‘Winter is coming’ – I may have got your attention with a GOT reference, but that’s also what used to be said of the NHS of course. No longer – the pressures on us and the system in general now seem to be all year round.
So – how do we cope?
The answer often bandied around is to be resilient – but what is resilience, how can it help us and why do we need to know about resilience? That’s the theme of our next #Physiotalk on Monday night at 8pm GMT on 13th November
What?
The dictionary definition is ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties’ but Karen Middleton in her 2014 blog posting suggested it was ‘about being able to adapt to stress and adversity; to bounce back, to keep going even when things are tough and to start again when things go wrong’.
Why?
Resilient people tend to maintain a more positive outlook and cope with stress more effectively. Resilient teams often adapt better to the constant change that seems to be a feature of all our working lives. Resilient teams are supportive and productive in the face of uncertainty and changing demands. They work together to support each other rather than pull in different directions. All these things can only be positives in our pressurised working environments – but what if we are not resilient. What then?
How?
So – how can we be resilient or show resilience? A quick search on the internet shows a host of ways to increase your resilience and cope better with stress. There may be no ‘right’ way to build resilience but Karen Middleton suggests that some things that may help are keeping a sense of proportion, delegation and managing stress.
Its also important to recognise that its ‘OK to be not OK’ – as Teresa Chinn from WeNurses explores in her blog ‘The problem with resilience’ Is it better to talk about support and self care? How can we better look after our own health in order to manage our work and workload?
Questions
The questions we are going to be exploring during the chat include:
- What does resilience mean to you?
- Why is it important to be resilient – as an individual or as a team
- What if we feel that we are not resilient – what then?
- What have you done to increase your ability to be resilient
- How have you improved the resilience of your teams
Pre-chat resources
Health Education England information
Take the resilience challenge!
Post chat
