Managing stress and closing the stress cycle.

This is going to be a dramatic opener….stress is a killer! Yes, a little bit of stress can be a good thing, it can push us to do better than we would have otherwise, but chronic stress, the type that hangs around for weeks, months, years, is not good for us. At all. So if you’re a stressy type of person, it’s something you need to work on.

The good news is that there are things you can to reduce your stress levels and a lot of them are in your control. Firstly, stress starts in the mind. We think ourselves stressed, and we can choose to actively notice those thoughts and change them. Here’s an example. Say you’re running late and it’s making you feel stressed. Consider the impact of running late. Is it really a big deal? Is it life or death? Or even life changing? If it’s not, then just putting into words the consequences of you being late can help reduce the stress you’re feeling.

Secondly, there are things we have control over and things we don’t. So in the example about running late, one of the things we can control is being organised, prepared, knowing how long things are going to take, and even adding in a bit of contingency into the planning so that you do what you can to be on time. The flip side of that is there are things out of your control, like a road closure or accident that mean, despite your best intentions, that you’re not on time. Resilient people put their energy into the things they can control rather than the things they can’t control, so they don’t spend time worrying about the latter because it doesn’t serve anyone to do so. Focusing on the things you can control helps because it means you’re taking useful action to help things turn out right. That’s the difference. No guarantees but it’s more likely to be the outcome you want it you’re intentional about it and take action towards it.

Finally, there are things you can do to actively manage your stress levels and the good news is most of them are free and relatively easy to do. Exercise is the first that’s usually suggested and I have to agree it’s not just useful in reducing stress levels, it’s all round great for us too. But a word of caution. If you’re already feeling stressed or you’re prone to stress, finding an exercise that calms you can make a big difference. Pushing yourself too hard when you’re already stressed can have a  negative effect on you, whereas something like a gentle walk in nature or yoga might be a better option. Listen to your body and notice how you feel afterwards.

Spending time actively pursing your hobbies is another way to reduce your stress levels; getting into a flow state signals to our body that we’re safe. Other signals that help our body feel less stressed are breathing changes. Deep breathing and concentrating on your breath can help, there are breathing exercises you can do online, but also a simple breath in, hold, exhale, hold (all for a count of four) will help regulate too. It’s an easy one to try. Meditation is something that I find works for me, I do a guided meditation as I find the repetition helps me relax into it quickly and I feel much better in a short space of time (I do ten minutes).

When I’m feeling very stressed one of the things I’ve found works for me is tapping. Now I think this is a bit woo woo but ultimately it’s acupressure, so a relative of accupuncture which has been scientifically proven to work, so on that basis I don’t think it’s too crazy. Tapping is also known as EFT or emotional freedom technique. You can find guidance online for free that shows you what do but essentially you use your fingers to tap on various points around your head face and upper body. I’m not sure whether it’s the routine or doing it, or the acupressure, but it’s the one thing that has helped me in moments of intense pressure when other things didn’t so I think it’s worth a try.

There are two other things that are really effective at closing the stress cycle. The first is crying. Holding in emotions literally keeps them inside, but having a cry does get it out of your system so next time you feel upset or angry or frustrated and feel those tears, go with it.

The last thing I want to mention is my favourite way to close the stress cycle and it’s something I do regularly and which I credit with reducing my stress levels significantly and that’s cold water therapy. With a blast of a cold shower, a dip in a cold tub, or best of all a swim in the sea, the shock from the cold gives you an acute stressor and when your body adapts it closes the stress cycle for the low level ongoing stressors too. I’m my experience, there is something else you get from the swim in the sea, possibly relating to the sea water or the muscles used, or just being in nature, but it makes me feel relaxed like nothing else does, and I sleep like a log afterwards. If it’s something you want to try just make sure you do it under the right guidance and supervision, join a wild swimming group, build up slowly and always make sure you’re safe. Let me know your favourite ways to de-stress in the comments!

