Saturday Share: How to Stay Calm When You Know You’ll be Stressed

Every Saturday I would like to share with you a video I find inspirational. There are so many amazing, enriching resources out there. Hopefully these videos will bring you joy and inspiration!

When I get stressed, like many people, I go on automatic pilot. I stop asking for help and start doing as quickly as I can what I think needs to be done. Unfortunately what I think needs to be done is often wrong, or at least the situation could be helped by clearer more rational thinking. As I discussed in a previous post, Steve even has a reminder word for when I’m starting to freak out to help me come back to reality and hopefully think things through. In this talk Daniel Levitin talks about the things we can do and think about BEFORE the stressful situation. Pre-planning at it’s best. I know this won’t always work because we won’t always know that a stressful situation is coming, but when we do why not? Why not think rationally while we can? We already do a little of this with assigned places for important things, so we always know where they are. But there is a lot more we could plan ahead for, especially for when we hit the road next year. What steps should we take if we have truck trouble? What about something wrong in the Airstream? Family health emergency? Having a basic plan for these stressful situations will be a great guide if/when they should occur. I also love the example of the statin drug. I’m going to use those numbers, the next time I’m proscribed anything. Anyway enjoy the video!

What do you think? What kind of things can you plan ahead for? What premortems can you do?

If you have a favorite inspirational YouTube video, I’d love to see it! Contact me at [email protected] or comment below.