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We will look into this in more detail on the next few sections...have a chat with your worker at the end of each section and think about how you can build your resilience...

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Resilience but what is it? Here's 5 ways to build resilience

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This can take practise if it is something we have not done before.
While noticing and identifying our feelings, it can help us to recognise how we feel in our body.
The mind and body are very much related and work together, and what happens in our mind can impact our physical sensations.
For example, you might feel ‘butterflies’ in your stomach, or muscles might tense up (fists can clench when we feel angry), and we can begin to feel hot, and even sweat!
Try to name the way you feel. E.g. “I feel guilty when I say no; I feel anxious when I think of going somewhere new, with new people; I feel sad and lonely when my friends take a long time to reply to me.”
Don’t stuff down or deny these feelings .
We all feel feelings that we wouldn’t want the whole world to know about, and that’s okay; our internal world is very private, feelings are not facts and they are there to tell us more about ourselves and the world around us.
It’s important for us to recognise them and to think about what they are trying to let us know. Giving the feeling a name is far better for us than pretending it doesn’t exist, and holding onto it for so long in silence, eventually we end up erupting.

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Create stress balls using balloons, flour, lentils or rice! You can experiment with the stress balls using one or both hands. Practise squeezing varying the pressure, timing and speed of pressure that suits you.

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How to Make A Stress Ball (Easy Peasy DIY!)

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Imagine you are a turtle walking slowly. Now imagine it begins to rain. Take shelter in your shell by curling up tight for ten seconds. Then, the rain stops and the sun comes back out and you can continue your very slow, relaxed turtle-walk. Continue this a few times, but be sure to finish with the turtle-walk.

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Imagine a feather, how it floats so gently through the air. Then, imagine you are the feather, floating gently for ten seconds.
As you float gently, all of a sudden, you turn into a statue and freeze! Hold this pose.
Then, gradually relax and turn back into a floating feather. Repeat these steps a couple of times, until the final transformation where you turn back into the floating feather and relax.

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Imagine that you’re a sleepy cat that’s just woken up from a restful and recharging nap.
You take a big yawn, a long drawn out meow, followed by a big, full body stretch: arms, legs and back, just like a cat would, additional yawn and meow optional, and then rest.

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This activity helps with muscle relaxation.
Imagine you are standing at a lemon tree with brightly coloured fruit within arms’ reach.
In this imagination, reach up high and pick a lemon each for both hands.
Then, imagine squeezing these lemons, squeezing tightly as if juicing them, squeezing every last drop from the fruit. Then, imagine dropping the fruit skins onto the floor and take a rest – juicing fruit by hand is a lot of work! Repeat this imagination until you have an imaginary glass full of juice.
Once you have squeezed enough imaginary lemon juice to fill your glass, drop them for the final time and shake out your hands. Concentrate on the feeling and relaxing your muscles.

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This exercise encourages deep breathing.
Imagine you are holding a beautiful, sweet smelling flower in your hand, a rose is a good example, but you’re free to imagine any beautiful flower that you like.
In your other hand, imagine you are holding a candle that burns slowly.
Now, imagine you’re bringing the flower up to smell it, breathe in slowly and imagine you’re inhaling the sweet scent of the beautiful flower.
Now, imagine you’re bringing the candle up and breathing out slowly to blow it out. Repeat this a few times.

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Research has shown that music can have a demonstrable impact on the nervous system in helping it relax, particularly ‘rhythm’. Our own body has a natural rhythm, from heart and breathing, to sleep cycle and more, and responds to external sources of rhythm. We can turn our nervous system up or down depending on the beat we put around ourselves.

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When we are going through tough times, we can have the tendency to bottle everything up.
This often results in us holding things in until we explode emotionally and end up being upset, angry, frustrated or in a panic.
Talking to others around us, whether that be a friend, a trusted adult family member or youth worker, letting it out and talking about what is bothering us can help to give us perspective and look at ways to solving our struggles or at least formulating a plan of attack.

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Journaling can be a powerful tool for reducing our stress. Whether it is private outpour of worries, fears or challenges, or writing about positive things, such as the things we are grateful for, or our dreams for the future, writing can be a very positive tool in managing our feelings of all kinds.