Knowledge isn’t useful unless we apply it

Wouldn’t life be so amazing if we could do all the things that we know are good for us! Like we know that eating fruit and veg is good for us, gives us vitamins and fibre and is better for our body than something full of sugar and fat, for example a doughnut. But do we crave a nice salad? Usually not! Do we eat the healthy options all of the time? Maybe you do, but I know I don’t always make the best choices, despite knowing what’s better for me. And it’s the same with exercise, I know it’s good for me, and I know I feel better afterwards, but do I fancy going for a nice run? No thanks. Will I make myself do it? Maybe later! That’s why knowledge is not power, because knowing the right things to do doesn’t actually mean you’ll take the right actions. So knowledge in action is actually power because there’s no power in knowing but not applying that knowledge.

But if we know what’s good for us, and we know it will make us feel good in the long run, why don’t we just do that? It’s a good question and one with a few different perspectives. Firstly, eating a salad or going for a run can be thought of as longer term rewards. On their own they don’t do much, by which I mean you won’t suddenly drop a dress size because you did either of those things. You might in a few months if you keep doing those things but we don’t see an immediate reward. Whereas the doughnut? That sweet spot of fat and sugar will give a lovely dopamine boost immediately. Although the down side is that longer term, it’s not so great for you, but it’s harder to focus on the longer term far away possibilities when the doughnut is right here right now, enticing your senses.

We also need to think about outside factors too, so for example the companies marketing the doughnut. The doughnut doesn’t just pop into your head, you walk past a picture of it, you see it on the tv, you walk past a display of them all laid out, maybe the shop has some doughnut-y smells wafting out as you pass! Because it pays to do those things, because it makes you more likely to get your money out and buy one, which ultimately makes someone somewhere more money. Money that they don’t get if you eat a salad. Don’t underestimate the force of these persuasive tactics. And it’s not just doughnuts. But you know that. But it’s also hard to ignore.

So sometimes we need tools to use to help us put into action what we know is good for us, and pass over the things that are tempting. There are a few different options but I’m going to talk about habits and pre-commitment as these are two I find very helpful.

Let’s start with habits. These are easier to form for some people than others and I fall into the latter category as I have ADHD. It doesn’t mean I can’t form habits, but I just find it hard to do repetitive and routine things. There are some habits that I pretty much always do, like brushing my teeth before bed. Then there are others that I either have visual cues for (taking medication for example, it lives on my bedside table so I see it and therefore remember) or a habit tracker that reminds me of the good habits I want to build and so I tick them off when I’ve done them each day. That’s what works for me, because without the intention or reminders and cues I would end up absorbed in something else and forget to do them. Anchoring a new habit to an old habit is also a good way of building habits, basically linking a new one to one you’ve already got. For example, if your habit is to make coffee in the morning as soon as you get up, putting your vitamins on your coffee machine or in the cupboard where the coffee cups live will remind you to take it and therefore build that habit too. One more thought on habits though…set the bar low for the habits you want to build. Stephen Guise has written some great books on habits and mini habits, and emphasises the importance of momentum in building consistency. You’ve got to make a habit easy enough to do on your hardest days.

Pre-commitment is another tool you can use and it’s one I was thinking about yesterday. I’ve not been well, had a nasty cold and fever and felt rubbish, and so I bought some biscuits. Now, I love a biscuit, they’re the ultimate comfort food for me. A Viennese, chocolate digestive or a crunch cream. Or shortbread. You get the picture! But I never buy them. Because if I do, I know I’ll eat them. And so the easiest thing is to not buy them in the first place. I can have chocolate and sweets around and won’t bother with them, but as soon as I know there are biscuits in the house and I’ve got a cuppa in my hand? I’m going to find them and dunk and demolish! Pre-commitment is not buying them, so they’re not there to eat. Much easier than buying them and relying on will power to just have one. And yes sometimes it’s fine to buy them, like it if you’re not well and it’s what you fancy and will make you feel a bit better. But as my youngest son ate the last biscuit from the stash last night I knew they wouldn’t be replaced any time soon!

