Resilience is the ability to recover quickly following any stressful circumstance. The part that makes humans the top of the food chain is human adaptability. Humans are known to adapt to several environments explaining why we have people living in China, Australia, The United States, and Brasil. For me, I required resilience following my diagnosis and had to adapt to a completely different lifestyle. I overcome constant difficulties throughout my day and try to make the best of my situation. As people with muscular dystrophy, resilience is crucial to having an optimistic mindset, enjoying life, and trying to improve your state as much as you can. Resilience is evident through the mental sphere and the physical realm as people need to recover after experiencing physical stresses throughout the day. For this blog, I wanted to give some tips for enhancing resilience and better handling various situations.
YLM Sports Science created an image they call “Tips For Developing Resilience during the Quarantine” that gives fantastic tips for developing resilience and preparing your stress in the future. Following negative emotions, it is essential to accept and process these emotions. In the future, you will be better able to manage these emotions. Having an awareness of your feelings prevents you from being confused, leading to more stress within you. Remembering the things that help you overcome the emotions to utilize the same techniques the next time you are angry or sad. Over time, you will be able to process these emotions more efficiently, preventing them from having an extensive impact on your life. The next tip is to recognize the social support systems around you. Whenever I am sad, I spend most of my time speaking to friends, receiving advice from close family, having my massage and physical therapists who are great, and having a psychologist if the situation is that terrible. However, you need to be able to deal with these emotions on your own and not rely too much on others’ help. Even if people cannot speak to you, be happy that you can talk to people in the first place.
The third tip is to be diligent in your personal development. Whenever something terrible happens, pick up a new hobby and be a part of new experiences. You could expand your skills by taking new courses or speaking with different people. Immerse yourself in your work to keep your mind busy. Another practical approach is to plan towards the future as it generates hope, which can help you feel more optimistic. I occasionally read books, watch movies, watch television, or complete activities that I find entertaining. Expand your horizons by speaking to different people and engaging in short positive engagement with strangers you meet on the street. Subsequently, you need to be aware of internal and external motivations. Internal motivations describe the enjoyment of the activity, while external ones explain the reward that comes from completing the activity. It would help if you also believed that your decisions are active choices and spur from free will instead of viewing them as a sacrifice. Every moment should have a purpose because it reminds you that you are in control of your life.
However, it would help if you reflected on what you can control and what you cannot control. You can certainly control what you do with your life, but you cannot do the same for other people. It is impossible to force complete control over someone so refrain from blaming yourself if something does not go as planned. If you want to be happy, do something that makes you happy. If you wish to speak to a friend, do not let anything stop you. If you want to workout, DO IT! There are so many things that you can control, so do not allow the things you cannot weigh you down. One of the most critical things is to step back, analyze the numerous perspectives, and find an effective alternative to the situation. Reframing a problem can be the defining factor between helplessness/depression and approaches to improve yourself. A future-oriented perspective is most effective at increasing positive emotions.
The image does not mention the need for you to be at your optimal state to encourage resilience. Having a healthy amount of sleep provides foundations towards adaptability. Ensure that you do adequate amounts of exercise as the hormone systems in your body reduce stress and become more efficient at dealing with large amounts of stress. Taking time to breathe, whether meditation or lying on a lounge, is an excellent method to enhance resilience. By having a healthy diet, you have the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that enable you to deal with anything. I use the same strategies listed in this blog, so I hope that these can be beneficial for you. I would argue that resilience is essential for muscular dystrophy people because we experience many diversities relating to the physical and emotional state of individuals. By developing resilience in anybody, they can utilize human adaptation that has been with us for thousands of years.
