How to keep a healthy perspective when life is crazy, overcoming stress and staying in a positive perspective can be challenging when life is balanced but when your world speeds up, all around you feels unsettling and the fast-paced Christmas rush can be mind-boggling.
Your good intentions and planning start well at the beginning of the week, you have fantastic goals and then a child, a parent or even a dog becomes unexpectedly ill or perhaps the car won’t start and you have to change, adapt and cope with another situation on top of your normal schedule. Resilience at this time of year needs to be a key.
Stress builds quickly
Your plans have to change very quickly. Reacting quickly and dealing with the frustration of not getting other things done can build up quickly. Resilience to this kind of dramatic change needs a health bank to draw from. If you are already exhausted it can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. With sudden interruptions, action needs to be taken and your agenda goes to the bottom of the pile. If this goes on too long, your agenda is the last thing that receives your attention and the bottom of the pile carries with it a with feelings of resentment.
As computer technology becomes even faster, artificial Intelligence, hyper-automation, quantum computing pushes more frontiers than ever, human fall out is inevitable. Stress is tipped to be the biggest business ‘buzz’ word in the health industry next year knowing how to do deal with and how to avoid more of it.
Build resilience avoid stress
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from the challenges and pressures that life throws at you and maintain a positive outlook. Being resilient means having confidence in yourself and having the self-belief and ability that you can overcome setbacks.
A few strategies that will aid a quick recovery is general background disposition, a happy outlook that things will resolve, this too will pass. You do have the ability to cope, things will get done and you can ask for help. Having a positive outlook, letting go and not having to be in control will help to reduce the feeling of stress. You know you will get through this, you have before, reassurance and self-belief are keys to coping well.
The key is putting these strategies in place before life kicks off. Taking time out for yourself is incredibly important, you need your ‘health bank’ for when life does take an unexpected turn. Investing in yourself is crucial because others suffer when you don’t
As you approach the new year a new way of thinking and caring for yourself will have a cascading effect on your level of work productivity, your relationships in and out of the office, and of course your world.
Consider the following headings, how do you feel about these topics?
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- Optimism
- Self-belief
- Willingness to let go
- Being more flexible
- Personal emotional awareness
- Social support
- Sense of humour
Resilience of optimism
It all starts with you, how do you perceive the world – are you a pessimist or an optimist? Do you see the best or worry about the worst-case scenario? Whilst some are pessimistic and give up, others can remain positive and resilient. Which category do you reflect?
Your reaction can be a catalyst for your own self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t believe you can overcome a challenge, you probably won’t. But if you are self-confident and determined, it’s likely you’ll get through any obstacle that comes your way.
Changing the way that you see the world will benefit you in ways you haven’t thought possible. Your outlook on life will change and new opportunities will arise. Research has proved that a happy optimistic demeanour opens more opportunities. You see things that pessimists don’t.
Resilient health
Your health practice, your destress valve should not contribute to your stress levels. What is your Friday night destress valve? What do you do to reward yourself for your working week? Is your decompression healthy or does it add more to your stress to your body?
At this time of year, it is easy to think now I will change my life, I will do everything differently. Taking on huge changes in your diet, a crash course in CrossFit or HIIT will contribute to this crazy pace. Instead, change your life one step at a time, add one new habit into your day and from a slow, considered perspective and watch your world change. It could be as simple as avoiding booze on a Friday night, let your body and mind unwind naturally.
Resilient friendships
Who is your confidente, who is your ‘person’? The someone you can trust with your innermost thoughts? A friend or valued companion. They don’t even have to offer an opinion in fact on occasions that is probably incredibly valuable!
Resilient mindset
Building stronger resilience to busier times in life means taking a few steps now and in the future. Grow into resilience by….
- Savouring the present moment,
- Blocking negative thoughts,
- Expressing gratitude,
- Setting realistic goals,
- Emphasising your strengths,
- Giving to others,
- Empathising with your own troubles with self-compassion
Being present in the moment and expressing gratitude sets off a cascade of emotions and hormones, your body and mind become anchored and remember that time, it has a rebalancing effect on your body. Your thoughts can go back there when overwhelm strikes.
