Managing stress and anxiety is an important preparedness topic that is often overlooked. It’s ignored because preparing for future struggles is often rooted in worry about future events. And, that worry causes us to place our preparedness ahead of all else.
However, that’s not to say that preparedness is not an excellent course of action to follow. As we all know, accidents, disasters, and bad times happen. When they happen, those who prepare are more likely to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
That said, people concerned about future problems can experience the adverse effects of long-term stress and anxiety. Those effects can impact both physical and mental health and, in so doing, decrease a person’s ability to overcome difficult situations. In other words, not including efforts to manage stress and anxiety can reduce our overall preparedness capability.
Stress, Anxiety, and Worry
Worry is defined as anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems. If that doesn’t sum up the prepper mindset, including mine, I don’t know what does. The bottom line is that worry is something that preparedness-minded people do. If we didn’t worry, we wouldn’t be as inclined to prepare as many of us do.
On the flip side, people who don’t worry are less inclined to prepare. Think about it, how many people have you seen who do not worry about the future and still spend their time and money getting prepped? Typically, people who don’t worry about future uncertainties are the people we say have their heads buried in the sand.
