Are you being PROactive or REactive with your stress management?

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Oh no! There's a deadline looming at work, the bills are due, the car's making a funny noise, AND the baby/child/cat/dog is sick.

You can feel your blood pressure rising, your stomach is gurgling, and there's no way you'll sleep a wink tonight. 

You've got half an hour free right now. What do you do?!


If you're being REactive to stress, you wait until stress has a hold of you to practice stress management. You scramble to try out all the coping mechanisms you've heard work for other people.  

  • You think that going out for a walk or jog might make you feel better, but you can't seem to get yourself out the door.
  • You sit down and turn on a short meditation recording, but your brain is whirring at top speed and you can't be still and focus.
  • You text a few friends to see if anyone is available to talk it out, but they're all busy. 

If you've been PROactive and planned for stress, you already know what works for you. The habits are solid and it's easy to pick them up when you need them.

  • When you've been consistently taking a 20 minute walk on your lunch break every day, it's not so hard to get outside. You already know that just stepping out the front door will relieve you instantly in anticipation of the walk to come.
  • If you meditate for 15 minutes each morning that you work from home, your brain is trained to "drop in" and you can find your place of stillness -because you know where to search for it in your brain!
  • If your group of friends consistently gets together on Thursday nights, you know that you've got a waiting audience to listen to your troubles - and you'll feel useful when they ask your advice for their problems as well!

Stress can get us at any time! It can be hard to anticipate it, but keeping up with the habits you know will help you feel better can help you stay ready to roll with whatever life throws at you.

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