Finding your happy place starts with an image, one that you can call upon from your past maybe, or somewhere you want to go. Being outside is a fantastic stress reliever, being out running or walking under a canopy of trees will give you a sense of wellness and abundance. The feeling of abundance comes from the wealth of trees, leaves, birds, sheep and clouds.
Resilient exercise
Walking or running means that your endorphins are flying, and a biochemical reaction takes place in your body, your aches and pains begin to subside, your concerns float away. Every time your head goes down into thoughts of the day or week, and you begin to start to think about something you need to do or how somebody has upset or hurt you then look up and look right.
Looking up stimulates your pineal gland which in return activates the release of serotonin in your gut which is the building block to the happy hormone, dopamine. Dopamine is known as the reward drug and it attaches a good feeling to that stimulus. Which is why runners get a ‘runners high’. Looking up and noticing the world around you will have an effect on your entire system.
When you exercise or even simply moving you change your breathing rate and more oxygen is absorbed into the blood, and more carbon dioxide is removed from it. You release more of your body chemicals such as endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin more happy hormones.
Whilst you in that happy place, whether it is running, being outdoors, or simply being hugged by a loved one, remember the feeling. Take the feeling with you into other parts of your day. Anchor your thoughts back to that moment.
You can read more about serotonin in your gut, anchoring your thoughts, or movement rather than an exercise in my award-winning and internationally best selling book Gorgeous! How to look and feel fantastic every day www.get-gorgeous.com/book
Your real path to health is a holistic approach to wellness that goes beyond diet alone. A healthy life depends on life satisfaction and your lifestyle – does the food you eat make you feel good?, are you getting enough sleep, activity and social fulfillment? Pause and assess how you’re feeling in each area of wellness, and work on those areas where you may be able to earn easy health gains.
Get Gorgeous is a journey together – yours and mine. Book some time for you x
Don’t forget the gorgeous book – your insight into great health and vitality Gorgeous! how to look and feel fantastic every day. Click here to find out about your copy of Gorgeous!
Find out what clients have to say…
I found it fascinating. I don’t know if it’s our time in our lives, or if the way we think is different, but everything you wrote about is exactly where my head is, and how you presented the material, is just how I would explain things myself, so it all made perfect sense.
Obviously, your goal is to assist women to unlock a truer vision of themselves, and to understand the pitfalls we create for ourselves by hanging onto misconceptions in our inner dialogues. Weight is not the issue it’s our mindset and preconceived notions that have been honed and fostered, knowingly and subconsciously, throughout our lives.
I say to people, friends, all the time: do you hear what you are saying? The negative dialogue is what is crushing you…until you change the dialogue and the perception of yourself…nothing will change for you…
Also taking control of your environment, just because, ‘things have always been this way’…doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. Small steps, one step at time, can make all the difference…and putting oneself FIRST, is paramount for any positive change, and success to occur. As women we have allowed society to take our power away, and feel that we are not worthy, or ‘enough’ unless we are all things, all the time, to everyone in our lives…well I’m sorry…but we, women, have made every person on this planet…so I think we are more than worthy, and enough…but I digress lolI really liked how you presented the parts about social history, and how circumstances, over the last hundred years have shaped longstanding mindsets that affect the way we approach food…we must learn from the past, and start on a new path.
I could go on and on…I thought your examples/stories were relevant, humorous, and insightful.
I feel that what sets your book apart from other self-help books, is your willingness to share your personal history, and dialogue…you didn’t come to this fully formed, you took the journey as well, and I believe that openness has been a large part of what has created your success over the years, and with continue to…empathy is very powerful.
I will read your book again, and I feel that everyone I know should read it as well. I don’t know that I have given you exactly what you need, but I know you have given me something very special.
You’re amazing Adele. Thank you for being who you are.
Katie Burrows www.get-gorgeous.com/book Get Gorgeous Book 19th November 2018