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Increasing Resilience and decreasing anxiety during tough times.
Mindset Monday 09/20/2021
My goal with these is to give you some ideas of how you can live your life more intentionally, thus grabbing a hold of your stress and anxiety through healthy avenues. Resilience is defined as the ability to be able to adapt and recover through hard times. Here are some tips to cultivate resilience and bounce back.
Turn off the news: If you are spending a lot of time watching or listening to the news, just stop. The “news” focuses on the negative. You would think there is nothing good left in the world when you watch the news. Sure there may be one feel-good story amongst 30 bad ones. Turn it off. What you focus on becomes your focus. I will say this 1000 times.
Create a network of people you can trust and connect with. We live in a time where socializing is looking different. In some cases it’s even frowned upon. However socialization is vital. There are a variety of studies that conclude this. One conducted by Newcastle University concluded that those with problems with social relationships have a higher risk for coronary heart disease and stroke ( Valtorta et al, 2016). In The Journals of Gerontology they found that loneliness was associated with a 40 percent increased risk for dementia (Angelina et al., 2020).
Tune in instead of tuning out. Stop scrolling. How many times are you picking up your phone in moments of “boredom.” Instead of tuning out. Get in touch with your own feelings. Why do I say this so much…? Because we spend so much of our time in auto- pilot and “getting things done” that we do not give ourselves the space to analyze our own thoughts and feelings. We scroll and get caught up in everyone else’s “stuff.” Let’s get caught up in our own “stuff” and face it.
This brings me to my ultimate tip for cultivating resilience:
Create a daily practice surrounding your mental health. Many people think about healthy living as maintaining our physical health. As a society we focus on eating nutritious foods, we maintain a healthy weight, we work to get our workouts in. I am a firm believer that you need to focus on your mental health on a daily basis. Analyze what your thoughts are looking like… positive, negative, calm, chaotic, self-deprecating, appreciative, gracious, stressed…? Once we take notice of our thoughts, then we can take action. Write affirmations to get rid of limiting beliefs, start a gratitude list, take time for yourself to meditate, pray, journal, write affirmations. Is it time to seek external help, like a therapist, counselor, or coach?
If this resonates with you, please comment! If you are feeling the need for a deep dive to find out where you can cultivate more resilience I offer a free 90 minute session. If you know someone this may benefit please send them the blogpost.
References (shhh it’s not APA...don’t come for me :-) ) :
Angelina R Sutin, PhD, Yannick Stephan, PhD, Martina Luchetti, PhD, Antonio Terracciano, PhD, Loneliness and Risk of Dementia, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 75, Issue 7, September 2020, Pages 1414–1422, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby112
Valtorta NK, Kanaan M, Gilbody S, et al. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke: systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal observational studies. Heart 2016;102:1009-1016.