Pre-commitment can also be buying the things you want to eat, so stocking up on fruit and veg so you have it readily available. Chopping your veg and preparing it so you’ve got some crudites ready if you want to snack. Put the things you want to eat (because you know they’re good for you) in your line of sight, put the fruit bowl where you’ll walk past it and the crudites in your eye line when you open the fridge. Lots of visual cues will help you do the things you know are good for you.

Resilience Levers to pull when you need a boost

When I think about resilience, two things strike me. The first is that most people haven’t heard about it until they need it. That’s to say that people who are going along nicely through life don’t really dwell on how they will deal with challenging times, either because they don’t have a frame of reference because nothing particularly challenging has happened for them, or because they prefer the ostrich head buried in the sand approach.

The second is that people usually realise they are properly “in the shit” when they’ve gone too far down the path to bring it back easily. Sometimes challenging times happen in part out of a situation we create ourselves. What I mean by that is that we make certain choices, such as cancelling plans or not making plans, which make us feel more isolated and that makes the challenging times feel worse as we’ve got less support to share the mental and physical load, and also we can become fixated on our issues and problems and feel very “woe is me” at the same time believing that everyone else is going just fine. Chances are they’re not and if you stopped to ask you’d find that out, but the smaller your world becomes the more miserable it feels.

So what is resilience? Well it’s a toolkit of things that you can do in the long term to stay healthy and happy, with some levers you can also pull in the short term to boost your resilience. One of the most important of these in my experience is the encouragement of others. Often we get so caught up in our own small perspectives that we are scared to get out of our comfort zones and take what we perceive to be risks. Having someone who encourages and believes in you makes a big difference to what you are then willing to do. It’s almost like it gives you permission to be bold, to take the action, to do the thing. When our perspective is narrow and we focus too much on ourselves things can feel too difficult and scary and we talk ourselves out of doing the very things we know deep down will help. So I’d call encouragement a lever that you can use.

Another lever that I recommend is helpful when your resilience is being tested is to find a way to help someone else. It’s usually the last thing you will feel like doing when you’re in the middle of a challenging situation but here is why it’s important. When our resilience is tested and our world shrinks we lose our sense of perspective and often everything can become about that specific situation. Finding someone else who you can make a difference to is a tangible method of widening that perspective. Whether it’s helping a friend with a job application or moving boxes to help them move house; or just carrying someone’s bag for them if it looks heavy, it forges a connection and takes you out of your issues for a little while. A study carried out gave participants some money to spend on what they need wanted to make them happier. In the western world, the participants treated themselves to something but it made little difference to their happiness. In countries like Japan, the participants spent the money on someone else or donated it for example, because they know that the route to happiness is in helping others. Something to think about next time you’re in a challenging spot.

Anyway, whilst we’re on levers to pull, I’m going to throw exercise into the mix. I know I’m as guilty of putting this off when I’m “too busy” as the next person, but when all of the research tells you how good it is for you, when we know how it changes the way we feel, and the fact it makes us more productive afterwards, why wouldn’t we do it! It’s just a reminder that sometimes throwing everything at the problem and keeping your head down and carrying on regardless isn’t always the right approach. After exercising you’ve got blood pumped to all the right places, you’re more energetic, you’re primed and you’ve had some time away for the cogs to whirl a bit and process your issue. Sometimes that’s all you need to get a bit of perspective and come up with a different approach. Whether it’s a swim, a run, a gentle jog, some strength training or some yoga, it doesn’t matter. It’s the doing of it that matters.

Resilience - Nature or Nurture?

A question I was asked recently is whether people can be naturally resilient or whether it’s something that can be learnt, and my answer was both. Resilience is like a muscle.  You exercise the muscle to keep it strong and build it up, sometimes you have a bit of time off and the muscle weakens but if you’ve got the right foundations then it builds back up again quickly from that muscle memory.

