Building resilience in terms of health is often only a discussion around physical health. There are countless articles, videos and resources available about how diet and exercise has a huge impact on our overall health, our well being and our resilience to disease and infection. This is great and shows the importance of discipline in looking after ourselves and our own responsibility in partaking in preventative care.
But what of building our mental resilience? Like when our bodies have not been put through a regime of preventative care, leaving us more susceptible to ailments; if we do not care for our minds we can fall victim to depressive episodes and negative thoughts more easily and for longer periods. That is of course not to say that the mind and body aren't linked, but it is useful to highlight how solely powerful a conscious awareness can be for combating negative mind states.
When finding yourself in a poor state of mental health, being able to re-frame is important. Instead of seeing your situation as something where you purely have to suffer, re-frame your position and think of it as an opportunity for growth and to gain strength from within the worst conditions. Tell yourself, I am going to challenge myself to help myself get out of this state; and once I've done that I will have become stronger. This is similar to the mental plasticity theory I have written about in a previous post ie each time you manage to reframe your mind, new neural pathways are created in your brain that will become stronger and stronger as you repeat the process.
However what is just as powerful is engaging our conscious mind in a preparatory kind of way when the times are good. It is very difficult after our mood sinks to see beyond the cloud that is created. But if we have done our preparatory training before we get into these states we can get out of these holes faster.
It is useful when we are in a good state of mind to recognise how our states of mind are exactly that - states - and can change rapidly. If we have built up our conscious pathways to recognise this, when we find ourselves in a poor state of mind we can see a little more objectively and acknowledge that this state will not last forever.
Perhaps even more useful is to regularly exercise our gratitude and to be thankful for things that we do have, especially when we are in good states of mind. Gratitude is like a muscle that needs to be engaged and flexed. Taking a few moments in our day to calmly and clearly recognise the good things we have in our lives can do us the world of good. This can be done as meditation or just simply by being aware of being in the present moment. This will re-enforce our mental resilience and bolster our mental immune system to be able to fight off and rise above the more difficult times.
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