More than a buzz word, resilience is a key driver of our health and well-being. It’s not just my opinion due to my observations as a Psychologist over many years but backed up by research out of Harvard Medical School and many other centres that provide evidence base research in this area.
The ability to bounce back from stress and adversity is very important across our life span. This especially goes for our older years when we face many potentially stressful situations.
Being resilient has been shown to have many benefits. These include longevity, lower rates of depression and greater overall satisfaction with life. Low levels of resilience with increased stress levels can lead to harmful outcomes. For instance, high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, depression, anxiety, insomnia, indigestion and heart disease.
So how do we boost our resilience?
The following can help if we practice these:
- Use Attitudinal Efficiency by being Flexible, Adaptable, Rational, Positive and Solution Focused with our thinking and work on depositing and forming these types of thoughts into a rational belief system.
- Develop a good Social Support network that you can lean on and interact with regularly.
- Work on being Optimistic. When things go well, celebrate and give yourself a pat on the back, a ‘well done’. And, when things don’t work out, learn from them and use that opportunity to improve on it.
- Laugh regularly and see the funny side of things. Get rid of the tension in your face and body.
- Meditate/Be mindful. Make regular times to use a meditation technique that works for you. Also be mindful of being in the ‘here and now’ and being present with other.
- Emotional regulation is critically important so that we become good at emotional awareness and constructive expression strategies. This is generally done by using positive and solution focused thinking.
- Lifestyle factors such as eating health whole foods, getting ample good quality sleep and plenty of aerobic and other types of exercise are also very important factors.
Developing our resilience is not just a ‘nice to have’. It’s a must to have. This is because we can gain the most out of it both physically and emotionally, which can improve our overall sense of well-being and health.
Veretis provides individual coaching and team coaching profiling and workshops/programs to assist individuals and organisations interested in improving Resilience and Grit – our bespoke programs are available for personal, team and organisational strategy interventions and enhancement.
