What is Back to Basics?
During a challenging event, our system responds by:
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Numbing our emotions and distancing our personal self from our professional self to get through
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Revving up our systems to get through what is happening.
Sometimes our systems come back down to our baseline of their own. Sometimes they need some help.​
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After a challenging experience:
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Emotional, and/or cognitive fatigue can be felt for a few days.
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When emotions are high, we take in memories through our visual and sensory systems.
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The goal of this step is to help your system re-set itself.
Resetting your system
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Calm: Breathe, imagine a calming image, or listen to music. Our tools can help
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Soothe: Repetitive movement, such as walking, rocking, colouring, even washing dishes, helps reset our system
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Rest: Watching TV, listening to music, sitting or walking in nature can help. It releases BDNF, which balances what cortisol (stress) does to the body.
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Then: When you can, do something you love
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If you would like to learn more about coping and self care over the next 4 to 6 weeks, go to the Coping and Self Care Step
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Things to keep in mind
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Hydration, eating, and sleeping helps
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Blocking rest helps. It doesn’t have to be long, but we do need to protect it. Put away technology for a little while. Technology increases a part of dopamine, which keeps our system engaged. Emails and texts coming through also keeps us in a reactive state. We want to shift to a rest state so that the system can re-boot. Try for 10 minutes without getting on the phone or iPad.
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Other strategies that can help bring us down:
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Relaxation – breathe, imagine a calming image, or listen to music
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This video is reviews the Back to Basics rest and re-set to support your system in levelling down, in the 2-3 days, after a challenging event.
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