Q: If you want to be more laid back, you need to learn how to cope with anxiety in the moment. If you struggle to stay calm under pressure, simply taking deep breaths can help you slow down, relax, and regroup. Deep diaphragmatic breathing is a powerful means to reduce anxiety. Inhale through your nose, channeling your breath into your stomach. It can be helpful to place your hand on your stomach and make sure it rises when you take in air. Then, hold your breath for a count of four. Exhale through your mouth. While a fairly simple procedure, it's a good start to work towards a more laid back mindset. Many times people who want to be more laid back suffer from chronic overthinking. If you're prone to anxious thoughts, take a second to deconstruct any negative thoughts you encounter. Pause when you're feeling anxious and ask yourself a series of questions. What are you worrying about? Is this a realistic worry? Are the possible outcomes you're imagining likely to actually occur? Consider what, realistically, the worst possible outcome is. Is that outcome really insurmountable? Are there ways you could deal with this outcome that wouldn't be so bad? Is there any way you can prepare for what might happen? Is what you're seeing and believing actual truth or just your own perception? Try to keep your thoughts in the present moment. People who are more laid back are able to occupy a single brain space at a time. When you start thinking ahead, and getting nervous or agitated, pause and try to return to the present. It's perfectly okay to make plans and have to-do lists, but you should try to focus on one thing at a time. You might know you need to do the dishes after work, but try not to linger on the dreaded chore. Simply relax and do your job. Mindfulness meditation is a form of meditation in which you focus on aspects of the present moment, such as your breath, your body's sensations, and your environment. Regularly practicing mindfulness meditation can help you stay in the present and feel more laid back overall. There are many free guided mindfulness meditation routines you can find online. These can help you get started with regular meditation. Calming visualizations can also help you unwind in the moment. Picture yourself relaxing in a place you enjoy. Maybe you're resting your feet in the sand on the beach. You could be lying in a hammock in the woods. Try to imagine with all your sensations. How does it feel, taste, smell, sound? Going on a mental vacation to a safe, relaxing environment can help you stay calm under stress. People who are laid back tend to avoid overthinking. Social interactions, plans, events, and other aspect of life are things they can maneuver with ease. If you're prone to overthinking, and convincing yourself something is wrong in any given situation, make an effort to change. Try to periodically remind yourself your thoughts are not necessarily a reflection of reality. If you perceive something a certain way, you may start imagining your worldview or perspective represents truth. For example, say you made a comment at work you feel have rubbed a coworker the wrong way. You may go from wondering if you bothered your co-worker to imagining her sitting alone, thinking negative thoughts about you. This is not a particularly realistic scenario, but if you're anxiety-prone you may convince yourself your perception represents the reality. In such a scenario, remind yourself your thoughts are not reality. Your co-worker is probably not thinking poorly of you. Even if she was bothered by the comment, it's doubtful she is even still thinking about it. Your thoughts are, by nature, very centered around yourself and your own actions. Other people likely do not think about you as much as you think about yourself. Try to relax and remember this fact on occasion.
A: Take deep breaths. Deconstruct anxious thoughts. Focus on the present moment. Use calming visualizations. Accept your thoughts are not reality.

Q: Probability can only be calculated when the event whose probability you're calculating either happens or doesn't happen. The event and its opposite both cannot occur at the same time. Rolling a 5 on a die, a certain horse winning a race, are examples of mutually exclusive events. Either a 5 is rolled or it isn't; either the horse wins or it doesn't. Let's say you're trying to find the likelihood of rolling a 3 on a 6-sided die. "Rolling a 3" is the event, and since we know that a 6-sided die can land any one of 6 numbers, the number of outcomes is 6. So, we know that in this case, there are 6 possible events and 1 outcome whose probability we're interested in calculating. Here are 2 more examples to help you get oriented: Example 1: What is the likelihood of choosing a day that falls on the weekend when randomly picking a day of the week? "Choosing a day that falls on the weekend" is our event, and the number of outcomes is the total number of days in a week: 7. Example 2: A jar contains 4 blue marbles, 5 red marbles and 11 white marbles. If a marble is drawn from the jar at random, what is the probability that this marble is red? "Choosing a red marble" is our event, and the number of outcomes is the total number of marbles in the jar, 20. This will give us the probability of a single event occurring. In the case of rolling a 3 on a die, the number of events is 1 (there's only a single 3 on each die), and the number of outcomes is 6. You can also express this relationship as 1 6, 1/6, 0.166, or 16.6%. Here's how you find the probability of our remaining examples: Example 1: What is the likelihood of choosing a day that falls on the weekend when randomly picking a day of the week? The number of events is 2 (since 2 days out of the week are weekends), and the number of outcomes is 7. The probability is 2 7 = 2/7. You could also express this as 0.285 or 28.5%. Example 2: A jar contains 4 blue marbles, 5 red marbles and 11 white marbles. If a marble is drawn from the jar at random, what is the probability that this marble is red? The number of events is 5 (since there are 5 red marbles), and the number of outcomes is 20. The probability is 5 20 = 1/4. You could also express this as 0.25 or 25%. The likelihood of all possible events needs to add up to 1 or to 100%. If the likelihood of all possible events doesn't add up to 100%, you've most likely made a mistake because you've left out a possible event. Recheck your math to make sure you're not omitting any possible outcomes. For example, the likelihood of rolling a 3 on a 6-sided die is 1/6. But the probability of rolling all five other numbers on a die is also 1/6. 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 6/6 , which = 100%. This just means that there is no chance of an event happening, and occurs anytime you deal with an event that simply cannot happen. While calculating a 0 probability is not likely, it's not impossible either. For example, if you were to calculate the probability of the Easter holiday falling on a Monday in the year 2020, the probability would be 0 because Easter is always on a Sunday.
A:
Choose an event with mutually exclusive outcomes. Define all possible events and outcomes that can occur. Divide the number of events by the number of possible outcomes. Add up all possible event likelihoods to make sure they equal 1. Represent the probability of an impossible outcome with a 0.