Stress is the number one negative emotion experienced worldwide. Like physical pain, stress can be beneficial — it alerts you that something needs your attention. However, when stress becomes chronic and unmanaged, it stops serving you and starts sabotaging your well-being and performance.

The good news? Stress management is a skill you can develop. By strengthening your mental fitness, you can identify the root causes of stress, shift your response, and regain control.

The Anatomy of Stress: Why You Get Stuck in Survival Mode

Saboteurs are the voices in your head that generate negative emotions when facing challenges. These mental patterns cause anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, restlessness, unhappiness, and — most significantly — stress.

Conversely, your Sage, or positive self, helps you navigate challenges with clarity and resilience. Your Sage relies on five essential powers: Empathize, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate — all of which are critical for managing stress effectively.

Stress impacts your mind and body on three different levels:

• Thought Level: Stress is often fueled by negative, Saboteur-driven thoughts. Recognizing these thoughts as lies is the first step to reclaiming control.
• Focus Level: Stress keeps your attention trapped in past regrets or future worries, preventing you from staying present.
• Brain Activation Level: Stress activates your Survive Region, making it difficult for your Thrive Region (your Sage) to engage effectively.

Understanding how stress hijacks your brain is the key to managing it.

The Science Behind Managing Stress: Your Brain on Survive vs. Thrive

You may already be familiar with the left-brain/right-brain dichotomy. But recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, particularly in functional MRI (fMRI), have allowed scientists to map out the real-time workings of the brain and pinpoint which regions generate different thoughts and emotions.

The Survive Region: Home of Your Saboteurs

Saboteurs reside in your brainstem, limbic system, and parts of the left brain. They produce much of your stress, triggering survival instincts that were useful in ancient times but often harmful today. While these instincts may alert you to potential dangers, staying in this reactive state clouds your judgment and limits your ability to respond wisely.

The Thrive Region: Home of Your Sage

Your Sage operates from the middle prefrontal cortex, “empathy circuitry,” and parts of the right brain. This region is wired for creativity, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence. Activating this area allows you to handle stress with clarity, confidence, and composure — reducing anxiety and increasing resilience.

How to Rewire Your Brain for Stress Resilience

Your brain is constantly adapting. Thanks to neuroplasticity, you can rewire your response to stress by strengthening Sage pathways and weakening Saboteur pathways.

Building Sage Mental Muscles

The PQ Program from Positive Intelligence® introduces a powerful technique called PQ Reps — 10-second exercises that anchor you in the present moment by focusing on physical sensations like touch, sight, or sound. By practicing PQ Reps regularly, you train your brain to pause and shift away from Saboteur-driven stress responses, reinforcing new, more constructive neural pathways.

Through repetition, these new pathways become stronger than the old, stress-inducing ones, making stress management feel easier over time.

5 Strategies for Mastering Stress Management

Effective stress management isn’t about eliminating stress — it’s about changing your response to it. Here are five strategies to help you reduce stress and enhance performance.

1. Stop Trying to “Think” Your Way Out of Stress

The harder you try to reason your way out of stress, the more power you give to your Saboteurs. Overanalyzing only deepens the survival response in your brain.

Instead: Shift your focus to your body. Engage in PQ Reps — a simple yet powerful way to break free from the stress cycle.

2. Use PQ Reps to Regain Control in Stressful Moments

PQ Reps (10 seconds of focused attention on physical sensations) calm the survival brain and activate the Sage brain. This practice interrupts stress and helps you regain clarity.

Try this: Pause. Feel the texture of an object in your hand, listen closely to a distant sound, or take a deep breath. These small shifts in focus rewire your brain to respond rather than react.

3. Activate Your Sage Powers to Shift Your Perspective

Your Sage Powers — Empathize, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate — allow you to handle stress with clarity rather than panic.

• Empathize: Show yourself compassion instead of self-criticism.
• Explore: Get curious about what’s behind your stress.
• Innovate: Find a new way to approach the challenge.
• Navigate: Focus on long-term priorities, not immediate discomfort.
• Activate: Take small, purposeful steps forward.

4. Question the Lies Your Saboteurs Are Telling You

Your Judge Saboteur — the master Saboteur — fuels stress by convincing you that you’re failing, not doing enough, or not good enough. Its accomplices amplify this stress in different ways.

Instead of believing these lies:

• Recognize that these thoughts are not the truth.
• Reframe them using your Sage Perspective. What’s the bigger picture?

5. Identify and Weaken Your Saboteurs With Mental Fitness Training

Your Saboteurs are the root cause of stress. By identifying them and weakening their influence, you can free yourself from the cycle of stress and overreaction.

Action step: Take the Saboteur Assessment to uncover which Saboteurs are most active in your life. Awareness is the first step toward lasting change.

Strengthen Your Mental Fitness to Manage Stress Effectively

Because stress is the most common Saboteur lie, learning to intercept it is essential for long-term success and well-being. Instead of being controlled by stress, you can take control — rewiring your brain to respond with calm, confidence, and clarity.

Stress may be inevitable, but it doesn’t have to dictate your life. By strengthening your mental fitness, you can reduce stress, improve performance, and elevate your overall well-being.

Want to take this further? Discover how the PQ Program can help you and your team manage stress, boost productivity, and improve well-being in the workplace.

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Discover Your Saboteurs

The first step to conquering your Saboteurs is to identify them and expose their lies and limiting beliefs.

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