Building Stress Resilience Through Daily Deposits into Your Body Budget

Building Stress Resilience Through Daily Deposits into Your Body Budget

When many of us hear the term “stress resilience,” we often think of self-care methods to use during hard times. However, while self-care methods are tools we can use when things get tough, they’re not the primary tools we have to help us through.?

The fact is that we have a foundation that needs to be cared for every day if we’d like to maintain a positive body budget and stay resilient.?

What is the Body Budget??

The body budget is a concept developed by Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D., based on neuroscience and how the brain works to regulate the body. Dr. Barret explains that the brain was not designed to think or feel. Instead, the brain developed to regulate the body.?

For instance, Dr. Barrett talks about how difficult moods are actually cues on how to take care of ourselves. Bad moods are the body’s way of letting us know that it has physical needs that aren’t being met. This is where the body budget analogy comes into play. You can think of your body as a bank account.

How Does the Body Budget Work??

You make deposits and withdrawals into that bank account (your body budget). Your brain monitors all the deposits and withdrawals to make sure everything stays in balance. In this case, the brain is actually monitoring hormone levels, glucose, water, salt, and more to keep your body functioning and healthy.?

The body budget analogy stands for the resources the body makes available to the brain. The brain monitors these resources to make sure the body stays in balance. It also ensures reserves are ready when you face challenging times. This is what is meant by the body budget.?

What happens if there are more withdrawals than deposits taken from your body budget? The brain goes into overdrive trying to help the body function. If there aren’t enough resources, this can result in becoming sick, becoming depressed, not having the energy to deal with a significant challenge, and more. In addition, over the years, chronic withdrawals can lead to a huge debt, which can translate into chronic illness, metabolic diseases, and more.?

On the other hand, if your body budget stays balanced, you feel good, happy, and energized. You’re ready and able to tackle new projects, learn new things, and more! You have the resilience necessary to take on all types of challenges.?

It takes daily deposits into your body budget to ensure your system stays in balance and healthy. This is the foundation of maintaining a healthy body and mind, as well as being resilient during stressful times.?

Examples of Stressing the Body Budget

Here are some examples of stressing the body budget with too many withdrawals:?

• As a student, you spend several all-nighters preparing for the big test. The result is that you’re exhausted and have trouble thinking on the day of the exam. Your test performance may suffer as a result.
• Maybe you’re an expat living in a new country. You have to deal with all kinds of stresses, including a new job, a new society/culture, a new language, and more. Unfortunately, too much stress can deplete your body budget, leaving you depressed, exhausted, having a difficult time learning new things, and settling into your new expat life.?
• Suppose you’re a parent to a newborn baby. The newborn is up all night crying and fussing, leaving you distressed and exhausted. This continues night after night until you begin to think your baby hates you. You logically understand the baby doesn’t hate you, but this is how you feel after so many nights without sleep or rest during the day. The result is you end up feeling resentful of the baby and don’t take care of yourself.?

The common denominator in these examples is that too many withdrawals from your body budget make you:?

• Exhausted
• Unable to think clearly
• Feel down or depressed
• Feel stressed & anxious
• Have trouble managing emotions
• Lack resiliency

Chronically making large withdrawals from your body budget may eventually cause your immune system to weaken, leading to significant health issues and more. This is why it’s imperative to make daily deposits into your body budget.?

Now that you understand the foundation of the body budget let’s take it a step further.?

Your Body Budget Can Affect Others’ Body Budgets

Remember, as humans, we’re social beings. As such, each day, we can make deposits (or withdrawals) into other people’s body budgets. Others also have this same effect on you. This means that we can each affect our loved ones, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and strangers in a way that either makes a deposit or a withdrawal into their body budgets, and vice versa.?

That’s an astounding thought, but it’s one that each of us needs to take home. Think about your interaction with the lady at the grocery store this morning. If it was pleasant, you each could have added to the other’s body budget. If there was an altercation, then you may have each made a withdrawal from the other’s body budget.?

In other words, others in our lives help keep our body budget in balance (or not) depending on their effect on our lives. What you say and do affects others in your life, too. You have the chance to make deposits or withdrawals each time you interact with someone. Think about that for a minute. What a powerful concept that we can each affect others in such a powerful way.?

