Understanding Resilience and Mental Wellbeing

To understand the difference between resilience and well-being it is important to understand the meaning of both. Resilience means the ability to adapt or recover easily from a change. Mental well-being means a state of mind that an individual build, which helps in realizing their capacity to cope with a normal stressful life, how productively he/she can work, and how much contribution they can give to a community. Resilience is directly related to mental well-being; resilience can be used as a backup when people face bad luck or try to improve their mental health (Mortazavi & Yarolahi, 2015). It is people’s mindsets that differ resilience from mental well-being, even though many applications are similar. A person with mental well-being works better in perfect situations and if they feel unwell or stressed they get uncomfortable and hopeless. While any person having resilience believes that up and downs are part of life and they try to get back to the normal situation (Gray, 2018). Resilience means the capacity to adapt and come back quickly at the time of change, challenges, setbacks, or stress. Good thing is that it can be learned as it only requires enhancing ideas, behaviors, and actions that help in recovering from a difficult situation in life. As per Irene Rosenberg Javors a psychotherapist in New York City there are various ways through which can help in developing strategies for resilience skills which include the following

Make time for yourself- Try to find your feelings and emotions and make efforts on those things which make you happy. Exercise regularly as exercising has been proved as a natural painkiller. Doing this kind of activity helps in keeping your body and mind strong and helps deal with situations that require resilience.

Set goals- Having goals helps in staying focused on something other than events that may cause a situation like stress, anxiety, or depression. The more an individual practices goal setting the more resilient a person can become as it gives them the power to have control over different situations.

Learn to relax- Try to maintain a good sleep routine, trying out new physical techniques like meditation or deep breathing. It helps in keeping your mind calm and improves the ability to deal with the challenges that you face in day-to-day life. This will lead to giving a sense of satisfaction with your life, reduces anxiety and depression

The Importance of Resilience for Mental Health

Be flexible- Even though a carefully made plan needs amendment therefore it is important to make flexible plans, flexible plans deal with situation that goes beyond expectations as being flexible helps to learn how to positively manage the reaction and have an optimistic mindset(Riopel, 2022).

References

Mortazavi, N. S. & Yarolahi, N. A., 2015. Meta-analysis of the relationship between resilience and mental health. Meta-analysis of the relationship between resilience and mental health. Journal of Fundamentals of Mental Health, 17 (3). pp. 103-108., 17(3), pp. 103-108.

Gray, R., 2018. medium.com. [Online]
Available at: https://medium.com/@rowancsgray/the-difference-between-wellbeing-and-resilience-d670c5a84e6e
[Accessed 16 March 2022].

Riopel, L., 2022. PositivePsychology. [Online]
Available at: https://positivepsychology.com/resilience-skills/
[Accessed 16 March 2022].

(Health and mental wellbeing, 2019)

References

BMC public health, 2022. BMC public health. [Online]
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Health and mental wellbeing, 2019. Examples of factors affecting wellbeing. [Online]
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[Accessed 16 March 2022].

Most people use “feelings” and “emotions” interchangeably, even though both are human traits but do have some differences between them. To know the difference, it is important to understand what does both means. Let us first understand what exactly emotions are, Emotions mean instant responses that emerge before the stimuli. Examples are love, hate, joy, sorrow, and fear. On the other hand, feelings are human responses to emotions. For example, the sight of the tiger can be amusing to someone and on the other hand, can be dreadful to others.  Therefore, we can say that emotions and feelings are different from one another as emotions are generated unknowingly while feelings are a deliberate form of emotions. We can also say that emotions are instant responses while feelings are wilfully studying the situation, however feelings and emotions cannot occur one way. There is no emotion without feelings and vice-versa (Gonalez, 2021). In this case, different feelings were felt by Hubert because of his wife’s illness. Rudeness, impatience, love, and affection.

