Hello, I'm so pleased that you have signed into taking this module, strategies to optimize resilience. I speak to how our resilience can be challenged, especially during this difficult times. A year ago, we started with the pandemic. If you're taking this course at a later time it would be, you'd probably be, it would be than a year and a half, or maybe two years later. But, we could either be, we'll see the residual effects of the pandemic, and it may have impact us negatively or others around us. So, the important thing is that I'm going to provide you sustainable coping strategies to optimize your resilience today, and for future challenges. And we're also going to look at where we could be lacking in resilience, we're going to be doing a resiliency quiz, and you're going to learn about tools to boost your resilience. We're going to play trivia as well, and I'm going to provide you a few tools and resources to optimize resilience. So, what is resilience? Resilience is the capacity to bounce back and respond to pressure, unpredictability, or adversity in an adaptive and effective manner that leads to learning and positive outcomes. What are issues challenging our resilience? So, some of us may be dealing with job insecurities, difficulty balancing work, school, family, life, finding employment, social isolation, illness or chronic health condition, anxiety, prolonged stress, constant worry, sleeping difficulty, neglected our diet, or burnout. An important takeaway from this course is to remember that you are resilient. In stressful situations, people often overestimate how bad the situation can get, but underestimate how well they will be able to cope. We are resilient, we have that within us, from a strength based perspective, I often say to people that you have your inner strength. And I often ask them to call on that, or to tell me things they've done in the past to cope with other challenges, or similar challenges. And more than I never, people are giving me many examples, some of which I've adopted or learn from. It's very important for us to use and sustain these positive coping strategies in challenging times. We sometimes need the reminder though, because when we feel stress, or worry, or anxious it's difficult to have a resilient mindset. So let's look at these definitions. So worry, it relates nagging, uneasiness, and perceived danger according to Psychology Today, or it can be thought of as the cognitive component of anxiety. And for anxiety, it is defined as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worry pot, and physical changes like increased blood pressure according to American Psychological Association. And for stress, it is a normal response to situational pressure or demands, and it is part of everyday life. According to CMHA, it comes from both the good and bad things that happen to us. Worry sets in when we're unable to handle difficulties, then we feel stress. So how do we self-care and prevent stress, worry, and anxiety? Let's start with health check. So, important tool for self management is self-checking. And, here I am asking how you're doing? In the past week, how stressed or worried have you been on a scale of 1-10? So for one, is there you're not stressed forward at all, in 10, is that you're extremely worried and stress, or stressed. And then for connectedness, how connected do you feel in your relationships? Where one, is that you're not connected at all, and 10 is that you're rich in social connections, so it would be the other extreme. So think about these two, and then as you go through the scores, think of the different things you may need to do to help and modify these numbers. So if you're fine that you're scoring eight or seven, interest or worry, you may want to reduce that to six or five using some of these tools, or be reminded of them and reincorporate them back into your life. And there are many groups online now, some are spiritual groups. I'm part of Laughter Yoga online, and I'm also part of virtual choir, so you can Google and find different things you can do to help you stay connected. How resilient are you? So this is another self check, you're going to take this resiliency quiz. So, I may not be able to walk you through all of it, just to manage the timeframe of the course, but you can take time and answer these questions. It's 1-10, so if you go through and answer this, you could put the course on pause while you answer this, and you're going to see where you're at. So if you're scoring low, it will say you are scoring a developing level or resilience. Your score indicates that although you may not always feel at the mercy of events, you would in fact benefit significantly from developing aspects of your behavior. And here, is where you're going to find 10 steps that will help you become more resilient. So you see it says, visualize success, money stress, improve decision making, and then on the other pages it's giving you many tips and tools to make this happen. So you're going to walk away with a wealth of information, some of it you know already. If we move on to the next slide here, I'm giving you a worry jar, and Dr Stephanie Margolese said that you can set specific time to worry. And many things will worry us, if we look at even physical constraints that we are faced with in a pandemic. Or even once a pandemic subside, we'll still have some restrictions, and some of that is exhausting. And it impacts on our ability to exercise as we have closures. And it affects our diet because then those who are interconnected when we also don't have access to the things we need. And we are also maybe we have become ill or have other restrictions in our life, it impacts on us and we worry about any and everything as well. And there's also fear of the unknown, and we are impacted, and the worry jar can help us. We have optimal