Resilience - 11th July 2023
We hope you found this session helpful and, as promised, we are providing some additional resources for your study and reflection.
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. The framework is grounded in the neurophysiology of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which, when functioning well, provides us with the self-regulating mechanisms to adapt through stress to become more resilient. 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 manage stress 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 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 but it can be successfully managed and harnessed for positive growth if we understand how to recover effectively. This is explained in more detail in the links 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 these are explained further below together with links you can use to access them.
Please contact jo@7futures.com if you have any general enquiries.
PRESENTERS
Mark Davies is the founder of 7Futures and has been consulting in workplace resilience, wellbeing and performance since 2000. He is a resilience coach, an FA coach (working for several years at Leicester City FC) and also a mindfulness teacher. He is the only UK consultant to have completed the USA based MMFT training programme and is supporting the Mindfulness Initiative for the UK Armed Forces. Formerly a CEO of J Rothschild International Assurance with responsibility for their European, Americas and Far Eastern operations, Mark has over 20 years of international financial services experience and a deep understanding of the pressures leaders need to manage. He remains a founding partner in one of the West Midlands most respected nursing care groups which has been providing essential care since 1988.
Nathan is a certified Executive High Performance & Resilience coach. A Double Olympian for Team GB and a sports scientist from one of the worlds leading sports science universities - Loughborough University.
Nathan Douglas
He has lived and breathed high performance during an international career spanning over 22 years at world-class level, showing a wealth of resilience to achieve such longevity. Nathan is twice ranked in the top three in the world and has won two European silver medals in the triple jump. Nathan has been British Champion for a record 8 times. A GB Team Captain, a reward and recognition of his resilience during times of difficulty.
A certified Executive Coach, NLP Practitioner and trained in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy at The Oxford University Mindfulness Centre, he is on a mission to stop people from just functioning and getting by, and to help them flourish and perform at their very best.
Nathan believes in a science led and evidence based holistic approach to high performance and wellbeing. Therefore, looking at the whole person.
RESOURCES
Click the thumbnails below to view our helpful guides that have been compiled by the team:
Recommended reading from Nathan Douglas:
Furthermore, here are our audio links to nervous system/breathing exercises. These exercises can be incredibly useful in helping you protect/build your resilience because they encourage the ANS to work with stress. Please click on the arrow and wait for the audio to begin playing (may take a few seconds). Please read the instructions (click here to read) for the breathing exercises before listening to the downloads. It has important information about the nature of such techniques, the preparation you may find helpful and also safety guidelines for anyone who has experienced trauma/significant stress. If you have experienced significant trauma in your life then you may wish to get in touch to discuss how to proceed with the use of such techniques. We never discuss any such communication with your employer unless you wish us to i.e. we treat your request for support with complete confidentiality and respect.
7Futures Limited is committed to protecting the privacy of your data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018.
To view our current Privacy Notice please click on the link at the bottom of this page. If you have any queries about the content please email jo@7futures.com
© 2012 7Futures Ltd. Registered Office: Laurel Drive, 7 George Fox Lane, Fenny Drayton, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV13 6BE.Registered in England and Wales No. 7945762
© 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.