This week we focus on resilience-enhancing behaviours that support Personal & Business Resilience in Times of Crisis. We wanted to share these particularly in light of the pandemic Covid-19 Coronavirus. These are evidence-based activities that can benefit everyone physically, mentally and spiritually, and are principles we have found beneficial in our own lives.

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The first of these is practicing gratitude. This can take the form, of setting aside time (a few minutes is enough) each day to reflect on a few things for which we’re thankful. And some research suggests that if we include in our lists social activities or something about relationships, the benefit is even greater. Our family tries to do this together every night before bedtime: each of us names three things we’re grateful for that happened in the past 24 hours. It shifts the focus from negative to positive and helps create perspective.

The second resilience-enhancing activity is engaging in daily physical exercise. You might first think of running or swimming, strenuous exercise, which is great but not always feasible. Walking, going up and down the stairs, lifting weights, and just moving about rather than sitting at our desks for hours on end also contribute to a healthier body, mind, and spirit. We would caution against intensive exercise at this time (you know what intense is for you) as this can lead to a reduced immunity.

Thirdly, and equally important, is eating a healthy diet. It’s not always easy to eat right in times of crisis especially if we’re eating ‘on the go’ but if we plan our meals in advance we can choose and prepare nutritious foods, rather than default to quick fix sugary foods in the moment. It does our bodies tremendous good to eat the rainbow foods (foods of different colours) every day, so plan for a rainbow meal each day.

Fourthly, one of the best boosts to our immunity is free, its an activity called sleep. Now exercise and diet can help with the promotion and onset of this, but it’s important you make specific time for quality sleep as a lack of sleep will reduce your immunity. Now we have young kids and are often up in the night with them so understand we can’t always get that perfect night, however put a schedule in place for you and your family to ensure you give yourselves the best opportunity for collective sleep. Just as you set a guard and boundaries around your cash, set a guard and some boundaries around your sleep – the reality is, it’s more valuable.

Another very useful way to build resilience is to develop competence (the skills you need to do your job) and confidence (the knowledge that you can do it). At Digi Life Enabled, we’re committed to providing educational programmes and mentoring to enable you to develop confidence and competence in online digital skills.

If you haven’t already, then check out some of our free video series to get you started by clicking here, or if you have started, and you’d like some 1-2-1 tutorials, then drop us a line at info@digilifeenabled.com to arrange a free call with us. 

In conclusion, one of the best-documented ways to enhance our resilience is to build and use social support. This means finding people in your personal and professional life whom you can talk to about what’s important to you (emotional support) and whom you can ask for help when you need it (instrumental support). We can do this through Skype, Facebook or other social media outlets, or good old phone, written, or in-person contact. Again, it’s been our pleasure to work through a number of work-life issues with our members and we want to reiterate drop us a line at info@digilifeenabled.com if you’d like to schedule a call with us at this time of crisis.

We also want to encourage our members to watch out for vulnerable members of their own communities. The elderly are some of the most vulnerable at this time, many are alone, and many don’t have ‘social media’ accounts to keep abreast of the latest developments or purchase things online. So think what you can do to check in and monitor those individuals at this time, as many will feel the isolation even more at this time.

Finally friends, we wish health and prosperity in the weeks ahead to you and those dear to you.