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Facing Stress is a part of life – it is there to help us get things done, or deal with things that we need to.
But sometimes, it can get to be a bit much, or more than we can handle. A little bit of stress is important, it pushes us to take action, but too much stress can exhaust us and make us emotionally and mentally vulnerable

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To keep stress in check, we can do a number of things...

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To keep stress in check, we can do a number of things...

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1. Sleeping well.
Sleep is essential to managing stress, and not only this, but managing our overall wellbeing and mental functioning too. It is recommended for teenagers to get 8-10 hours a night, and for 6-12 year olds, they need even more, from 9-12 hours. See our section on sleep hygiene to look at ways to improve sleep quality.

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Exercise is a known stress buster!
Not only does it give a boost to our brain chemicals, it can improve sleep and also be a good opportunity to be social if we engage in team sports.
It is recommended for children and young people to have about an hour of physical activity each day.

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Spending time in green spaces has been shown to improve feelings of stress, whether simply in the garden, the park or further afield.
It’s possible to combine this with exercise and hit two points of stress reduction with one activity

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Making time for fun is important when tackling stress. Whether it’s practising a fun skill, having time to be freely creative or simply enjoying a task for the sake of doing a task, anything that brings you joy is a positive stress-buster.
Also with this, quiet time is super important too.
It’s important to work out your own personal balance between activities that need a great deal of input and others where you have more of a gentle and quiet approach to enjoyment.

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Learning mindfulness and meditative practise can be incredibly positive for our stress levels.
Even better if you’re able to combine it with a quiet activity mentioned above for example, art!
It’s possible for us to apply mindful principles while engaging in something such as a colouring or painting, or even enjoying music.

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Let’s break down the journey together.
Write the goal at the top of the ladder and consider the steps you would need to take to get there.

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1. What are some things I would want to achieve? Some ideas could include: learning to play the guitar, going to college/university, getting a job I like.

2. If success was guaranteed (forget about the possibility of failure for a minute) what would you want to do in life?

3. We might ask ourselves, what is the greatest benefit to achieving this goal? (Who will it help, What change will it make, What will be the impact, Where can the direction go afterwards?)

4. Is this a goal that can also help others?

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Goal setting and working towards the goals we set is an important skill to learn in life.
Some of us don’t think of goals and continue through life as it naturally unfolds, but we might get to a point where we recognise that we hoped to achieve more, or something else as well as how our life has panned out, or we might reflect and think we could have been more active with our time planning and done more.

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1. Conflict is a part of life; avoiding or hiding from it won’t make it disappear.

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1. Conflict is a part of life; avoiding or hiding from it won’t make it disappear.

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2. Pretending everything is fine and hiding your feelings won’t resolve ongoing conflict.

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2. Pretending everything is fine and hiding your feelings won’t resolve ongoing conflict.

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3. Keep the focus on the issue or problem rather than the person; Try to avoid taking it personally.

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3. Keep the focus on the issue or problem rather than the person; Try to avoid taking it personally.

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Unfortunately conflict can be a sometimes unavoidable fact of life. While many of us dislike the uncomfortable feelings that come with having conflict with another person, some people thrive and look for it (think bullies); some people appreciate the opportunities for growth that conflict can bring because they’ve learned to deal with it and use it constructively.
Conflict is not always bad; it can often be based on misunderstanding or crossing perspectives.
If we can respond to conflict in the right ways and use it for opportunities for personal growth and development, it suddenly becomes a good thing.
Conflict can occur within families, within friendship groups, at school, at youth clubs at work.

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Exercise is a great way of keeping our feel good brain chemicals flowing and naturally reduces stresses and anxieties; it is also great to boost mood, have you ever tried to feel sad or angry while dancing?
There are so many ways we can increase our exercise in daily life, even increasing our walking speed as we go around our day to day life can be an easy way to get our blood pumping faster, more often.

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There are little ways we can boost our good feelings. A simple but big booster is taking daily gratitude reflections; life might be rubbish at times but we can always look at something, whether that’s for the sunshine, our friends, the fact we have eaten today, there is a lot if we look, kind words someone has said to us.

