We recognize that habit-building and good mental health can’t be isolated to just one corner of the internet. Myrth is our favorite tool, but it’s not our only tool. In our regular Recommended Reading series, we’ll share links to articles, books, and other tools that we think you’ll find helpful in your journey.

The process of growth and change can be hard, and anybody seriously undertaking that journey can expect to encounter setbacks. If we’re not prepared for those setbacks and don’t have a plan, they can derail us permanently. That’s why, this week, we’re talking about resilience in our Recommended Reading series. 

1. A Simple Guide for Building Resilience in the Workplace

There’s been a lot of talk about resilience in the news in the last few years, but nobody really talks about how to develop it if you don’t already have it. This five-step guide is a really useful how-to process for anybody who’d like to improve their skill set. Why does that matter? Well, check out this excerpt:

Helping employees build resilience has clear and measurable business outcomes. Highly resilient workers have 46% less perceived stress and are the least susceptible to burnout. Resilience is associated with lower absenteeism, higher job satisfaction, and higher employee engagement. Given the increased productivity and better interpersonal skills of resilient employees, it’s in every company’s best interest to nurture a resilient workforce.

The guide is tailored for use by a boss talking to an employee in the workplace, but honestly, the self-reflection steps listed here are great for use by yourself in any circumstances. 

2. Resilience for College Students Starts at Home

We’ve talked before about the mental health challenges of life on college campuses, but this article comes with some helpful tips to build resilience before heading off to college. They’re concrete, actionable steps, which we’ve found more helpful than vague advice.

The American Psychological Association recommends several ways people can work to build their resilience. The most important ones include:

• Having a strong network of supportive people who will listen to your problems.

• Working toward goals by focusing on small steps. Moving forward toward a solution will remind you that you have control over what’s happening.

• Developing self-confidence. The more you’re able to bounce back from setbacks, the more you’ll know that you’ll be able to do it the next time you face a hurdle.

Again, even though this is tailored toward a specific audience, these tips are great for people of any age. We can all stand to improve our emotional resilience.

3. Leaving the Tech World to Build Emotional Resilience

There are countless stories of rich, successful people who find themselves feeling unfulfilled. There are far fewer stories of those people who walk away from the money and success to seek fulfillment. This is one of those stories.

Learning about crying for example as one of the oldest coping mechanisms we have as humans to deal with stress, realizing I hadn’t cried since I was 12 years old. That understanding of the body, especially from a scientific perspective, changed my journey. I stopped trying to meditate or think my way out of my misery. Instead, I learned to get in touch with my body and the pain held there, including the sadness, the anger, the despair, all of it. And to hold that pain with compassion and often with the presence of another person, a therapist or a good friend. 

If you’ve ever found yourself in a similar situation, you might enjoy this article.

4. Important Brain Facts for Developing Resilience

We often think of our brains as our logical center, and we forget that a lot of what our brains do involves responding to signals from the body and processing irrational things. When we better understand how our brain works, we can better process the information we gather from it. Check out some of the facts in this article:

You might have heard before that stress is “bad” for you. And you might have felt depleted and exhausted after a stressful day and noticed how hard it is on you. From a brain perspective, there’s evidence that being in a prolonged stressful environment changes the chemistry of your brain. And by doing so, it shifts the brain’s resources. To keep the body running, the brain removes and even shrinks areas of your mind that you used for goal setting, being creative, and making decisions.

Our brains are incredible things, but we don’t instinctually understand them just because we live with them. Try using some of this information to use the information it gives you more effectively.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s installment of Recommended Reading! We’ll be back soon with more on mindfulness, minimalism, mental health, and more.

Have you been working to build greater resilience in yourself? What techniques have you found helpful? Drop us a comment!