Yesterday’s post ended with a suggestion to let go of stressors that are out of your control. But there are also many stressful situations you can (and should) do something about.

In these cases, redirecting all this restless energy into meaningful action becomes an excellent stress-relief strategy. Today’s post digs a little deeper into this valuable idea. 

Why positive action is so useful

Most of the problems we experience in our wonderful modern world arise from our primitive emotions. These emotions evolved over the first 99.9% of human history, but, following truly stupendous technological progress in the last 0.1%, most of them have become badly outdated. 

One of these outdated emotions is Worry. As discussed here, Worry can actually be very useful because it can get us to take proactive action and prevent future problems. 

Stress and anxiety are more advanced forms of Worry, but their purpose is the same. They desperately want us to take care of some serious threat that might arise in the future. 

As discussed yesterday, the problem is that they’re often dead wrong.

But there are also many times when they’re right. Today’s post is about those times. 

The Most Efficient Next Action (MENA)

When you’ve gone through the thought exercise presented yesterday and determined that your stressor is something worth worrying about, MENA is your next stop. 

Your MENA can be found from a simple question: What is the one action I can take to reduce the most stress with the least effort? 

Once you’ve found your MENA, make it your very top priority and get it done. If your stress lingers, move on the the next MENA. 

It really shouldn’t take many successfully executed MENA’s before you can relax again. Doing something about your stressor is exactly what your entire 200-millennium-old biology wants you to do. It’s a very natural way to find peace again. 

A healthier relationship with stress

Executing your MENA can be hard, but if your stress is great enough, you can leverage it to get you through. In this sense, stress, like Worry, can be a very good thing. Without it, you might not have the drive to take some tough actions to secure your longer term future. 

Acknowledging this positive aspect can also help improve your relationship with stress. Often we stress because we’re stressed. Making smart use of your stress can kill this nasty vicious cycle before it starts. 

So, what’s your next MENA?

See you tomorrow for our final short-term stress reduction technique: the advanced skill of not making things worse 🙂