Transcript
Improving your resilience
How can we become more resilient?
Improving our mental health resilience is a lot like improving our physical health. It’s about having the right approach, knowing the exercises, and sticking with it.
Let’s start with the things we all know we need.
Sleep, exercise, healthy food, a bit of me-time. And the one we tend to forget, to give and receive affection.
Something else, is how we think about things.
We all have thoughts that feel strange, and make us question, ‘Should I be thinking this?’
But we can’t control what comes into our heads.
And improving our resilience is about shaping our thoughts, rather than letting them shape us.
So when you talk to yourself, listen. Are you as understanding as you‘d be with someone else?
And when it comes to talking to others, there’s one word we should all use a bit more. “No.”
Imagine a friend asks you to do “Just one more favour...”
You want to say no. You should say no. But you say yes. Because you think saying no will cause problems.
Now imagine it’s you asking for something, and you get turned down. Would you be angry? Or would you just think, ‘Fair enough.’
‘No’ isn’t always a negative word. It can be a step in a positive direction.
Then there’s everything else we should feel more confident to say. Which is, normally, whatever’s on our mind.
Because when we keep things to ourselves, our brains go over and over them, never letting us move on.
But there’s a simple way forward. Talking about it. To someone we trust and who will listen.
Because when we talk it out...
...our brains decide that we’re processing...
...the thoughts and stop going over them.
Which brings us to our final resilience technique – mindfulness. This technique helps us let go of our stress and strengthen our resilience.
So let’s make time every day to be mindful and immerse ourselves in one thing...
...listening to music, reading a book, doing a puzzle, whatever floats our mental boats.
If we can do more of these techniques every day, we’ll become more resilient inside, and better able to handle what’s happening outside.
This is the end of our Resilience modules. You can explore mental health further by watching our videos about Mental Health Awareness and ‘Always on’ culture.