Building Your Resilience to help you cope through the tough times

Everyone goes through tough times in life. There are some stressful situations we can avoid completely and others which are an inevitable part of life – work, children, relationships, money, health challenges. Without the right tools, stress can cause wear and tear on the body and brain and can increase the risk of many health conditions including heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, and anxiety.

How we deal with stress can be very personal, and not every coping strategy suits each person, but it is about learning some strategies that work for you, being self-aware that the stress levels are climbing, and then employing the strategies in a timely way (before too overwhelmed) to reduce the impact of that stress, that will help you avoid the serious impacts on wellness.

Resilience is defined as the extent to which we can bounce back from adverse events, cope with stress, or succeed in the face of adversity. It is not something you are born with. It is more a result of how family, community, and cultural practices—interact. It boosts wellness and protects you from risks to your well-being.

Resilience isn’t just about eliminating stress but more about really leaning in to your own strengths, and finding those protective measures in your life to help cope with the often inevitable stress and to support your own well-being.

Research has indicated that the essential tool box items to help deal with stress and build resilience are:

·       Exercise – doesn’t matter how.

·       Get some sunshine and play upbeat music.

·       Feed your body with healthy options and reducing reliance on alcohol, smoking and/or drugs.

·       Express your emotions rather than bottling them up.

·       Change your mindset and try to look at a stressful situation as a growth opportunity instead of thinking of it as a threat.

·       Say no more often and focus on you - Meeting your own self-care needs rather than aways being the empath and giver.

·       Try to find even one small thing every day to enjoy and take time out for YOU! DO NOT feel guilty about that – you are of no use to anyone else you care for if you have exhausted your own emotional energy! Adults who take time for themselves can better help nurture resilience in children.

·       Find your people, community and resources - resilience doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Find your support network. At work, school, church, exercise class, in your cultural network? Who can help build your inner strengths and strategies to deal with life challenges?

Write down a few times you were highly stressed before and reflect on:

-        what has previously helped you when you were stressed?

-         how did you dealt with it?

-         who could you count on?

”In 2011 my daughter was incredibly ill and we did not know if she would be brain damaged and/or able to walk again. I was in the middle of a large work project and renovations at the time and had two small children. I don’t recall ever feeling as stressed. I had never done much long distance running before, but I got an awesome playlist together, bought some running shoes and started slowly jogging/shuffling my way around the suburb. The music, sun, greetings from neighbours and the exercise were my saviour that year. I still use these strategies today to get through my toughest times.” Susan