Article
Resilience Tips - Perform 3 Challenging Tasks Each Morning
By Christopher Shen, Psychologist · 1 April 2020
During this difficult period, it is important to develop a range of strategies and activities to improve our happiness and mental health. A helpful activity to build resilience is to perform 3 challenging tasks in the morning every day - a challenging physical task, reading rapidly, and thinking rapidly.
Tips
At the same time every morning, for about 30 minutes, try to undertake the following activity involving performing three challenging tasks that demand considerable effort and concentration.
- 1.
Engage in a challenging physical task.
For example, please brush your teeth with your wrong hand, or deliberately get changed faster than usual. When we embrace challenging physical tasks - tasks which are moderately stressful - we tend to become more resilient and mentally tough.
- 2.
Read articles or books as rapidly as possible.
Please develop a portfolio of articles and books which you find meaningful and interesting. Then, each morning, attempt to read some excerpts from these articles or books as rapidly as you can. This task alone has been shown to improve mood, perhaps by increasing the levels of dopamine - the reward brain chemical - in a specific circuit in the brain, the mesolimbic pathway.
- 3.
Think as rapidly as possible.
Please identify a set of problems you need to solve. Then, every morning, please brainstorm as many possible answers as you can identify to resolve one of these problems. Your aim is to not identify the most feasible or the most effective solutions but instead identify as many possibilities as you can. This task also improves mood.
Performing this activity each morning - attempting these three challenging tasks - generates two key benefits. Firstly, this sequence of activities instils a sense of routine, which are especially helpful during tumultuous and unpredictable times. When we perceive life as erratic and unpredictable, we will often unhelpfully feel apprehensive and anxious. In contrast, routines instil the sense that life is more predictable and stable, and diminishes these unhelpful feelings. Secondly, after completing this routine for a few weeks, we can maintain effort and motivation over a longer period. Therefore, we do not feel drained as readily. So, we can withstand the challenges of this time.
Adapted from: Shen, C. with Moss, S. (2017). Wrestling with Resilience: A Handbook for Developing Resilience and Mental Toughness. Black Knight Books: Australia.
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