How to Not Lose Your Mind in 5 Steps
Emotional · Date: ________________
1. Find your level
- Sit or stand up straight, take a slow breath and look at yourself from the outside.
- How stressed are you, 1 to 10? Name the number. Accept it.
- Seven or higher: not the moment for a big decision or a hard conversation.
Today:
Putting a feeling into words quiets the brain's alarm center (Lieberman and colleagues, 2007).
2. Reframe the thought
- Write down the thought that's running. Watch for blame, "always" and "never", and worst-case predictions.
- Is it a fact or an opinion? What's the evidence on each side?
- Rewrite it as something more accurate and more useful. Not happier. Truer.
Today:
Changing how you read a situation changed how people felt about it, with a small-to-moderate effect, in a review of many studies (Webb and colleagues, 2012).
3. Take action
- You have at least some power here. What's the smallest, easiest step that would help?
- What would you tell a friend in your spot?
- Do it, or schedule it, now. Five minutes is enough.
Today:
Acting on the part you control is a core of cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the best-tested approaches there is (Hofmann and colleagues, 2012).
4. Give gratitude
- Write down one thing you're grateful for, even on a bad day.
- Or list as many as you can in 30 seconds.
- Better still: tell the person.
Today:
Writing down what you're grateful for improved well-being in controlled studies (Emmons and McCullough, 2003), with modest effects (Cregg and Cheavens, 2021).
5. Connect
- Reach one person: a text, a call, or face to face.
- Not logistics. Just that they crossed your mind.
- Can't now? Put a time with someone on the calendar.
Today:
Across 148 studies, people with stronger social ties were about 50% more likely to survive over the years they were followed (Holt-Lunstad and colleagues, 2010).