Globally, we have been through an unprecedented amount of change in a short period of time and this has been stressful. Change fatigue, or the general sense of apathy or passive resignation toward changes comes being in a VUCA state - one that is:

• Volatile: quick changes that usually are violent and uncontrollable, virtually impossible to predict their duration. 
• Uncertain: which prevents you from using past experiences and lessons learned to cope.
  
• Complex: which includes significant difficulty in decoding cause-and-effect relationships due to too much data, or not enough which makes finding solutions challenging.
  
• Ambiguous: "unknown unknowns." No precedents exist in most events. We lack clarity, and we don't know what the root cause of our problem usually is. 

The only constant of VUCA reality is swift and unpredictable change. So how can we survive, and hopefully thrive in a VUCA world?

There are there ways to do this. Today we'll address the first one:

1. Develop Resilience by focusing on efficient adaptation to changing conditions. This agility can be developed and trained so you don't react to sudden turns of action with the flight-or-fight response.
2. Re-frame Thinking
3. Hone Learning Agility

According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is both a process and an outcome. Some say resilience is our ability to bounce back. It exists on a spectrum, across time and experience and changes day to day. It comes through practice - mentors, friends, being around people who are more resilient.

It is our ability to decide when we have hit our capacity and need to recharge so we can successfully adapt to difficult or challenging life experiences. This includes developing mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and the ability to adjust to external and internal demands.

Resilience comes from:

• An inner drive
• Observing and imitating those who are resilient
• Practising positive adaptation

Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg identified 7 integral and interrelated components that make up being resilient:

1. Competence is your ability to know how to handle stressful situations effectively.
   
2. Confidence is your belief in one’s own abilities and is rooted in competence.
   
3. Connection is your close ties to friends, family, and community groups that generate a sense of security and sense of belonging.
   
4. Character is your sense of self-worth and confidence rooted in your comfort sticking to your values and demonstrating a caring attitude towards others while contributing to the world.
   
5. Contribution is your ability to make the world a better place because they are in it.
6. Coping includes your social skills and stress reduction skills that enable you to cope more effectively and are better prepared to overcome life’s challenges.
7. Control is your ability to make choices about your decisions and actions so you can bounce back from life’s challenges.

That’s great - but how do you become resilient? Resilience is made up of five pillars: 

1. Self-awareness
2. Mindfulness
3. Self-care
4. Positive relationships 
5. Purpose

One way to shore up each of those pillars, is through ritual. Rituals are ultra-specific step-by-step instructions that are easily repeatable and help you get to a specific outcome. They help support behaviour change, positive habit building, and builds resilience by creating ways for you to practice those 7 C’s - especially control, competence, confidence, character and contribution. They can help to bring a degree of predictability to an uncertain future and have the power to ground and stabilize us, and keep us focused and purposeful.  

The rituals I'm going to share with you come from the evidence based system of yoga. Their therapeutic application to relieve stress, is a form of yoga therapy -  a series of breath, movement and visualization done in a specific order on a daily basis.

Yoga Therapy is a complementary and integrative healthcare practice which promotes  physical, mental and social well being for self-regulation and resilience. It includes

top-down (regulation of attention and setting of intention to decrease psychological stress)  and bottom-up (breathing techniques and movement practices that influence the musculo-skeletal, cardiovascular and nervous system function, immune function and emotional well-being) processes facilitating communication between the brain and body and between the body and the brain.

Here are 3 rituals you can practice:

Practice 1: Mindful Body Scan

NOTE: This practice might not be appropriate if you are experiencing pain or other intense body sensations. Please consult your care provider or book an appointment with me to confirm that this practice is right for you.

Consciously focusing on your body helps you develop deep awareness of your physical sensations and how they relate to your emotions.This information may lead to improved wellness for your physical and mental health. Benefits of this practice include:

1. A 2014 meta-analysis of 47 studies (Goyal, 2014) showed that mindful meditation practices like body scan meditation help decrease anxiety. Reduced anxiety due to increased awareness of where you're holding tension and the capacity to release sensations, improving your resilience and ability to deal with anxiety. 

2. Schultchen, 2019 found that doing a body scan meditation practice for at least eight weeks helps lower cortisol levels which can lower your risk of various problems, including poor sleep, weight gain, difficulty concentrating, a weakened immune system, and high blood pressure.
   

4. Hanson, 2020 found that a consistent body scan practice can improve sleep quality which is important since sleep disturbances may cause serious illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), obesity, depression, and anxiety and in severe or prolonged cases can lead to heart attack and stroke.
   
5. Dydyk, 2020 found that while body scan meditation may not completely stop the pain, it can help change your outlook and thoughts about the pain. You don’t have to do an extended body scan meditation to see the benefits. Even short-term body scan meditations may help with chronic pain. A randomized, controlled study with 55 participants found a 10-minute body scan meditation done in a clinical setting quickly relieved chronic pain in some people (Ussher, 2014).

6. Chand, 2021 found that body scan meditation may help improve self-awareness because they allow you to tune into what you’re feeling rather than just pushing your feelings aside. Self-awareness, or the ability to note your thoughts and feelings without judgment, may increase your overall well-being, possibly even helping you make better decisions (Miriams, 2013).
7. Body scanning activates your parasympathetic nervous system by focusing on the breath and the body. When you breathe you lower the intensity of your anxiety-feeding sympathetic nervous system so you can decrease your tension and become more relaxed and may be better able to cope with stressors in the future. (Gerritsen, 2018).

