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Stress, Mental Health and Resilience
In this
course you will learn that stress is a natural process that can be managed
through awareness and top-down control. You will be introduced to defences,
natural and learned, and that while they are intended to be adaptive and
protect us against injury and harm, maladaptive defences can lead to illness
and suffering. You will discover the magic of neuroplasticity, and that all
individuals have the ability, through consistency of practice, to establish new
neural pathways in favour of making better decisions when encountering stress.
In this paradigm shift, mental illness is not a character flaw; managing our mental
well-being takes skills, building resilience fortifies us with those skills!
Finally, you will be introduced to a practical tool to locate and assess one's
present relationship to stress, manage defences, and mitigate poor mental
health outcomes.
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Resilience and Mental Fitness
This course introduces mental fitness, a proactive and strength-based
approach to building resilience. We will reimagine stress as pressure that when
positively engaged, serves as the counterweight and stimulus for growth. You
will learn how emotional reactions to stress can be positively managed by
developing resilience skills with mental exercises designed specifically to
help stretch, strengthen, and forge new neural connections. We will discover
how individuals' strengths are unique and different, and how awareness and
insight into one's tendencies, makes it possible to take advantage of the magic
of neuroplasticity to rewire your brain and change your behaviour. We will
introduce the 16 resilience factors, associated with psychological skills and
activities, that when exercised and practiced, serve to increase psychological strength,
and enhance mental fitness.