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It’s easier to weather the storm when we have a number of people to help us hold up the roof.
Social support for coping with difficult times, whether through friends, trusted adults, counsellors, the people around us can really make a difference.
When we feel supported, we feel more prepared to tackle challenges that come our way.
If you’re struggling with a particular issue, have a look at your local directory and see if there is somewhere that runs a local support group or service that could give you a little extra support.

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4. Become the master of your undesirable emotions

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4. Become the master of your undesirable emotions

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If we’ve done a fair bit of personal digging and reflection for some time and the feelings are still there we might think of ways to distract ourselves and do things to lighten our mood or bring ourselves some healthy comfort by doing something opposite to how we feel.
For example, if we feel sad, we might decide to have a funny-film marathon, or we might call a very cheery friend and ask them what they’ve been up to this week.
If we are feeling tense or angry we might decide to practise some relaxation and guided visualisation exercises.
It’s important for us to recognise and feel our feelings, but it’s also important that we don’t spend too long within them or it can keep us feeling stuck and taking over our experience.

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Once you’ve taken time to fully explore your feelings, you might have thoughts of what to do next.
Perhaps you might decide to voice these feelings, or perhaps you might decide on responding in another way. Sometimes, you might feel that the acknowledgment is all that is needed. Think about how you might process/express/respond to these feelings.
Would it be best to have a gentle talk with someone about how you feel; are there any coping strategies you can put in place to help; would it be better to engage in high intensity activity, such a powerwalk, run or listening to loud music with headphones?

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"When I feel anxious about going somewhere new with new people because I don’t know what to expect, I can take steps to prepare for this. I can find out as much information about the place and people there as much as possible. I still worry about embarrassing myself but if this happens, I don’t have to go back if I don’t want to. And maybe I can help prevent me saying something silly or awkward silences by thinking of some topics to talk about in case, … and I can always take an interest in others and ask them questions like where they live, what food they like and what their favourite band is. And if an awkward silence happens, maybe I could go and get a glass of water or look out the window and see if there’s anything outside to look at. If I try and focus on being approachable, friendly and kind, maybe I will be okay. I won’t know unless I try, and I’ll make sure to have someone on standby to collect me if I’m not enjoying myself or I become too overwhelmed."

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When we recognise our feelings, we need to keep the focus on ourselves; our feelings are not facts, and we might feel someone is doing something on purpose to hurt us or we might make statements about how things might be before we even experience them.
Our feelings are there for us to help make sense of our world and our own experiences. Accept your feelings as part of you and your natural responses to situations based on your experience.
Having understanding for yourself, patience and acknowledging how you feel are excellent steps towards processing and moving on.

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Some emotions can feel easy when they happen (happy, love) but some can feel uncomfortable (anger, sadness)

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Sometimes we are faced with feelings that no matter what we do, we might still feel overwhelmed or find difficulty in moving past how we feel. It’s a good idea to speak up to someone and reach out for help, whether a trusted adult, teacher, counsellor, youth worker. Let people know if you’re having difficulty, perhaps consider formal counselling or therapy to help you work past whatever it is that is sticking with you.

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This is a Way to Wellbeing that ancient monks and yogis have known for thousands of years, but this is something that has been drawn into public awareness for a few years. Mindfulness, taking notice and grounding ourselves in the present has shown to help decrease stress, reduce anxiety and improve overall mood and while initially a little difficult to put into practise, it’s a simple strategy that we can learn. Simply sitting somewhere in nature and using our five senses.
What can we see, hear, smell, taste and touch in that moment?

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Yoga is an excellent way to reduce anxieties and stress, and is backed by science. It literally changes the way our nervous system is operating in the moment, that is, if we are stressed or anxious!
Mindful movement and deep breathing exercises reduces tension and activates our body’s relaxation response.

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What Does Resilience Mean To Young People?

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What Does Resilience Mean To Young People?

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What Does Resilience Mean To Young People? | YoungMinds

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A meditation app that acts as a personal guide to health and happiness

An online cognitive behaviour therapy program for depression and anxiety

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A free app designed to help teens and young adults cope with anxiety.

Helps build resilience - the ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of difficult obstacles

Turns the latest innovations in the science of happiness into activities and games that help you lead a more fulfilling life.

A meditation program developed by psychologists and educators to help bring mindfulness into your life

Chill Panda helps children better understand their stress and shows them ways to feel better using breathing techniques, yoga, exercise and calming games.

