Why Emotional Resilience Is Powerful Medicine
Will Your Thrive or Survive?
In today’s turbulent times, that answer ultimately depends on your Emotional Resilience.
Emotional Resilience is your ability to cope with the uncertainty, discomfort and trauma that are part of life without being paralyzed by fear and overwhelm. Your quality of emotional resilience determines your tolerance for difficult situations and your ability to manage your emotions and reactions. It’s the practice of reframing your perspective and believing that there’s something to gain from difficulty.
Emotional Eating?
Sweet Cravings?
Anxiety?
Sleeplessness?
Constipation, Belly Bloat?
Fatigue, Low Energy?
These are all signs that your body could benefit from more Emotional Resilience.
Emotional Resilience affects your ability to weather the health derailing effects of stress, so it really can be the most significant determinant in your health.
Prolonged psycho-emotional stress de-regulates cortisol levels in the body and promotes chronic inflammation, the root cause of most disease.
The good news is emotional resilience is not a fixed characteristic, but rather something that we are all capable of strengthening.
Building it requires you to be intentional about staying out of survival physiology and adopting self care practices designed to reduce the “fight, flight, freeze” response in the body.
We can do this by prioritizing the health of our central nervous system by how we eat, sleep, move our bodies and calm our busy minds.
#1 How We Eat: The cells, tissues and organs that make up our nervous system require the proper fuel from foods high in B Complex Vitamins, Vitamins C,E, magnesium and omega 3 fatty acids. Leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, seeds and beans – in short, lots of plant centered eating.
#2 How We Sleep: Proper sleep is equally essential for your emotional health as it is for your cognitive functioning. Sleep deprivation affects the part of brain involved in emotional regulation so when your’re short on sleep you’re setup to be be more stressed and reactive.
#3 How We Move: Your body needs to move everyday. Exercise is literally a powerful “drug”. Getting your heart rate up, releases stress chemicals and generates endorphins. Regular exercise conditions your body to adapt to stress both physically and mentally.
#4 Calm Our Mind: Mindfulness meditation, yoga, conscious breathing, prayer; such contemplative practices are essential for building emotional resilience. They cultivate the healing relaxation response in our nervous system, bringing our mind and body back to a state of neutrality. We learn to activate the higher centers of our brain responsible for seeing the big picture with calmness and clarity. They teach us how to move through tough times with self compassion and acceptance.
