Mental resilience is a big part of how we tackle the things that cause us stress. Running for the bus and missing it anyway, being stuck in standstill traffic, to the bigger things like moving house or planning a wedding – stress can be found around every one of life’s corners. It can be helpful to think of your mental resilience like a bank. When you have enough resilience, you can cope with more withdrawals caused by stress. But if you’re low on resilience, you run the risk of coming up empty when it comes to dealing with stressful situations.
Why do we get stressed?
Stress isn’t necessarily a bad thing all the time. The reason we get stressed is because our bodies need to know when we’re in real trouble or danger and it prepares us for fight-or-flight. The problem with this is that our bodies haven’t quite caught up to the stressors of modern life. A stress response would be useful if we were being chased by a bear – it would prepare our bodies to run. But it’s not always helpful when our bodies can’t tell the difference between being chased by a bear and being chased by your boss for those spreadsheets you’re about to miss the deadline for.
Why is resilience important?
Building resilience means finding better ways to cope with stressful situations. Having good habits like eating a balanced diet, sleeping well, breathwork and meditation, even just going for a short daily walk – can help keep you on track with stress and reduce the risk of burnout.
Types of stress
Putting all kinds of stress under one umbrella can sometimes make it difficult to feel heard. Sometimes, stress doesn’t apply to every area of your life at once and can come in different shapes and forms. We can find it in our living situations, at work, cropping up at different life milestones, our financial situation and our relationships.
Work-related stress
Most people are no strangers to feeling the pressures of a work environment. No matter what job you have, having colleagues, customers or bosses depend on you might feel overwhelming sometimes. Especially if you have stress in other areas of your life too. If work stress is left unchecked, it can lead to more serious things, like depression, anxiety and having to take leave from work to recover. It can also have an impact on your physical health and you might start feeling run down and less able to be your best self at work.
Stress at home and in the family
Being stressed at home can sometimes make it feel like you have nowhere to go to decompress. It can even cause feelings of guilt. But it’s important to remember that stress doesn’t discriminate and can impact even the happiest of families. There are plenty of things at home and within the family that are outside of our control that can make for a boiling pot of stress. Things like illness, wedding planning, moving house or having a baby, can all rock the boat. On top of these things, many people have caring responsibilities, including parenting or caring for elderly or disabled relatives.
Financial stress
Worrying about money or having money troubles is often a pre-cursor for stress. In recent years, the cost-of-living crisis has had an impact on many of us. For some, reducing luxury expenses like streaming subscriptions and takeaways, simply doesn’t cut it. It can feel like even the bare necessities are difficult to come by without being out-of-pocket before the next payday comes around. If you’re stressed about your finances, you can visit our Financial wellbeing section for some tips.
Health conditions
Having a long-term physical condition or chronic illness makes it harder to go about your everyday life, while experiencing symptoms that can limit what you do, where you go and how you do them. This can have a big impact on your mindset, causing stress and often other mental health conditions. There are also health concerns that can arise and change as we age, like menopause in women and declining levels of testosterone in men. Lifestyle factors like obesity, low activity levels and alcoholism can also make you less resilient to stress.
Bereavement
Losing someone close to you or your family can bring about all kinds of different feelings and emotions. It can be particularly stressful when it comes to dealing with all the admin that comes with the death of a loved one, especially if you've been listed in their will as an executor or beneficiary. Being equipped to deal with the paperwork and processes can give you more time and emotional space to process the death of your loved one, grieve and put together a checklist of what needs to be done.
How can you build your resilience?
The best way to build your resilience to stress is by having lifestyle habits that keep you healthy, active and calm. When you’re on top of these things, it can make it easier to face challenging situations and avoid overwhelm.
Stress reduction techniques
Maintaining a good routine
Ensuring that you’ve got a solid routine for each day can help you feel calmer and more in control. A good routine looks different for everyone, but a great start is getting at least 7 hours of sleep and waking up at the same time each day. From there, you can build a daily routine that suits you and your lifestyle.
Self-care
Social media will sometimes have us believe that self-care is limited to special occasions like spa visits, massages or at-home pamper evenings. While it can be these things, it can also be much simpler than that. Taking fifteen minutes out of a busy day to get some fresh air and feel the sunshine on your face – or the rain, if you’re so inclined! Or even taking a moment to just tidy your space, these can all be small acts of self-care.
Eat well
Making sure you eat a healthy, balanced diet full of fruit and vegetables, gives your body the best chance of coping with illness and stress. As well as helping build your resilience to stress, a good diet full of antioxidants can keep your immune system in check, so when illness comes knocking, you’re better equipped to fight it.
Get moving
It’s important to know that movement isn’t just limited to rigorous exercise at the gym or competitive sport. Not only are these things not accessible to everyone, but not everyone enjoys them. Finding a way to move that you enjoy is the key to success. It could be walking, Thai chi, yoga, dancing, swimming, running or football.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness doesn’t necessarily mean meditation – although this can be part of it. Instead, mindfulness is about slowing down and processing your thoughts, feelings and emotions to become aware of how your mind and body feels in the present moment, without passing judgement. Some examples of mindfulness are:
- Box breathing exercises
- Body scanning
- Meditation
- Practising gratitude
- Listening to relaxing audio
