than making a blanket statement.
Judge not lest ye be judged, meaning, not all is at it appears. Making assumptions of what you hear and see is a common activity that is based on internal stresses or beliefs. Like making the assumption that living from a quiet state means being in a coma.

'Fraid not.....

Metabolism, by definition, is everything a cell does, which means that the only activity cells can engage in is metabolic. To imply that removing toxins is separate from metabolism is incorrect.

I didn't imply anything which is why the statement is not incorrect. You assumed a righteous position of judgment and condemned the statement without any further exploration. I'd say you were just plain close minded about the whole thing.
If you like I'll use websters definition of metabolism so that you can breathe easier:

the sum of the processes in the buildup and destruction of protoplasm; specifically : the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is provided for vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated.

Now we can differentiate the process of transforming material into energy and the process of removing waste or toxins.

Now about that Coma thing. Are you still believing that the body cannot achieve rest any other way than to be slothlike and or comatose?

you have a point Joesus

I play piano (badly, therefore it takes a lot of concentration and all my troubles are forgotten). I also write poetry, even when I don't feel like it - the concentration diverts away from stress.