In the given case, Hubert was expressing both negative and positive emotions and feelings, like taking due care of his wife, working full time in a local garage, getting impatient with his children, and being rude to customers. Life is up and down, therefore, we cannot lose hope because of some miss happenings. Different strategies can help a person in managing feelings and emotions in different situations Try to smile and make others feel good and try to express your feelings rather than forcing your emotions, take deep breaths before reacting to anything (Langley Group, 2022). Accept the situation, although it is challenging it helps in improving with time, try to understand that both emotions are equally important just do not lose hope (MHA, 2022). Hubert had expressed different positive and negative emotions in this situation, positive emotions like taking care of his wife and children and working all day and night, negative like impatient with his children, and redness to customers.

Developing Resilience Skills

Two different strategies which can be used by Hubert to manage his emotions and feelings are as follow: –

Look at the impact of your feelings and emotions- Intentional emotions are not bad at all but it is important to have a look at emotions and feelings to know the impact. There are certain reasons why sometimes emotions and feelings get out of hand like family conflict, physical and emotional outbursts, and difficulty in relating to others. As in the given case study, because of the family situation, Hubert was facing certain emotional and feeling outbursts. Therefore, if he looks out at the impact of his feelings and emotions he can build a better relationship and can understand what exactly he wants and what he does not want.

Know when to express yourself-   Different emotions have different ways of expression sometimes it is ok to scream in any situation but sometimes it is not ok to scream at your boss. Therefore, it is important to know the situation and to know when it is ok to scream and when to sit down with that emotion and feeling for quite some time. Knowing to express emotions will help Hubert to lead a happy and healthier life and improves their ability to make a decision (Raypole, 2020).

It is normal to feel stressed sometime but making it a part of life can lead to some issues like sleeping problems, headaches, and high blood pleasure (Bhandari, 2021). There are certain reasons by which a person can feel stressed like everyday responsibilities due to work or family or because of life-changing events like the death of loved ones, pandemic, or war. Feeling stressed sometimes leads to a change of behavior of an individual or taking of wrong decision. In the given case, Hubert was feeling stressed because of some issues that he was facing, which had changed his behavior that is from a positive to a negative person.

Certain strategies can be used by an individual to maintain well-being like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helps in providing a new outlook of the situation which helps in regaining control and reducing the impact of physical and emotional symptoms and enable the use of a strategy that helps in dealing with the situation more confidently. CBT helps in building confidence to deal with stressful situations, discovering the reason by which a situation of stress arises, and developing a new way of thinking. However, it has certain limitations like it does not treat older, underlying roots that are limiting the capacity to manage the situation related to stress (Klearminds, 2022). Involving yourself in physical activities like 10 minutes of walking or breathing exercise have a huge potential to improve our wellbeing. It helps to reduce the impact of stress or anxiety even it increases self-confidence. However, doing exercise in the right amount is important because too much exercise can cause a lack of sleep and energy (Help Guide, 2021). Another strategy that can be followed is Mindfulness which allows us to become more concerned about feelings and thoughts. It helps in knowing the point when these emotions or feelings are taking control over us (NHS, 2018).beside the great advantage mindfulness has certain limitations like less creativity, false memories, and dissociation. Not only do these strategies help in building up human nature there are different support which we have with us through family, friends, and, but different organizations areas -Individuals are also responsible for supporting mental health in the following ways, Allow them to share how much they want to share. Do not push on anything they didn’t want to tell, listen very carefully to what they are trying to say, try to help them in getting a professional, and talk about self-care with them (Mental Health Foundations, 2022). Organizations are responsible in the following ways- Normalize mental health issues as normal issues, give requisite and mental health friendly approach and interest, care about each other, give training so that everyone working in the team must know basic about mental health. Agencies are responsible in the following ways Different agencies try to offer peer family support and help in finding experts in mental health. Different NGOs are working on the motive to help the mental issue of patients by organizing various activities like laughter exercises, and group tasks (MentalHealth.Gov, 2021).

References

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[Accessed 16 March 2022].

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Available at: https://screening.mhanational.org/content/how-can-i-manage-my-emotions/
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https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/mindfulness/#:~:text=How%20mindfulness%20helps%20mental%20wellbeing,have%20been%20taking%20for%20granted.
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