sleep health here, so two of the physician who developed this infographic, I work with them Dr Howard, Dr Singh. And they also share this link that you can look at the article that's associated with this infographic. And there are many things that are provided here, you can do during the day, one to two hours before bed or at bedtime. So say if you take at bedtime, here you want to keep your bedroom worry-free, so that's going back to the worry jar. You can use a journal as well to identify what's on your mind. Name it, write it down, and this will also help you sometimes to strategize, prioritize, or just the park it, take it off your mind. And they also provide tips for interventions. So if you say here it says lifestyle modification, so that could mean you may want to take on a bit more movement. And if you took these refresh from stress course, we talk about movement with music. If you incorporate that in your our daily life, it's going to help your mind, body, and spirit. We also have here a hit, it said you can take the cognitive behavioral therapy, and you can look at many tips online about cognitive behavioral therapy, and there are many courses that you can take. Because it helps you to shift your thinking, and for the most part, move to a more positive mindset, and that is where you are going to maintain optimism. And we have the medication bottle here popping out and they want us to try to avoid that it speaks to doing things during the day like exercise, taking the hot bath, and so on, lots to learn here. And then we have another important tool. This is a portal, feel resourceful portal that want us to get connected to our mental health, and get substance you support. We may not be struggling but we may have loved ones in our life that can benefit here, and they want us to get connected to mental health and substance. You support resources and counseling with a mental health professional. And here you can access the service 24/7, there's no fees ever, and everyone can use this resource. According to this portal, it says that mental health is a journey, not a destination. So we want to access support and track our progress, because it has a self assessment tool. So here you go, having another self assessment to see where your mental health is at. So now it's time for trivia game. So for this one, you're going to answer some questions. So let's look at this question, experiencing long term stress is not harmful for you, true or false. Well, that is false of course, because severe or chronic stress can result in increased risk of variety of diseases like heart disease, stroke, or depression. Name two benefits of stretches. So you can do stretch to help relief tension, it decrease stress, it increase energy, so when you do these stretches it helps you in many different ways. What are three ways to prepare for a good night's sleep? Well, there's lots of tips there on the infographic, and here I threw in a few from there. And speak to avoiding caffeine, getting sunlight, and increase and taking an exercise, and taking shower about before bed. Drinking coffee when you are feeling drowsy will help you stay alert. That is no, because caffeine can help you to stay awake but will not increase your level of alertness. If you're not tired, you will not, you will still fall asleep, because sleep is not voluntary. Name three things that bring you joy. I can do this one so easily, but unfortunately not everyone can. But I want you to think of the many things that we can do that bring us joy like doing the gratitude practice. Go to my refresh from stress module where I speak to movement with music, and many more you can do. You may already have things you do, you call your loved ones, you play the game online, you can do virtual coloring now join, acquire. So many things you can do virtually even though we may still be on the restrictions and shut downs, but please build your list of things for joy as it help our mind, body, spirit. And it's so important for life, for us to have joy in our life. Do you engage in any practice during special situations to check in with yourself? Think about that. Deep breathing, so I did the deep breathing in the laughter yoga module. If you haven't done that already, please check that out. Deep breathing is so important for us, as deep breathing helps to counteract stress, as it is a physical reaction, I also mentioned that in the refresh from stress course. Going for walks, using the worry jar, that's important, it's going to help us sleep better as well, and listening to music. Name three ways that stress impacts your physical help. Think about that. Overeating, headaches, and tense muscles, and many more. Relaxation helps us manage stress, true or false. True, of course, relaxation calms the body and the mind, thus relieving the science and symptoms of stress. And the very last question here is, after working a night shift, having a high protein meal before bed helps us sleep better. Well, for this one I learned, because I would have said true, but the answer is false. Try to avoid large amount of high protein food before going to bed. Protein raises your body temperature and increases energy and alertness. Thank you. So keep in mind that you can do regular self track, as this is a critical component of self management. And, it's going to help us build our resilience when we manage our stress, anxiety, worry, or help to combat the difficulties that we maybe faced that is challenging our resilience. So we want to use those tools from the resiliency quiz to build us up and help us to understand where we're lacking in resilience. And boosts our self as we go through that tool, and use the Wellness Together Canada, they have lots of resources there as well. And connect if you're feeling disconnected. And also remember to use a worry jar. Thank you.