Where I believe some people are naturally resilient, I don’t think they’re necessarily born that way, although to an extent there are qualities that can support resilience for example if someone is naturally laid back. My belief is that resilience is more nurture than nature, and resilient parents raise resilient children. Think about it. If your parent already role models some of the key foundations of resilience, then you’ll typically follow their lead and do them too. So if a parent eats healthily, chances are they know the importance of that and will pass on both the taste for healthy food, but also the knowledge of what’s good for you and how to make that. Similarly with exercise, if a parent regularly does some form of exercise, whatever that may be, it role models that for the child who sees it as normal and builds it into their daily life.

This isn’t something easily proven, but it’s my opinion, and I’m open to other perspectives here but I think that upbringing can have a strong impact on self esteem too. These are all important when it comes to resilience, and we’ve talked about role modelling the good behaviours, but in some instances growing up those may not have been seen in parents.

Some may instead have had parents who struggled, had mental health issues, addiction, and trauma and maybe they hadn’t seen resilience in action either, didn’t have the experience of their parents dealing with challenges successfully, and so didn’t have the role model behaviour of those foundations. It’s not an excuse for treating anyone badly, but more an explanation about learned behaviour and those lucky enough to have the right examples passed down versus those who might find resilience a bit more challenging as they don’t have the strong foundations in place and instead may have different coping mechanisms and responses.

Often people who have been in those situations can recognise they don’t have the right tools in place but don’t know how to change that. Sometimes those tools work better for the neurotypical brain than the neurodivergent brain, which can be less used to consistency and routine, but done is better than perfect and every little helps, which is work remembering.

So what do you do if you don’t have a resilient parent that role modelled helpful behaviours? The first thing I’d suggest is to find someone else that does. It could be someone you know who always handles challenges calmly for example, or someone who exercises regularly, or someone who has been through struggles and has come through the other side. Or it might be someone you know of rather than know, or maybe a famous person that you admire. The point of this is to look at the behaviours of that person so you can see what they do and reflect on how you can develop similar behaviours to help you. Remember no one is perfect so you might want to take aspects you admire from more than one person. If you haven’t had behaviours role modelled for you it might be something to try.

The second thing I would suggest you do would be to get a pen and paper and write down the challenges you’ve come through in your life so far, and how you’ve dealt with them. Have you leaned on friends and your network during tough times, or did you stop going out and isolate yourself instead? Did you face issues head on or did you avoid them and hope they’d go away? It a tough exercise to do but it’s not about beating yourself up, it’s about trying to recognise how you’ve reacted in the past so you’re aware of that and prepared when things come up in the future. If you understand that this is the approach you’ve taken before, you’re more likely to recognise the warning signs which will enable you to take corrective action. And that might be going along to your girls night and pouring your heart out to them rather than staying at home and keeping it all in, and that just might be the better option for your resilience. Having an understanding of how resilient you are and your past approaches will help you make different and better choices in the future.

Resilience foundations

How resilient we are depends on our behaviours and habits. Strong foundational behaviours that support resilience are regular exercise, and good nutrition, because if you do both of these things then you’re less likely to rely on some of the other less healthy (but still perfectly valid) coping mechanisms.

Both exercise and nutrition support overall health, which is a critical factor in resilience, but which we often take for granted until we don’t have it. Often exercise and eating well are the first things to go when we have challenging times, so when we have too much on our plate, and too many of those plates spinning, we cancel our workout plans, and grab some food on the go, usually not the healthiest of options.

Exercise has been hailed as potentially being the silver bullet when it comes to resilience and I’m tempted to broadly agree with this. If you exercise regularly and it’s a habit you are in, then often it works as a preventative measure against the build up of stress and keeps your resilience topped up.

When we exercise we have more energy which also helps us deal with the challenges that come our way, and we are also more productive, and that helps us too. But one of the even more important benefits of exercise is that it gives us space for our brain to process whatever is going on and find those lightbulb moments, or even just take us away from the immediate problem and find the perspective that we need to realise that in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal. One of my friends used to say on bad days at work “nobody died and we still got paid” and whatever had gone on, that was still true and I think does help take away the importance that often builds up in workplaces against relatively inconsequential issues.

