#59 How can we improve resilience?

A good indication of how I am feeling is a) the length of time since my last wellbeing blog (nearly 5 months!) and b) the topic which in this case is about RESILIENCE. Do you ever feel like you are in a video game where every time you try to move forward, there are too many obstacles being thrown at you? Well that’s how this year has felt for me. I would typically call myself fairly resilient but this year, I have had to draw on any tips and tricks I can to maintain positivity. A definition of Resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties so definitely a skill worth having!

Life can be challenging and the things that happen and what other people say and do are often not in our control. So we have to learn to be flexible and to adjust our emotions, our reactions and our behaviours to minimise the negative impact on ourselves.

I was interested to read that apparently greater resilience can be cultivated but different people view and engage with the world very differently. We all know an Eeyore who always sees the gloomy side to a situation and we also all know people who don’t appear to be affected negatively by anything BUT most of us are somewhere in-between. Most of us need specific coping strategies. I am going to share some of the main ones that work for me.

PRIORITISE POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Spend more time with and find connections with empathetic people who remind you that you are not alone when the going gets tough. If you can trust someone who is compassionate and open up to them, they can help put things in perspective and will help to grow your skill of resilience. My default reaction is quite often to retreat into my shell away from everyone when things get too much but I know that being left to my over-thinking ways is not the solution. Having a fluffy dog to cry into helps (but not sure Teddy would agree).

LOOK AFTER YOURSELF

I count myself very lucky that I don’t turn to drugs or alcohol to avoid my feelings. Self-care may be a cheesy word banded around a lot nowadays but it is key to mental health and building resilience. Stress is as physical as it is emotional so focusing on following a healthy lifestyle with the right food, sleep, exercise, time in nature all helps to strengthen your body and reduce the toll of negative thoughts and experiences. It’s better to find ways to manage stress rather than eliminate the associated feelings. My favourite way to re-focus is to go for a run in a lovely park or forest (but I’m not an angel, sometimes excessive chocolate helps).

PURSUE YOUR PURPOSE

One of the proven best ways to feel good about yourself and offset life challenges is to do something good for someone else. Finding fulfilment in having a purpose that brings joy or benefit to people that need it makes us feel good. It can also help to put our own situations in perspective - we can dust off our own issues while we focus on being appreciated by others. In fact, your purpose may not even be about helping others - we can also be inspired by any goal that is meaningful to us which can help to build resilience against setbacks. I have personally found so much comfort this year getting involved in more voluntary and mentoring opportunities both in and outside of everyday work. It’s always a great feeling to know that your skills and experience are valued.

TRY TO SEE THE FUNNY SIDE

Humour plays such an important role in my life and we all know that laughing is very good for us (releases endorphins so there is actual science behind it). So it can sometimes help to find the funny side of a situation even if there is nothing funny about it at all. We need to try to not take ourselves too seriously. One of the things that helps me is to observe myself over-reacting and to realise that I am being utterly ridiculous / a drama queen / over-thinking. Another coping method is to write down my thoughts as we are in the middle of a drama and then then reading them back and wondering where on earth they came from? Watching more funny films or reading more light-hearted books instead of adding more gloom to a situation with doom and gloom news or your favourite real-life crime documentary (in my case) can distract from those intrusive and pesky negative thoughts.

FEEL THE FEELINGS

We can beat ourselves up for the reactions that we have but embracing a broad range of emotions is part of being human. It is also important not to fall victim to toxic positivity where there can be unnatural pressure to suppress any negative emotions and feelings as this can be detrimental to our mental health.  So improving our resilience is about recognise the challenges, feeling comfortable with expressing the related feelings and finding the best way to cope with them to move on. Easier said than done. PS writing a wellbeing blog helps too :0)

JUST BREATHE

It is amazing what a difference taking a short time out to take deep breaths and breathe steadily can make. When we are upset, it can have a physical affect on our bodies as our heart rate increases and our breathing tends to de-regulate. So deep breathing is a quick way to de-stress and over time can increase our resilience. It’s one of the reasons I love yoga because it forces you to focus on breathing.

There is a quote from Winston Churchill that really resonates with me - a lot of the time our thoughts create challenges where they don’t even exist “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”