What is Resilience?
Resilience is defined as:
“the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties”
The past 18 months have given most people more than their fair share of difficulties.
Those lacking resilience can become easily overwhelmed.
These feelings can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Self-comfort rather than self-care.
Resilience gives us the strength to protect ourselves.
It protects us from mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression and helps us maintain a healthy balance.
How to build Resilience
We build resilience by becoming self-aware and prioritising self-care.
Self-care doesn’t have to involve a bubble bath and candles. It’s about being mindful of your needs, checking in with your feelings and making your needs a high priority.
This can be easier said than done. The good news is that resilience is a characteristic you can build.
Some ideas:
- Make connections – Accept help and support from those who care about you.
- Learn to relax
- Practice thought awareness
- Maintain perspective – accept that change is part of living
- Take decisive action – face a situation rather than avoiding it.
- What are your goals? – Do one little thing towards them every day, if possible, get this done first as it will add to your feeling of accomplishment.
- Develop a positive outlook – use positive daily affirmations that resonate with you.
Here’s an example:
You’ve had a shit day where nothing seemed to go right. You meet a friend for a chat and you moan and laugh. When you leave you feel recharged. You’ve seen things from another perspective or made a plan of action to make tomorrow easier…
Your connection to someone you care about has built resilience to overcome your bad day.
Building good, positive relationships is an important part of our resilience.
Nutrition for resilience
Good nutrition is part of self-care.
It is within our control and can have a positive effect quickly.
Good nutrition will make your body resilient to disease. A healthy body is less stressed, anxious and depressed. It can also help reduce the effects of:
- Sleep issues
- Inflammation
- Excess weight
Fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains supply our body with essential vitamins and minerals which improve our body’s function and reduce cellular damage, which contributes to disease and the ageing process.
What if you are struggling with stress, anxiety or depression and the thought of spending hours in the kitchen preparing healthy meals just adds to the overwhelm?
You don’t have to be a kitchen goddess.
If you don’t want to cook grab a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket along with a bag of veg to steam and a packet of rice or a jacket potato. This will give you a balanced meal that will nourish you more than something fried or overly processed.
This is not a time to go on a diet. Learn to listen to your body and honour its needs. This is how I start teaching intuitive eating.
What next?
Start small.
Make small changes to your habits that can set you on the right path.
Once you start taking care of yourself consistently you will soon gain momentum and see the effects.
I highly recommend a book I read a few years ago, How full is your bucket? There is also a children’s book called, Have you filled a bucket today: A guide to daily happiness for kids.
If you would like to chat further about this subject or anything else to do with creating a healthy balanced lifestyle book a virtual cuppa and a chat and we can discuss your individual needs further.
About the author
www.instagram.com/nutritionnaturallyforever
www.facebook.com/nutritionnaturallyforever
I am a nutritional therapist, helping women to stop dieting, learn to trust themselves around food and treat the cause of symptoms such as hormonal imbalance, weight gain and lack of energy.
I do this through my 1-1 coaching and online courses, teaching intuitive eating and living and learning how to tune into the ebb and flow of your own natural cycles and build habits that support your individual lifestyle.
If you’d like to know more about Sue and the services she offers, you can find her online here: