2. BUILDING RESILIENCE Maintaining your ability to stay mentally healthy

3. How can you build some more and stay mentally healthy?
RESILIENCE
What is it?
Why do we need it?
Where does it come from?
How much have you got?
How can you build some more and stay mentally healthy?

4. Websites and Resources
(Mind, Mental health charity) How to be mentally health at work How mange stress Mental wellbeing (Royal College Of Psychiatrists) (Sainsbury Centre for Mental health) The Guardian – Readers’ Tips for Improving Mental Health at Work Easy Ways to Prioritise your Mental Health in College

5. 1. RESILIENCE What is it?

6. So what is RESILIENCE?
‘The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape, elasticity’
‘The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness’ (Oxford English Dictionary)
The word “resilience” is derived from the Latin verb “salire,” which means to jump. The prefix “re-“ means “back” or “again.” Thus, “resilience” is literally about jumping back.
The ‘rubber band’ quality?

7. Some more definitions
‘The capacity for healthy development and successful learning in spite of challenges’(B.Benard)
‘Resilience is the capacity to spring back, rebound, successfully adapt in the face of adversity and develop social, academic, and vocational competence despite being exposed to extreme stress or simply to the stress that is inherent in today’s world’ (Henderson and Milstein, 1996)
Is it always about ‘bouncing’ back?
Can adjustments and recovery be gradual?
Do we all get knocked down by the same things?

8. A Resilience Role Model
Choose someone from history, current affairs, the news or your own lives who you think has shown great resilience
How did they do this?

10. 2. RESILIENCE Why do we need it?
In life in general?
In academic life?

11. RESILIENCE Why do we need it?
It improves our work/professional performance
It improves our personal lives
Resilience is part of good mental health
Mental health is under pressure in current world
Improves health generally
It gives a good return on investment personally, professionally and for society as a whole
RESILIENCE MAKES SENSE

12. RESILIENCE and mental health and wellbeing
‘Mental health is the emotional and spiritual resilience which enables us to enjoy life and to survive pain, disappointments and sadness. It is a positive sense of well being and an underlying belief in our own and others dignity and worth’
(NI Promoting Mental Health Strategy)
THERE IS NO HEALTH WITHOUT MENTAL HEALTH (UK Mental Health Strategy 2010)
By 2020 mental disorders are expected to be second only to heart disease as a leading source of disease (World Health Organisation)

13. WHY NOW?
Mental and physical health is under pressure in current world:
Pace of change
Current economic climate
Greater expectations – more for less
Technology
Stress & burn out on the increase
Presenteeism on the increase
Return on investment

14. Strengths related to RESILIENCE
Being in charge of our emotions
Create thinking time
Analyzing the cause of problems
Maintaining realistic optimism
Having empathy for others
Believing in our own competence
Reaching out
Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte
(2003)The Resilience Factor

15. RESILIENCE is better for you RESILIENCE MAKES SENSE

16. 3. RESILIENCE: where does it come from
3. RESILIENCE: where does it come from? Are we born with resilience or is it acquired?
Genetic make-up – DNA (NATURE)
Early experiences and thought/emotions pathways (NURTURE)
‘Risk’ factors are cumulative
Transition points are both threats and opportunities
Acute stresses are usually less harmful than chronic ones
Building our strengths or assets

17. 4. RESILIENCE: How much have you got
4. RESILIENCE: How much have you got? We are all different KNOW YOURSELF

18. Have you got RESILIENCE?
ASSESSING YOUR RESILIENCE
Questionnaires and Tests
Resilience Scale Questionnaire (RSQ)
Nicholson McBride Resilience Questionnaire (NMRQ)
Resilience Assessment Questionnaire (RAQ8)

19. 5. RESILIENCE: How can you build some more and stay mentally healthy?
KNOW YOURSELF
‘Self awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.’    
Stephen Covey
2. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS

20. KNOW YOURSELF
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  ― C.G. Jung

21. KNOW YOURSELF Some reflections on our brains
The brain is like an iceberg
The brain has pathways

22. The brain has learnt to be ‘on’ and ‘off’ …and when, why, how much?

23. The brain has learnt ‘coping strategies’
Cycles of ‘Coping’
Cycles of ‘Addiction’

24. The brain is capable of change NEUROPLASTICITY

25. KNOWING YOURSELF
Physically
Mentally
Emotionally
Spiritually
Socially?

26. KNOW YOURSELF - understanding flight, flight (or freeze) FOR YOU defend protect escape perform achieve

27. KNOW YOURSELF: Know your thinking styles..what influences your thinking? The Power of our Perceptions
Unhelpful thinking habits that are automatic
Core beliefs about ourselves and the world.
(Rules, demands, assumptions)
Emotional and physical well being
Style of explaining things a 27 27

28. Ten Common Unhelpful Thinking Habits
All or nothing thinking
Jumping to conclusions
Over-generalising
Making a mountain out of a molehill
Emotional reasoning
Should Statements
Taking things personally
Wishful thinking
Mental filter - discounting the positive
Have we learned to view life and every day situations with negative goggles on?

