They say that moving house and getting married are two of the most stressful things you do in your life. You could add travelling for business to that list too.

A recent survey of some 500 international business travellers who worked at the World Bank revealed that more than a third reported high to very high travel stress.

The origins of this stress are widespread – increased security at airports and the increased time spent queuing is one, isolation from your family and colleagues is another. The thought of a bulging in-tray on your return home doesn’t help either.

Clinical hypnotherapist and inner voice dialogue trainer Georgia Foster has three tips for helping business travellers to relax:

•“With your eyes closed start to imagine yourself in a place where you associate feeling calm and relaxed. It could be by the sea or at the top of mountain or perhaps sitting by a warm fire. Whatever thoughts resonate with positive feelings, the more you think about this favourite place the more you mind and body will connect with it, irrelevant of your immediate surroundings.

•“By working with your breath you can alter your stressed out mind to a more chilled out one. By breathing in deeply, hold for 5 seconds, then release. Keep holding your breath for 5 seconds on each in and out breath. Repeat 3 times. You will notice how much calmer you are feeling immediately.

•“With any negative thoughts that represent stress, anxiety or out of control feelings, imagine them out of your mind. You can do this by placing them next to your bed or on the aeroplane seat next to you. Then, when you leave, you leave them behind. Keep imagining letting go of these thoughts and placing them outside of you. As you do this you will feel the weight lifting from you.”

Aside from the internal ways of distressing, there are plenty of external ways to let off a bit of steam:

Play some music. Listening to a favourite piece of music is an ideal way to relax. More and more business hotels are now providing music on demand services, which give access to hundreds if not thousands of CDs. You are sure to find something mellow among that lot. Failing that, take your own MP3 player. A dock for the player is now becoming a standard piece of kit in many hotel rooms. Pack an audio cable just for good measure.

Exercise. The experts are in agreement that a spot of exercise during your trip is the perfect way to relax, as long as you don’t overdo it. Given the emptiness of many hotel gyms, it seems that few business travellers are taken by the idea. Instead of bashing along on the gym’s treadmill, how about a jog around the local area? London’s Athenæum and Tokyo’s Mandarin Oriental are just two business hotels who will happily provide you with a free jogging map.

A few lengths. I like nothing better than coming back from a day of meetings and relaxing with a swim. As a result, I’ll always look for a hotel with a good pool. London’s Berkeley, with its open-air rooftop pool and Sydney’s Observatory hotel with its star-studded roof spring to mind.

Feeling at home. One chain of hotels, Kimpton, offers a programme called Guppy Love. For the duration of your stay, you get a pet goldfish in your room. The company say “Research has proved what aquarium enthusiasts already knew: watching colourful fish gracefully swim to-and-fro actually calms nerves, reduces anxiety and lowers blood pressure.”

Art. Little reduces your business-trip heightened blood pressure more than an hour in an art gallery. Pick a hotel that’s close to one of the world’s great galleries and it’s easy to fit in a quick scoot around between meetings.

Better still, stay at a hotel with its own art on display. Ian Schrager’s Gramercy Park Hotel in New York has works by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst in the lobby while Barcelona’s aptly named Hotel Arts houses a 1,000-work collection of Spanish contemporary art within its beautifully curved walls.

The spa. It’s the obvious way to relax in most upmarket hotels – a trip to the spa for a massage or other relaxing treatment. Many hotel spas now offer treatments aimed squarely at the business traveller, tackling problems like jetlag and shoulders stiffened by hunching over a laptop. I once stayed at Sydney’s Blue Hotel just after arriving in Australia and popped into Spa Chakra just downstairs to be pummelled into a totally relaxed state by a former male ballet star from the Australian National Ballet. After that, I felt I could have danced Swan Lake myself.

If you know a fabulous place to eat, sleep , relax or be entertained in while on a business trip then click here to post your nomination.