A trading plan is always the best way to trade providing one follows his plan.. Most option traders will bail out of there trading plan because in the back of there mind they keep telling them self's the market twill turn around and the options will be ITM if I just keep holding on to them, WRONG !! A good rule of thumb is to exist the position on 1/2 prem lost as your mental stop.

Some times if one is knowledgeable of option and strategies one can use can change the position by either using futures or other options and turn it into another strategy all together, such as spreads, or delta neutral position.

But to simply be long a call or put the 1/2 loss rule is meant to stop the bleeding.

Happy trading.

USCoralSea