Resilience- a characteristic we all need to thrive.
Resilience may be something you have heard of before, but do you really know what it means in relation to health?
Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Being resilient, or being able to recover from the stresses of life, is a crucial life skill. And with the pandemic and all the changes and stresses it has brought, this skill is even more crucial and beneficial today.
The good news is that resilience is a skill that can be learned or improved. Doing simple things daily to become more mindful and to reduce stress is a great way to build resilience. It doesn’t require long times of quiet or meditation. But just taking a minute to do a few deep breaths or pausing and doing a simple check-in to notice any tense areas in your body, feelings like anxiety or contentment and emotions, is all it takes. If you like to write, you could do a 5 minute journaling activity to just allow your thoughts to get out- then save them to go back and read or burn them. (No one has to read it.)
Doing simple things like these can begin building resilience by making you more self aware and allow you to recognize triggers that cause increased stress and anxiety. You can then implement these or other activities during those times to calm yourself so you are able to process those feelings, think more clearly and respond instead of react.
And sometimes setting some boundaries and having a season of rest is a part of resilience. Whether it is physical rest, mental or emotional rest. Resting in every area is vital to health in every area. We can see every other aspect of nature and life having a time or season of rest. From nature to animals, we see how things were created with a need for rest. For us as humans, we have created technology that allows us to avoid rest, much to our own health’s demise. But when we begin to practice mindfulness and become more self- aware, we often realize where our bodies are and what we need.
You can’t change the things around you. But learning your own boundaries and learning to navigate through challenges is something you can build and improve. In turn, this will lead to healthier ways to manage stress and lower overall stress levels. Which means, you can then recover more quickly from stressors, know you have a solid toolbox to manage stress, and improve your nervous system’s response to the stressors of life. All things that will carry you far on your health journey!
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