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A meditation app that acts as a personal guide to health and happiness An online cognitive behaviour therapy program for depression and anxiety ​ A free app designed to help teens and young adults cope with anxiety.

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Giving to others has shown to increase our feelings of wellbeing, it helps us feel good doing something for someone else.
Giving to others doesn’t need to cost money, simply sending a message offering good thoughts or praise, offering time to listen if someone is having a difficult day and offering your ears and attention can be invaluable.
Time is the most important currency we possess, once it is spent we cannot earn it back and for this reason your time is the most valuable thing you can offer someone else.

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This is something many people stop doing when they finish school, or if they become very good at one thing. But learning new skills has been shown to not only increase feelings of confidence and self-esteem but helps to keep the mind active and can improve mental functioning.

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This doesn’t mean you suddenly hit the gym for three hours a day or attempt to climb Everest (great if that is what you want to do but it is not necessary)!
We can increase our physical activity by doing more in our general routines, such as going for walks...
Is there an activity you used to enjoy that you no longer do, e.g. playing football, cycling, swimming?

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Joining a community activity or youth group
reaching out to friends or family members
volunteering
participating in a sports team

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Click on the link to Learn about 'Mental Resilience' :)

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While it's very easy to focus on the worst aspects of any situation, it's not good for building your personal resilience. Even the worst possible situations have an upside so, while it may be difficult when something bad is happening, try and think of one kind of benefit you'll be getting out of it. You may want to think about things such as what you can learn from your experience, what this situation has helped you find out about someone, or what it's helped you find out about yourself.
Appreciate your strength
When you're going through something difficult, it's easy to forget how strong you are. Try and remember other times in your life when you've got through something challenging. Remember how strong you were to get through those circumstances, and take heart from the fact that you know you have the strength to get through whatever you're going through now.
Remind yourself you always have a choice
Whatever you're going through, you have a choice as to how you react to it. It may not feel like it, but it's completely up to you whether you let your situation defeat you, or whether you choose to have the strength to get through it. It doesn't make you weak if you decide you don't have the strength at the moment, but remembering that you always have a choice is a great was to remind yourself that you have power in any situation, and it's great for building personal resilience.
Don't hold a grudge
Holding a grudge isn't good for your resilience - in fact someone once said that holding on to a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. If you keep focussing on an incident where someone has angered you or done you wrong, you'll stay angry and not be able to move beyond it. Holding a grudge will end up affecting you negatively, because you'll end up thinking lots of negative thoughts. So instead it's much better to put your grudge behind you and practice thinking positively instead - you'll be amazed how much better you'll feel when you let those bad feelings go!
Take a step back
While an issue, situation or argument may feel very immediate and intense the moment it happens, it's really helpful to ask yourself how you will feel about the thing that's upsetting you in a week, a month or a year? Thinking this way about events and issues that affect you will help you have some perspective about how much you should let them bother you.

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Mental resilience is how you deal with challenging life events. Being mentally resilient gives you the strength to get through tough times.

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Relax Up with Kids STEP UP: 54321 Grounding

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Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back’ during or after difficult times and get back to feeling as good as before.

It’s also the ability to adapt to difficult circumstances that you can’t change and keep on thriving. In fact, when you’re resilient, you can often learn from difficult situations.

Your resilience can go up and down at different times and you might be better at bouncing back from some challenges than others.

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The Body Scanner! Mindfulness for Children

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4. Listen. This is a crucial part of conflict resolution, it’s important to listen and respect the other person.

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4. Listen. This is a crucial part of conflict resolution, it’s important to listen and respect the other person.

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All feelings are valid and offer us something; even sadness has a function. If you’ve ever seen the Pixar movie Inside Out? This is a fun illustration of why sadness is important and helps us in life.
All of these feelings tell us something about ourselves and where we are in life.
We can learn to handle, process and use feelings, and increase our sense of positive emotions if we wish to.
We can take a number of steps for taking power with our emotions and learning about what it is they have to offer for us.

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Obstacles are a fact of life!
It’s very unlikely that we can sail through life without any sort of hiccup or barrier, they just have a way of turning up in our lives.
While we might not be able to control whether or not an obstacle exists, we can definitely plan ahead to shrink the impact they might have on us.

