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How Do You Build Stress Resilience?

How Do You Build Stress Resilience

We live in high pressure, fast changing, disruptive times. People are impacted by all kinds of pressure both in their workplace and their personal lives. There are many factors which come into play in how they respond to those situations – type of work, self-awareness, personal circumstances, personality temperament, age, habits, health & fitness etc.
 
There is no formula guaranteeing a stress-free life, but there are things we can do regularly to minimise the negative impact of high pressure/stress. These will enable us to build stress resilience and strengthen our ability to bounce back more quickly.
 

In a series of upcoming blogs, we will look at three key areas:
1.         Stress Prevention – what to do to enhance your capacity to manage high pressure
2.         Stress Management – what to when you are under high pressure
3.         Post-stress Renewal – what will help you to bounce back more quickly from high pressure periods

In this blog, we look at ‘Stress Prevention’ – here are 5 tips which can be implemented to enhance your capacity to manage high pressure.

  1.  Make effective use of time
    Often much of the pressure we feel is a result of poor choices we make when managing our time. How you respond to ongoing “distractions” and the choices you make will determine how much you achieve by the end of each day. Deal with issues in a timely manner before they escalate into stressful problems.
  2. Establish supportive nutrition and exercise patterns
    These are 2 powerful tools to increase your capacity to maintain your energy and focus. There is a huge amount of information available on these topics from many sources. The challenge is to apply them daily.
  3. Disengage from distractions
    Put your energy/time/thinking into areas that are beneficial to you. Focus on what’s within your control and influence. Disengage from the distractions.  Spending effort/thinking-time on areas you have no influence over is counter-productive and will drain your energy.
  4. De-stress at the end of each day
    Find ways to let-go of the pressure of your day so you don’t continue to carry that pressure into your evening. There are many ways to unwind, just choose the ones which suit your situation e.g. go for a walk, ​a run, to the gym, ​listen to music, play sport​, ​etc​.​
  5. Sleep to recharge
    Research shows most of us don’t get enough quality sleep. Yet restorative sleep is a powerful tool for building stress resilience. Prioritise sleep, establish a routine which enables you​ to​ switch off the ‘head stuff’. To prepare your body for sleep set a limit on your technology use before bed time, say 30 to 60 minutes.

Our ‘How to Manage Stress & Get a Work Life Balance’ course provides step-by-step strategies for managing stress/pressure. The life-skills in this course are designed to support you as you deal with the complexities and pressures of a fast-changing world. It’s a course everyone can benefit from. 

See our short courses for more information.