Pausing to make a plan for coping with stress can help you feel more calm, balanced, and effective. You usually cannot plan for a stressful event, but you can plan for how to deal with it.  To get you started, here are 10 coping strategies to triumph over stress—in the heat of the moment and beyond:

1. Pause – Unless it is a life-threatening emergency, don’t react immediately to stress. Instead, take a few moments and some deep breaths to let things settle and allow you to form a more objective point of view.
2. Be in the moment – Experts say the ability to live in the moment -- and reacting to the situation based strictly on what is present -- is among the most important factors in handling a crisis of any type. "Being in the moment does not mean being unaware of the consequences of any actions you take; it means you do not have a prejudgment about those consequences," says disaster expert Anie Kalayjian. This, she says, keeps you from panicking over what could happen, and keeps a person focused on what is happening.  Likewise, Al Siebert, PhD, says the best survivors are the ones who are able to "read" the new reality rapidly, focus on problem solving, and take practical action -- all within the moment.
3. Be flexible -- "There's a fair amount of flexibility needed -- the personality who can adapt quickly to changes and feel certain about their ability to do so is usually the type that handles a crisis well," says Siebert, author of The Resiliency Advantage and founding director of ResiliencyCenter.com.
4. Remain calm -- Ladany says the ability to keep emotions under control is also key. "You can't be plagued with ruminative anxiety. You can't agonize about the consequences of a decision. Those who function best in a crisis are those who can be comfortable with ambiguity in a heightened sense," says Ladany.
5. Have a solid value system – Experts say that the more emphasis we put on material goods, the less likely we are to cope when the threat of losing those goods becomes a reality. "If the meaning of your life is wrapped around material things, then you will be shattered at the thought of losing everything, which can happen in 10 seconds when disaster strikes," says Kalayjian.
6. Learn to cope – If you think that some people are born with survivor qualities, think again. Experts agree that the ability to champion a crisis is a learned behavior and not the result of your genetics. In fact, the crisis behaviors we exhibit as an adult are often entrenched in what we learn as children, often causing us to react without even thinking.  "If a child is in a car accident and the entire family becomes hysterical, then the child learns that this is how you react to crisis," says Kalayjian. "At a young age, we don't have a psychological sorting process to reason out that our parents are going overboard."  Experience this kind of family reaction to crisis enough times, she says, and it will cause this reactive behavior to be hardwired into your brain.  "As a child you have no experience, no comparison, no judgment -- so you just think, 'Oh, this is what I am supposed to do in crisis,' and that can lay down the groundwork for how you will react as an adult," says Kalayjian.
7. Embrace experience -- How well you weathered the storm of a previous crisis in your life is also important. "My 40-some years of research into the nature of life's most resilient survivors shows that experience in coping with and surviving previous emergencies and tragedies is the best preparation for handling new ones," says Siebert.  In fact, nothing prepares one for a crisis like a crisis -- even if the incidents are radically different.  "The very act of surviving one crisis helps us survive another," he says.  Maurice Ramirez, DO, relates the concept back to a phenomenon known as "plasticity" -- a desensitizing of sorts that occurs as we are exposed to adversity.  "If you become desensitized to one type of crisis, you will function better in all crisis situations, even if the crisis is different and requires different things from you. Science shows it carries over from one area of life to another," says Ramirez, founding director of the American College of Disaster Medicine and founder of High-Alert.com.  Conversely, Siebert says, if you're the classic 'drama queen' with a history of emotional outbursts, this will also impact your crisis reaction.  "If you are someone who 'awfulizes' things, focuses intently on losses ... If you have a tendency to act like a victim, these are the kind of characteristics that can keep you from coping with a crisis, and often cause you to make things worse for yourself and for others," says Seibert.
8. Prepare for future crises -- Any type of disaster training program will help train you for any kind of disaster. "There are deliberate education programs -- disaster life training courses -- that can provide the kind of repetitive, psycho-motor activity that helps enforce good response behaviors. Knowledge is power and practice is what sets it in concrete," says Ramirez. "Even doing something as simple as taking a first aid course or learning CPR can teach you how it feels to intervene in a crisis situation and give you some extra measure of confidence going into a real crisis -- even if it has nothing to do with CPR," Ladany says.
9. Prepare yourself emotionally – Accepting the fact that “@#$%” happens and accepting the idea that things are going to happen that are out of your control will help prepare yourself emotionally for the unavoidable crises of life. "If you can accept the fact that nothing except your breath is under your control, you'll be far less likely to panic during any situation in which control must be surrendered," says Kalayjian.
10. Build resiliency -- The following long-term strategies can help strengthen your resilience to stressful events. Being physically fit, spending time with people you enjoy, and community involvement are healthy ways to reduce stress, distance yourself from stressful situations, and help you see life from a fresh perspective.