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Y-Talent Project provides FREE music tuition to young people 5-18. 🎼🥁🎹🎸

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Y-Talent Project provides FREE music tuition to young people 5-18. 🎼🥁🎹🎸

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Firstly, it is a question of "what do I want to achieve?"
It might be difficult to think on the spot and internal voices might discourage us or tell us we will fail and there is no point in trying.
But for most things, we really have nothing to lose, and a goal might seem very big and a million miles away but if we break it down into small or even tiny steps, we can get closer to our goal one day at a time.
Even if on the way to our goal, we realise that actually, we want to take a detour, or perhaps achieving that goal isn’t our ideal anymore, we have taken a valuable journey and learned skills along the way.

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Click on the link to learn about 'Emotional Resilience' :)

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If you feel like you're under too much stress, building your emotional resilience can really help. You learn how to make yourself feel better when things seem like they're getting too much.

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If you feel like you're under too much stress, building your emotional resilience can really help. You learn how to make yourself feel better when things seem like they're getting too much.

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We run our Farm Clwb on a Saturday from 10am-3pm and volunteers contribute the daily life of our working farm by assisting with animal care, grounds and kitchen. This involves food growing, conservation work and feeding and mucking out the animals! We also run #wellbeingwednesday once a month for young people who are not engaging in education due to poor mental health.

We are a funded project and therefore only offer volunteer positions to those who have a need. This is broad and could include low confidence, anxiety, challenges in school or at home, being differently abled, mental and physical health issues.

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We also run fantastic Friday playschemes in the school holiday, and our pre-school toddler sessions Wiggly Worms, once a month - please check out our events page for more info by clicking here.

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Please contact Cerys on info@ swanseacommunityfarm.org.uk for more info.

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We run our Farm Clwb on a Saturday from 10am-3pm and volunteers contribute the daily life of our working farm by assisting with animal care, grounds and kitchen. This involves food growing, conservation work and feeding and mucking out the animals!

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Belly Breathing: Mindfulness for Children

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Leisure and sports centres in Swansea...

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Leisure and sports centres in Swansea...

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Swansea has numerous leisure and sport centres located across the city. All of our large sports and leisure centres are managed by our partner Freedom Leisure who offer a wide range of activities, facilities and membership options.

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Swansea leisure and sports centres - Swansea

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Swansea has numerous leisure and sport centres located across the city. All of our large sports and leisure centres are managed by our partner Freedom Leisure who offer a wide range of activities, facilities and membership options.

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Tweets by YMCASwansea

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5 Paintings For Beginners || Complete Guide on Blending Techniques || Painting on 5 Tiny Canvases - YouTube

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5 Paintings For Beginners || Complete Guide on Blending Techniques || Painting on 5 Tiny Canvases

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5.  It’s important to be clear and assertive. Not aggressive or passive or passive-aggressive. 

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5.  It’s important to be clear and assertive. Not aggressive or passive or passive-aggressive. 

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Evolve is Swansea Council's Young People Service. Working with young people across Swansea to keep young people safe and provide support when they need it most

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Tweets by EvolveSwansea

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Or may be you would like to try a new activity? (first lesson is free!)

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Or may be you would like to try a new activity? (first lesson is free!)

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Talk with your worker about some ideas you have for new skills you would like to learn...

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6. Negotiate, compromise: learn how to do these things, they’re are important life skills.

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6. Negotiate, compromise: learn how to do these things, they’re are important life skills.

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Click on the link to find more info on the Youth Clubs in Swansea...

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Click on the link to find more info on the Youth Clubs in Swansea...

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A handy list of youth clubs in Swansea, for young people from a range of ages and backgrounds

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9. Provide a space for understanding. Try and think of what it is like to be in their position, how would you be feeling?

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9. Provide a space for understanding. Try and think of what it is like to be in their position, how would you be feeling?

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10.  Say sorry if you are wrong. It takes a strong person to admit fault and to apologise when appropriate.

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10.  Say sorry if you are wrong. It takes a strong person to admit fault and to apologise when appropriate.

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If you would like support to find out some more information, chat with your worker...if you feel nervous about going youth club for the first time, that's OK and normal! A lot of people will feel nervous going somewhere they haven't been before, if you like - your worker could go with you :)