Why are we feeling so anxious and stressed? 7 simple, daily practices to build resilience.

We recently met some lovely people whilst out walking Monty, our scotty dog, at our local beach. We started chatting and the inevitable ‘what work do you do’ question came up.

The next question I was asked was: ‘There are so many people struggling with mental health issues at the moment, why do you think that is?’. This made me really think – it was a good question.

As humans, most of us can probably honestly, hand over heart, say that we’ve had some kind of brush with depression, anxiety, eating or relationship issues, or we know someone who has, but why the explosion and what could be helpful for us as a collective?

And the immediate answer for me was RESILIENCE. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the world we’re currently living in to see why we’re struggling as a society. The more important question was how can we learn to become more resilient in the face of living in such challenging times?

There’s not always a lot we have control over, but I believe we can learn how to respond in a more empowered way to stressors.

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What is resilience?

Resilience means being able to respond flexibly to the difficulties we face in life. It’s the ability to bounce back rather than falling apart in times of stress. Think of it as a continuum where you might find yourself in different spaces depending on the life domain. For example, you might feel more resilient at work but less so in your personal life or a close interpersonal relationship.

If you struggle with resilience, you might find yourself ruminating and feeling stuck in your problems, feeling overwhelmed and coping by engaging in unhelpful and unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking or eating too much, and avoiding life by getting too caught up online.

Resilience doesn’t mean that you don’t experience emotions such as anger, frustration, grief, or sadness. It means learning how to deal with emotional pain and discomfort more skilfully.

Susan David, a psychologist at Harvard and who is also originally from my home country South Africa talks about developing EMOTIONAL AGILITY – loosening up, calming down and living with more intention. To do this you have to work on your emotions. And to work on your emotions, you need to work on your thoughts. Our emotions are reflective of our thoughts most of the time.

Resiliency is a skill, and it can be learnt. This means you can get better at facing the inevitable challenges and difficulties in life, which can help you to feel and cope better.

For my Food and Body Freedom people – what does this mean for emotional eating? The more resilient and emotionally flexible you become, the less you reach for food to self-soothe when faced with difficult situations.😊

7 simple daily strategies to help build your resiliency muscle:

1. Create morning rituals and routines that set you up for the day.

When you wake up and before you get out of bed, set an intention for the day. 

• What will I need to think and feel today so that I can have a great day? 

• What do I want this day to look like? 

• How do I want to show up with the people I’m going to be around? 

• How do I want to make today meaningful? 

• What is going to give me a sense of purpose today? 

This could be something as simple as letting someone you care about know how appreciative and grateful you are about something specific to them. For me, this has sometimes meant, letting the coffee barista know how grateful I am that they showed up to work this morning and for their coffee making skills! Or sending a text message to someone I love or care for, to tell them what they mean to me. Or deciding on specific thoughts and feelings you’d like to have and setting reminders for yourself.

I have slowly but surely over time worked on creating a simple morning ritual that is supportive of me having a more meaningful and intentional day. It’s not fancy and involves some variation of: Waking up and expressing gratitude for waking up! Making coffee, journaling so that I can get all the ‘stuff’ out of my head (this literally involves a ‘data dump’ of whatever needs to come out), simple planning for the day as well as thinking about how I want to show up and then a simple yoga sequence and short meditation at the end. This can take anywhere between 20-30 minutes. Sometimes I’ll do all of it, other times I pick and choose depending on my morning commitments What would work for you? What small thing could you try?

2. Change how you think

‘All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become’ - Buddha

The Buddha was a smart guy 😀 He was talking about our struggles with life and how what we think creates our reality.

Pay attention to what you’re telling yourself. Are your thoughts about a situation making you miserable? Or leading to a feeling of powerlessness or helplessness? If so, can you try to encourage yourself to find a better, more helpful thought? How would you prefer to respond? This takes practice but will allow you to choose a more empowering perspective in difficult situations without gaslighting yourself.

3. Connect with others

Relationships are everything and we are wired for connection. Where might you need to give a bit more attention to your relationships? Supporting others as well having support when you need it, is crucial to developing resilience. We are not meant to be little islands existing independently of others!

4. Learn to meditate

Why? To train your mind, emotions, and your nervous system to show up for you as allies when you most need them to. Here are 2 quick and easy ways to get started:

Mindful pause  

I would suggest a quick body scan, moving through each body part, noticing any areas of tension, and intentionally choosing to release. This might be lowering your shoulders or unclenching your stomach and jaw. As you breathe in, you could say ‘Let’ and as you breathe out ‘go’.

Give yourself a 3-minute breathing space 

• Set a timer if you like.

• Sit quietly, close your eyes, and focus on the physical sensations of your breath: Notice the air moving through your nostrils, down into your chest which gently expands, the rise and fall of your belly as you breathe out again through your nose. Notice the change in temperature of the air as you exhale from your nostrils. 

• Repeat for 3 minutes

5. Practice self-friendliness

When you notice a moment of struggle with your thoughts or feelings, try talking to yourself the way you would to a really good friend. Ask yourself what you need in this moment to feel okay or emotionally safe. This might sound Pollyanna-ish but research shows that it works! And it’s simple and doesn’t cost anything.

6. Take care of yourself

As best you can, make sure you feed, nourish, and hydrate yourself. Go to bed a little bit earlier than you normally would.

7. Be proactive

If there’s a problem that needs tending to, figure out how you’re going to deal with it, make a plan, and take small actions.

The AIM is to cultivate your own personal toolbox of resiliency strategies so that when you have to deal with adversity or difficult situations, you know how to take care of yourself in a more empowered way.

Finally, in the wise words of Martha Beck, remember that:

‘Right now, is the only thing you’ll ever have to cope with’.

Let me know what practices you’re trying out and how you go! I’m on the other side of this email and would love to hear from you. 😊

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