What is resilience?
Work is a large part of most people’s lives and frequently one of the most stressful. Our previous blogs on workplace mental health and compassion fatigue have highlighted the epidemic of workplace stress. Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from stress, failures and set-backs and is an essential part of coping with the demands of the modern workplace. Resilience is made up of work-related behaviours, attitudes and the support systems in place. Resilience in the workplace can be developed by learning new skills, however, it is also important to note that resilience only goes so far: it is also important to address the stressors at work, including a lack of managerial support, poor facilities or an unmanageable workload. Assertiveness skills may be important to address these issues and can be developed during therapy sessions at Morency.
Five ways to boost your workplace resilience
To build your workplace resilience try the following strategies:
- Maintain boundaries: as discussed in our previous blog on compassion fatigue it is important to maintain boundaries at work. This means finishing work on time, saying no to tasks that aren’t your responsibility, doing something non-work related at lunch time and taking mini-breaks throughout the day.
- Practice mindfulness: mindfulness is a growing trend and help increase focus and productivity while decreasing stress. Mindfulness can include breathing exercises, sensory focus exercises and meditation. A basic mindfulness exercise that can be done in the workplace is to focus on your breathing: breathe in through your nose for a count of four, hold for four and breathe out through your mouth for a count of four, then repeat.
- Develop compassion: compassion both for others and for ourselves is an important part of developing resilience. Compassion includes the arts of forgiveness, growth mindedness and gratitude.
- Improve emotional regulation skills: sometimes emotions can become so overwhelming they are difficult to decipher and manage. Emotional regulation skills include being able to identify the specific emotions you are feeling, understanding where they came from and use positive coping strategies such as talking to someone and doing something you enjoy and find relaxing. On the other hand, unhelpful coping strategies include shouting, passive aggressive behaviours and avoidance.
- Be solution-focused: to be resilient it is important to set realistic goals, break tasks down into manageable chunks and focus on positive solutions.
Seeing support for resilience
The above strategies can be tried alone at home to increase resilience, however, if workplace stress is becoming unmanageable it may be helpful to seek support. Each of the strategies above can be discussed, developed and extended while engaging in Morency therapy sessions. In addition, a Morency therapist could help you to explore where your workplace stress and reduced resilience is originating from.
If you would like to discuss developing resilience then call Dr Julie Hannan now on 07530 854530. In addition, Dr Julie Hannan specialises in Midlife issues and more information can be found at www.drjuliehannan.com.