As the number of crisis casualties grows, you need to find ways to rise above the difficult times. Financial loss or instability can trigger feelings of self-loathing and worthlessness. If you’ve always been a successful and driven individual, the feelings are magnified because the loss is not only linked to your core fear, it is also highly connected with your core identity. How much have you lost during this difficult period in your life? If you’re so used to winning, losing is an ego amputation without the help of anesthetics. Of course, you shouldn’t like yourself away from the world. There are ways of dealing with change without losing your identity. Be proactive about your psychological wellness. After all, part of why you lost your job is your inability to think straight.

Depression and anxiety are symptoms of other problems as well. You need to identify the imbalances you have in your life.  The root cause is usually the misalignment with your organizational and personal life. This dilemma keeps you up at night and dealing with it requires that you prioritize, plan, and reposition everything you have in life. At work, you need to make sub plans within major plans and make sure that you also give yourself ample time to collect your thoughts and ideas. Scheduling plays a key role here because this gives you a feeling of control on your day’s schedule.

There are actually two kinds of stress: one motivates you to work even harder while the other one paralyzes you so that you are unable to do much of anything. You need to reframe how you look at anxiety. It’s not always something to run from and completely avoid. In fact, you can channel this to become productive energy. Be like a manager and use stress as a chance to achieve. But there’s also a point at which stress becomes completely unhealthy. There’s actually a fine line between the two types. You need to learn how and why your brain processes certain fears so that you can stop stress from crossing the line.

For all those sleepless night, thank your brain for it. Your brain triggers a fight-or-flight reaction so that you can focus your attention on the source of your fear. Some stress fades when immediate crisis arises. But the constant fears actually create a more chronic type of stress. The hormones your body releases during times of anxiety can affect reasoning and memory. There are physical and behavioral manifestations as well. You need to recognize the fact that your primal response to fear so that you can save yourself from long-term problems in the end.

Plan your days so that you can avoid stress as much as possible. When things just get too much to handle, know when to step back and call a timeout. When you feel yourself getting more frustrated by the minute, leave the room and regain your composure. Think of what you want to change and go through all possible solutions. Also learn to respect the fact that life has a few surprises along the way. Recognize signals and never act on instinct. Planning will save you throughout the entire process.