7. Body scan meditation helps improve your attention, concentration, and focusing skills with the potential to keep your brain sharp as you age (Zanesco, 2018). 

To do the practice:

• Begin by finding a comfortable posture where you happen to be.
• If it feels accessible, you might close your eyes, or soften your gaze.
• Take a moment and notice your breath - the pace, quality and length. If you can, observe without judgment, or changing your breath.
• When you're ready, switch your focus to notice where you body is in space, and how it is supported by the surface that you're on.
• Each time you exhale, notice your body sinking into that surface.
• Perhaps notice that each time you inhale you bring more oxygen into your body.
• When you're ready, switch your focus and notice the sensation in your feet. If they are on a surface notice the weight and pressure, vibration, heat.
• And when you'd like, move your attention up your ankles and legs, noticing sensation, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
• If you can, observe without judgment or the desire to change. If it does come up, acknowledge it and know that you can address it later.
• Then gradually shift your attention to your hips, noticing sensation, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
• When you'd like, gradually shift your attention to your abdomen, maybe feeling how the sensation shifts as you breathe.
• If you can, observe without judgment or the desire to change. If it does come up, acknowledge it and know that you can address it later.
•  And as you'd like, perhaps draw your attention up through your chest. Maybe notice if the sensations here are different as you breathe.
• When you're ready, draw your attention across your collarbones and shoulders. Observing sensation, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
• Then draw your attention down your arms and to your hands. Observing sensation, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
• If you can, observe without judgment or the desire to change. If it does come up, acknowledge it and know that you can address it later.
• When you're ready, maybe shift your attention to your neck and throat. Observing sensation, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
• Then draw your attention to your jaw, face and crown of your head. Observing sensation, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
• If you can, observe without judgment or the desire to change. If it does come up, acknowledge it and know that you can address it later.
• Then notice your whole body present. Take one more breath.
• Be aware of your whole body as best you can. Take a breath. And then when you’re ready, you can open your eyes.

Practice 2: Thoraco-abdominal Breath

NOTE: This practice might not be appropriate if you are experiencing breathing or cardiovascular challenges. Please consult your care provider or book an appointment with me to confirm that this practice is right for you.

In this practice you'll explore breathing into your rib cage, or thorax, and using your abdomen to breathe out. This might feel familiar since it is the basis for almost all meditation or relaxation techniques, which can lower your stress levels, reduce your blood pressure, and regulate other critical bodily processes. It has been known to help manage the symptoms of conditions as wide-ranging as irritable bowel syndrome, depression and anxiety, and sleeplessness

Here are more benefits this type of breathing can have on physical and physiological stress:

• It helps you relax, lowering the harmful effects of the stress hormone cortisol on your body.
• It lowers your heart rate.
• It helps lower your blood pressure.
• It helps you cope with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• It improves your core muscle stability.
• It improves your body’s ability to tolerate intense exercise.
• It lowers your chances of injuring or wearing out your muscles.
• It slows your rate of breathing so that it expends less energy.

One of the biggest benefits of diaphragmatic breathing is reducing stress. To do the practice:

1. Sit or lie down on a comfortable, flat surface.
2. Relax your shoulders, shifting them downward away from the ears.
3. Put a hand on the bottom of your rib cage and a hand on your low abdomen.
4. Without straining or pushing, breathe in through your nose until you can’t take in anymore air.
5. Feel the air moving through your nostrils into the bottom of your rib cage where the lowest part of your lungs are. Feel the expansion through the sides of your ribs, and maybe your back. Your abdomen remains relatively still.
6. Exhale slowly through your nose for 4 seconds, gently contracting your abdomen, drawing your navel inward and upward towards the bottom of your rib cage. 
7. Repeat these steps 5 more times.
8. Inhale through your nose into the bottom of your ribs
9. Exhale through your nose, drawing the low abdomen inward and upward
10. Finally, be quiet and sit or stand like this for a while. Drop your chin to your chest. Softly open your eyes and lift your head.
11. Once you have expanded your awareness back into the space where you are sitting or standing, notice whether there is a shift in your breath and/or your mood.
    

Practice 3: Nadi Shodana

NOTE: This practice might not be appropriate if you are experiencing breathing or cardiovascular challenges. Please consult your care provider or book an appointment with me to confirm that this practice is right for you.

A 2013 study reported that people who tried nasal breathing exercises felt less stressed afterwards. Alternate nostril breathing may help to relax your body and mind, reduce anxiety and promote overall well-being. These benefits, in turn, may help you to be more focused and aware.

You can use this breathing technique to help manage stressors in your daily life. You may also find that practising alternate nostril breathing helps you to be more mindful of the present moment.

Hilary Clinton wrote in her book “What Happened” that she used alternate nostril breathing after her loss of the 2016 United States presidential election to manage stress and anxiety. Alternate nostril breathing may enhance overall health and well-being. It has also been shown to have a positive effect on mental health by reducing stress and anxiety.

In this practice you'll explore breathing to lengthen your exhalation, tone your vagus nerve to modulate your fight/flight response.

• Place your right thumb against your nose.
• Exhale fully and then close the right nostril.
• Inhale through your left nostril.
• Open your right nostril and exhale through it, while closing the left.
• Continue this rotation for 5 minutes, finishing by exhaling through your left nostril.
• Finally, be quiet and sit or stand like this for a while. Drop your chin to your chest. Softly open your eyes and lift your head.
• Once you have expanded your awareness back into the space where you are sitting or standing, notice whether there is a shift in your breath and/or your mood.