An analysis is developed to determine the relaxation of cylindrical compression springs at temperatures where creep is predominantly steady state and the effect of transient creep and anelastic strain is small. Springs which operate under these conditions must be designed for limited life. Equations are derived which predict the relaxation of springs directly from tensile creep data for various materials. Using creep data for 18-8 stainless steel and Inconel-X, families of design curves are presented which give the time-temperature initial-stress relationships for various stress-relaxation ratios. These curves are useful in selecting an initial design stress for a specific operating temperature.