10 Resilience Strategies

How do you rebound from setbacks? Setbacks are stressful and chronic stress can lead to poor health outcomes. So, on the journey to optimal health, it’s essential to have a variety of resilience strategies you can use to restore balance. Read on to discover 10 resilience strategies you can use to optimize stress and avoid burnout.

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10 Resilience Strategies

1. Practice deep breathing. Breathing is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system: Many people – especially those who are under stress – have a tendency to take shallow breaths, using only the top part of their chest to breathe, and not their stomach muscles. Try the 4-7-8 deep breathing technique.
2. Practice meditation. Mindfulness meditation is an empirically demonstrated method for relaxation. Try these audio meditations to help optimize your stress.
3. Practice self-compassion. Our competitive culture tells us we need to be special and above average to feel good about ourselves. Fortunately, there is an alternative to the pursuit of self-esteem: self-compassion. Research by Dr. Kristin Neff strongly suggests that people who are more self-compassionate lead healthier, more productive lives than those who are self-critical.
4. Engage your signature strengths. When you know your greatest strengths, then you can use them as a resource to face life’s challenges, work toward goals, and feel more fulfilled both personally and professionally.
5. Have fun and make time for leisure activities. Whether you unwind by soaking in a hot bath, browsing through your favorite books, listening to music, gardening, or photography, the important point is to enjoy the activity, purely for itself, and to take your mind off work or whatever is causing you stress.
6. Acknowledge accomplishments. To optimize stress, at the end of each day, sit back and reflect on what you’ve achieved, rather than spending time worrying about what still needs to be done.
7. Keep a gratitude journal. Gratitude has been shown to lessen the effects of stress. Discover a variety of ways to cultivate gratitude.
8. Take control of your schedule and manage your time. Time management helps with stress. Experts suggest: Make daily lists of the 6 most important tasks to accomplish. Plan how long each task will take. Assign time slots for accomplishing each task. Focus on the difficult tasks first. Try not to do too many things at once.
9. Engage in positive thinking. For example, note the positive as well as the negative aspects of things, look for the middle ground as things are never all good or all bad. Recall that the reasons for events are often complicated and not entirely dependent on your contribution. Hope for the best rather than imagine the worst. Positive thinking reduces stress. This download contains an exercise you can use to ditch the negativity bias and gain the happiness advantage.
10. Perform a Job Analysis. When you experience work overload day in and day out, you can start to feel as if you’re on a treadmill and that you’ll never catch up. This is demoralizing, stressful, and often leads to burnout. A job analysis can help you identify what’s truly important in your role, so that you can cut out or delegate tasks that aren’t as essential. Also, perhaps you can work with your boss to manage conflicting priorities and to deal with unreasonable demands.

So, in conclusion, you can optimize stress and avoid burnout by applying a variety of research based resilience strategies. Pick one strategy and start today!

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Disclaimer: The information provided through this Website is for educational and informational purposes only and solely as a self-help tool for your own use. If stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness, please consult with a suitable health professional.