Friday 3rd September 2021
Thank you for attending the webinar on Friday last week. I hope you found it helpful, insightful and enjoyable.
The subject of resilience and wellbeing is a complex one which is continually evolving with more research and opinion. Our present position is probably best described as "if it's not broken don't try and fix it". In other words, if you feel you are responding well to life's stressors, sleeping well and have good levels of enjoyment from life and work then perhaps it's best to not change too much. If, however, some of the stressors overwhelm you from time-to-time, you seem to have no time for regular movement, work/life balance feels out of kilter, or sleep quality is not great then maybe it's worth tweaking something.
Our objective, therefore, is to provide you with a framework, robustly researched and tested, within which you can explore your own self-awareness, habits and personal development. If you can take a few small steps to understand this model of resilience it can have enormous benefits to your energy, performance and wellbeing. The framework is grounded in the neurophysiology of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which, when functioning well, provides us with self-regulating mechanisms to adapt through stress to become more resilient. The polar bear shaking and convulsing and then falling asleep is an example of these self-regulating mechanisms at work. Crying is much the same for us...but there are other ways to self-regulate. Deep restful sleep is another self-regulating mechanism. So, a great place to start for most of us is having some honest reflection about whether or not we can improve the quality of our sleep.
The chronic accumulation of stress, or traumatic incidents/episodes of stress, can cause the ANS to become dysregulated. In simple terms we lose our capacity to not only process stress (like the polar bear) but also to adapt and grow/become more resilient. Ultimately this will hinder and undermine performance at work, home, social life and deplete our energy. It can be experienced in many complex and subtle ways. Today's environmental stressors often cause a relentless sense of being on the go...so even if our stressors are not too bad we can find ourselves unconsciously in the sympathetic branch (fight and flight - energy burning) for too long which results in unnecessarily levels of fatigue. So, even at the mild end of the spectrum we need to be aware of the wellbeing risks of prolonged fatigue and not enjoying sufficient rest, sleep and recovery.
A central message is to reflect on the recovery side of the equation:
stress + recovery = resilience
We will always experience stress - that is part of life. However, it can be successfully processed and harnessed for positive growth if we understand how to recover effectively. This is explained in more detail in the link you will find below.
If anyone wants signposting to more in-depth reading on any aspect of what you have listened to, please don't hesitate to ask. There isn't one book which pulls all our content together but there are great specialists out there on parts of it. We have compiled our own resources to try and help and those relevant to the presentation are included below.
resilience slide presentation
a 90 second read on resilience which attempts to fill in some of the commentary that is delivered with the slide deck
Click the buttons below to view:
If anyone wishes for more specific signposting please do not hesitate to email jo@7futures.com and we'll get back to you asap.
best wishes
Mark
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© 2012 7Futures Ltd. Please note that at 7Futures, our role is to help educate and encourage our clients to take positive responsibility for their wellbeing. We are not medical doctors and are not able to offer individual medical advice. We always recommend you should discuss with your GP or other medical professional before making any changes you hope will impact your wellbeing, or that of your current/future family. 7Futures Ltd offers generic information which is for educational purposes only. The information we provided is not a prescription system and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. As such our materials, videos products and communications are for general information purposes only and should not be read as a personal recommendation for specific changes in lifestyle behaviour, nutrition, or exercise. Please click here for a clear description of our services and the relationship with you as a client. You should not participate in any of our services until you have studied this link...it is for your benefit.