We know exercise releases endorphins that make us feel good, and we know that getting that blood pumping round our body helps us, so why do we find it so hard to do? I know that I enjoy exercise and feeling fit but find it hard to get and stay in the habit myself. We know it’s good for us, but that  knowledge isn’t power unless we apply it consistently. Unfortunately we humans were built to conserve energy, so essentially we are lazy beings and prefer to take the easy option of lift over stairs every time. Conserving energy was useful in our past because we needed it for the occasions when we had to go Hunter Gathering to eat, but these days it’s much less useful as we have all the creature comforts and are more sedentary than ever before.

So how can you make exercise a habit that sticks, so your resilience levels stay topped up and your stress levels stay in control? The first thing is to do something that you enjoy. So maybe getting sweaty at a spinning class isn’t for you. It’s not for me either! But walking the dog is something I do enjoy doing. I’m not a fan of classes but I like a gentle swim in the sea.

Which brings me on to the second thing you can do and that’s to do something with others. I much prefer my sea swim when my friends are with me and we’re catching up on the goss and having a good giggle. In fact, those are some of my happiest times, and I always want to go. And the final thing that’s important when it comes to exercise, healthy eating, or good habits in general is that it’s better to set the bar really low and build up achievement momentum than set the bar high and give up because you feel like a failure. If you had one flat tyre you wouldn’t slash the other three would you?

So if you miss a workout don’t decide it’s not for you and stop, or try and make up for it and then it feels too hard. Just give yourself grace and permission to miss that one and keep going. Don’t undo all your good work because you’ve had one bad day or week.

The Power of Self-Compassion in Building Resilience: Embracing Kindness in Challenging Times

Life is full of ups and downs, and in the face of adversity, resilience becomes our guiding light. While resilience is essential, it is equally crucial to recognise the power of self-compassion as we navigate the challenging moments that come our way. Self-compassion has a profound impact on building resilience, along with practical strategies to embrace kindness towards ourselves during difficult times. By cultivating self-compassion, we can strengthen our resilience and emerge stronger than ever before.

1. Understanding Self-Compassion:

Resilience goes hand in hand with self-compassion. Self-compassion involves extending kindness, understanding, and acceptance towards ourselves, especially when we face setbacks or hardships. Rather than engaging in self-criticism or harsh judgment, self-compassion allows us to treat ourselves with the same kindness and support we would offer to a dear friend. It serves as a foundation for building resilience.

2. Embracing Imperfections:

Resilience requires acknowledging that we are not perfect and that making mistakes or facing challenges is a natural part of life. By embracing our imperfections, we can release the burden of unrealistic expectations and develop a compassionate response to our own shortcomings. Instead of berating ourselves for our perceived failures, we can cultivate resilience by seeing these moments as opportunities for growth and learning.

3. Nurturing Self-Care:

Self-compassion involves taking care of ourselves physically, emotionally, and mentally. Engaging in self-care practices such as regular exercise, nourishing our bodies with healthy food, getting enough restful sleep, and engaging in activities that bring us joy and relaxation can significantly enhance our resilience. By prioritising our well-being, we build a strong foundation to weather life's storms with resilience and strength.

4. Cultivating a Supportive Inner Dialogue:

The way we speak to ourselves internally has a profound impact on our resilience. Developing a supportive inner dialogue involves replacing self-critical thoughts with words of encouragement, self-compassion, and understanding. When faced with adversity, remind yourself that it is okay to struggle, and offer words of kindness and support. By reframing negative self-talk, we can strengthen our resilience and cultivate a positive mindset.

5. Practicing Mindfulness:

Mindfulness, the practice of being fully present in the current moment without judgment, can enhance self-compassion and resilience. By observing our thoughts and emotions with curiosity and non-judgment, we create space for self-compassion to flourish. Mindfulness helps us become aware of our own suffering and respond with compassion and kindness, leading to increased resilience in the face of challenges.

In the journey of building resilience, self-compassion is a powerful ally. By embracing kindness, understanding, and acceptance towards ourselves, we can strengthen our resilience and navigate life's challenges with grace and determination. Remember that self-compassion is not a sign of weakness, but a testament to our inner strength and courage.