While stress is not all bad, it can sneak up on us unaware and sometimes escalate us to the point where we react in unhelpful ways to challenging situations. One of the down sides of our stress response (the evolutionary fight or flight response that helped our ancestors survive life threatening predators back in the caves and on the savannahs) is that when it is activated, it short circuits our higher thinking brain from coming on-line (so to speak). We can get stuck in tunnel vision, and have a harder time seeing the bigger picture and accessing all of the resources available to us. Our stress response was designed to protect us from external, physical threats, yet in modern times most of the “threats” that we face are more internal and psychological in nature (e.g., relationship challenges, self-doubts, worries, feelings of unworthiness, work pressures, deadlines, too much to do…) – things for which neither fighting nor fleeing will help.

So there is great benefit in being able to notice when our stress response is rising so that we can intervene skillfully before it gets too high, before it reaches that “point of no return” where our primitive brain takes over our higher thinking brain (for example where we “lose it”, “melt down”, have an outburst, say something we regret, yell, etc.). Here is a practical tool that you can start using right away to help. To read on, CLICK HERE.