Planning Ahead for Stress

In his speech on stress, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin explains how to stay calm when you know you will be stressed out. He explains the concept of the "pre-mortem," which is to look ahead at the things that could go wrong and figure out what you can do to either minimize the damage or prevent bad things from happening all together.

The speaker offers simple steps anyone can take, such as designating a place at home for things that are easily lost, taking pictures of your government-issued identification and emailing them to yourself and thinking of questions to ask related to medical decisions. Using neuroscience and the brain's functions as a basis, the speech on stress emphasizes that under stress people are not at their best and why putting systems in place beforehand is a good idea.