Think about traffic lights: green, yellow and red. Which light is on for you now?

The green light means balance: you feel good, you have enough challenges and things to do, but also time and opportunities to recover. You are not too stressed or anxious and you feel you have got enough rest. If you recognise you are at a green light, ask yourself what is good and functional about your current state and how you could foster it in the future. Keep up the good work!

The yellow light means you are in overdrive. In other words, you have more demands, things to do and stress than you can recover from at the moment, which eats up your energy. Your stress levels may be elevated even if you are enjoying a situation and have positive stress. Now is a good time to stop and think about the situation. A short-term ‘yellow-light state’ is not harmful, if you are able to get back to the green light soon. If your mind is in the yellow-light state for too long, your mind and body begin to get stuck in overdrive, you begin to feel stressed, you have problems concentrating, you feel restless and tired. If you recognise that your are in the yellow-light state, ask yourself whether it has been going on a long time and whether you will soon have time to calm down and recover. What would it take for you to get back to a green-light state?

A long-term yellow state may lead to being faced with a red light, ie being forced to stop. The red light means crashing, which is characterised by exhaustion and inability and unwillingness to act; everything feels hopeless and pointless. If you recognise that you are in a red-light state, ask yourself again if this has been going on for a long time. Realise that you need rest and recovery. What would you need right now to make rest and recovery possible? If you believe that you have been in a red-light state for a long time and that resting does not help or is impossible at this time, do not try to cope alone. Get help.

What has been the colour of your traffic light today? Scan your body and mind once more from head to toe, and be honest with yourself about how you are feeling today.

You can repeat this exercise daily, for instance when you see the first real traffic lights of the day.

Last modified: Monday, 16 March 2020, 12:52 PM