Because so many of us are so similar to the folks we serve, including the trauma we carry with us, and because it is now recognized that extreme stress impacts people who care for people experiencing that trauma nearly as much as the people directly impacted by that trauma, it is essential that people in harm reduction talk about resilience building.

Resilience building is different from “self-care”. Although self-care is a part of resilience building, resilience building is about developing the skills and calm necessary to maintain balance, even in the face of stress and difficulty.

“Self-care” is often rightly seen as relatively shallow because activities like getting a massage or taking a hot bath are often suggested. And although such activities can help with stress, they are not long-term solutions to the deep physiological response cycles experienced by many of us carrying and witnessing trauma regularly. Moreover the concept of “self-care” usually places the responsibility for dealing with the stressors that cause burnout and vicarious trauma entirely on the individual when in reality individuals are not in real control of the circumstances of their work that produces the stress they are experiencing.

The best we can do as a long-term solution for that stress is to build resilience skills to help us regulate mood, amygdala activity, and maintain balance when our stress cycles are triggered.

The following are evidence-based stress reduction and resilience building techniques that help mitigate stress, trauma response, and compassion fatigue:

• Connection—Meaningful connection to friends, family and other loved ones.
• Intention Setting—Setting intentions or plans for the future, especially with regard to self-care and service.
• Ritual or Container Building—Creating rituals that allow us to fully transition from one part of our life to our work.
• Healthy Boundaries—Establishing personal boundaries is essential to stress reduction.
• Narrative Reconstruction—Deciding what parts of our culture or upbringing to carry with us.
• Play—Creative and fun endeavors.
• Gratitude—Recognizing the positive things in our lives.
• Savoring—Spending time paying attention to positive experiences.
• Mindfulness—Meditation and related practices shown to reduce stress.
• Exercise—Moving the body in ways shown to reduce stress.
• Therapy—Talk therapy is useful for anyone doing direct service work.
• Supportive Community—Connecting with spiritual, therapeutic, or other support communities.
• Neurofeedback—Neurofeedback is a technique that can help train reactive brains to be less so.