How will you choose to use this new insight? Through the power of your actions and words, you have a wonderful chance to help others make deposits into their body budgets. Or you can choose the opposite, which is making withdrawals from others’ body budgets. The choice is up to you.?

Building a Healthy, Balanced Body Budget & Stress Resilience

So, what does it take to build a healthy, balanced body budget? Daily deposits are required to keep your body budget in balance and ready to go when times get tough. It means keeping your body and mind healthy through common-sense practices that include:?

• Eating well
• Staying at a healthy weight
• Staying fit
• Taking time to relax

We know it’s necessary to practice healthy ways of living, such as those mentioned above. However, it’s easy to let things slip a little bit now and then. The problem is this can become a habit over time, leading to an overtaxed body budget and low levels of resilience.?

Discipline is the key to healthy living and building up reserves for a healthy body budget. These give you the foundation to become resilient, even when stress comes knocking on the door.?

Other Tools to Make Body Budget Deposits & Build Resilience

Along with a healthy lifestyle, there are other tools that can help you increase body budget deposits and build resilience, including:?

Work on a schedule: this is a hard one, especially for freelancers, entrepreneurs, startups, etc. Keeping regular work hours ensures you to stop work by a certain time (most of the time) each day. This is a relief to your mind and body, which can add to your body budget. You know that by a specific time work will end and you can relax. That’s a deposit!

Practice prayer or meditation: these can be difficult concepts for some people; however, prayer and meditation can do wonders for your mind. It’s a chance to come to a place where you can share problems, feelings, and more with a higher being or the universe. It’s a time of mental release, inspiration, and sustenance for your mind and soul. Here, again, it’s best to make this a daily practice for it to be effective for making deposits into your body budget.?

Practice self-compassion: judging yourself too harshly, being your worst critic, mentally beating yourself up are all ways of causing stress, which results in body budget withdrawals. This is where practicing self-compassion comes in. It means treating yourself the way you’d treat a friend if they made a mistake. This means accepting that you’re human and will make mistakes. Practicing self-compassion may include not listening to that critical voice and correcting it. It also includes not beating yourself up for mistakes or dwelling on those mistakes. Instead, be kind to yourself. And remember to be compassionate to those around you, too, when they make mistakes.?

Increase “feel-good chemicals:” you’ve heard of the feel-good chemicals that are natural to our bodies. Our natural feel-good chemicals include serotonin, endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin. Well, you can work to increase these chemicals daily. For instance, if you’re an expat, try watching your favorite movie or show from home. Connect with loved ones back home online. You can also find groups or organizations for other expats from your home country. In addition, get plenty of exercise, create things (music, write, crafts, and more). Even having a pet can help increase the feel-good chemicals in your body budget each day!

Books/videos/and more: no matter where you live, even as an expat in a foreign country, it’s possible to find books, videos, and more to help you learn how to live better and make body budget deposits. The Internet is filled with all types of tools, including articles, Ted Talks & other videos, and more. In addition, there are ebooks and real books available online or in actual stores. Searching for these materials can even create a deposit into your body budget! And then learning and using the information gained from these sources can go a long way in helping you learn how to make more deposits, rather than withdrawals, into your body budget.?

As you can see, there are many additional ways to make deposits into your body budget. The effort is worth it when you do everything possible to ensure your body budget stays balanced with daily deposits. Of course, there will be times that are challenging. Even so, if you make regular deposits into your body budget, you’ll have the resiliency needed to manage and get through those challenging times successfully.?

Staying Balanced is the Key to Being Resilient

The key to being resilient, no matter your situation in life, is to ensure daily deposits into your body budget. What does this mean? Start by living a healthy life as much as you can. This means eating well, getting plenty of sleep each night, exercising regularly, and taking time to relax. Spending time with loved ones, friends, and pets can also help. In addition, you can use other tools to make additional daily deposits into your body budget.?

Remember that providing your body and brain with a healthy life ensures you have the resources needed for challenging times. What’s more, don’t forget that you can also affect others’ daily body budgets with deposits or withdrawals.?

Lastly, it’s essential to be compassionate to yourself and others every day. Of course, there are times when things will go wrong. However, if you make it a habit to make daily deposits into your own and others’ body budgets, this practice will become second nature, even when times are tough.?

Ensure you maintain a positive body budget balance, and you’ll be more resilient than ever before!