29. Emotions, feeling words
Trigger(s)
Emotions, feeling words
Thoughts, images, memories
Behaviours
Physical Sensations
KNOW YOURSELF: The Continuous Circle
**On this slide click to reveal the trigger
Points to make: Our brains do not know the difference between a real situation and thinking about and/or imagining a situation. It responds in the same way.
There is a fifth aspect to this model which includes emotional Triggers. We all have emotional triggers. Triggers can be defined as: the events that cause emotions and the four aspects of emotional experience; namely emotions/feelings, thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviours.
Triggers can come from an external source i.e. events and situations that happen to us such as having work deadlines and an argument with a family member during the same period of time, and then something relatively small such as shopping in a busy supermarket can be the last straw.
Triggers also come from an internal source i.e. we may be lying in bed at night and a worrying thought pops into our mind about work the next day such as 'I'm not going to be able to meet that deadline tomorrow and my manager will be angry with me'.

30. The Continuous Circle Behaviours Triggers
Work deadlines, arguments with family members, busy supermarket
Emotions, feeling words
Stressed
Overwhelmed
Irritable
The Continuous Circle
Thoughts, images, memories
“This is too much – I can’t cope”
“It’s unfair – someone should be helping me”
“I can’t do this, others are better than me”
Physical Sensations
Tense muscles
Racing heart
Shallow breathing
** slow reveal of each section
The following are examples of a potential external and internal source of stress:
External source – Sample Scenario
You are actually at work attempting to meet a few deadlines at the same time, and your manager wants to see you – this is likely to trigger stressful feelings, thoughts, physical sensations and behaviours.
Internal source - (i.e. a thought, memory and/or image) – Sample Scenario
Later that day you are lying in bed trying to get to sleep and a thought pops into your mind about the stressful day you have just had, and you start to worry about work tomorrow. Worrying thoughts can also trigger stressful feelings, physical sensations and behaviours, even though you are actually lying in bed and not in a stressful situation.
The scenario below demonstrates how our thoughts can act as an internal trigger and before we know it, we can find ourselves going around the Continuous Circle.
of each circle and corresponding arrow
Behaviours
Start lots but can’t finish
Unable to settle, constantly busy, rushing about
Arguing, shouting

31. KNOW YOURSELF: Know your ‘coping strategies’
Cycles of ‘Coping’
Cycles of ‘Addiction’

32. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Physical

33. PRACTICE -CHANGE- EMBED
BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools -Focus on the Mental Altering YOUR reactions (CBT approaches) Change Thinking Habits and Develop New Skills
Catch that unhelpful, initial reaction. NOTICE and NAME
Putting on the brakes. Stopping that chain of unhelpful self talk STOP
Create thinking time. Examine what is really going on TIME OUT
Being flexible and creative in your thinking OUTSIDE THE BOX
Challenging negative thinking TURN IT ROUND
Substitute more ‘reasonable’ thinking
PRACTICE -CHANGE- EMBED 33

34. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Mental Freeze-Frame: TIME OUT AND RE-FRAME
Write down a brief description of something in work that is a stress or an issue for you at the moment.
Recognise the stressful feeling and write down how that issue makes you feel.
Press the pause button.
Shift your focus breath rhythmically In for 5 seconds, out for 5 seconds.
Ask what would be a more efficient and effective response to the situation.
Write down the first thoughts, words or ideas that occur to you on your worksheet
Purpose: To teach the steps of FF.
Do not need to remember the steps, you will be talked through them.
Seems mechanical at first but soon becomes second nature, analogy is learning to drive
Step 1 is hardest, why?
Stress is insidious and usually goes unnoticed.
Someone pushes our buttons we get sucked in immediately.
As though your life was a video loop, push the pause button, “freeze that frame”.
Not catatonic, pause the mental turmoil just for a moment.
Shift attention.
Many behavioural techniques involve an attention shift.
Shift to mantra / sound/ breathing / nostril
We suggest shift to the heart, why?
Body main power station with power to change the physiology.
Where most people access positive feelings.
Where feel negative feelings? - stomach, positive not in amygdala but heart.
Step 3 re-experience a feeling, not a thought, not an image, not a relaxation.
Imaginary feeling or real feeling.
Then ask self what is a “MORE EFFICIENT RESPONSE,, ONE THAT MAKES MORE SENSE, IS HEALTHIER FOR ME”? 21 34 8

35. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Mental
Ease the mind
Relax the mind
Absorb the mind
Sleep well

36. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Emotional Using positive emotions in the midst of stress
1. Notice positive things
2. Express these positive things
3. Gratitude
4. Mindfulness
5. Positive rethinking
6. Focus on your strengths
7. Attainable goals
8. Acts of kindness 36 36

37. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Emotional
Build Emotional Intelligence and Tolerance
Visualisation
Mindfulness
Journalling

38. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Social

39. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools Focus on the Spiritual

40. BUILD NEW PATHWAYS Wellness Tools – Self Care Focus on all of you – HOLISTICALLY The Oxygen Mask Principle . 40 40

41. What keeps us Well and Resilient? Holistically
Your state of physical health
Your support network
Your sense of control
Your attitude and outlook
Your ability to deal
with your emotions and
thoughts
Your knowledge and preparation
Your coping mechanisms

42. What keeps us Well and Resilient
What keeps us Well and Resilient? At Work ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ (Drucker)
Raising Awareness
Setting values and boundaries
Getting senior management on board
Work/life balance – taking breaks, rest, environment
No long hours!!
Time to Change campaign
MH Champions
Invite speakers
Sponsor a charity

43. Wellness Tools at Work

44. Relationships in the Workplace Why are these so important?
Motivation
Co-operation
Benefits of teamwork
Support and de-briefing
More time, energy and resources for key tasks
Career progression
Mentoring and learning
Creativity and talent

45. Leisure
what is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this is if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. 
William Henry Davies