5 Ways to Restore Our Hope

Many of us are feeling exhausted and hopeless. We’ve been experiencing a global pandemic, climate change, natural disasters, political upheaval, economic insecurity, and the escalating stresses of daily life.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by it all, you’re not alone. In early 2021, a New York Times article predicted that “languishing may be the dominant emotion of 2021” (Grant, 2021).

Research reveals alarming rates of depression and anxiety worldwide (Nochaiwong, Ruengorn, Thavorn, et al., 2021). In America, 84% of adults are experiencing prolonged stress, 40% have had symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, and nearly half of our college students—over 47%—have record levels of clinical depression and anxiety (American Psychiatric Association, 2021; Panchal, Kamal, Cox, & Garfield, 2021; Bickel, 2021).

Yet a dedicated group of researchers and educators have found a way to help us overcome this sense of hopelessness. They’ve developed a powerful new way to restore our hope that combines stress management with positive emotions and inspired action.

Restoring our hope begins by managing chronic stress. When we’re feeling fearful, angry, and anxious, we can get stuck in the survival mode of fight or flight that these researchers call the “Downstairs Brain.” Their 5 Keys to Greater Hope can help us reconnect with our prefrontal cortex or “Upstairs Brain,” restoring our hopeful mindset with calm, clarity, and confidence. The keys spell out the acronym "SHINE." Here’s how the 5 Keys work:

1. S=Stress Skills

When we’re emotionally triggered, our bodies release stress hormones, putting us into survival mode—fight, flight, or freeze. We cannot think clearly enough to come up with solutions. But you can calm yourself and return to a hopeful mindset with stress skills that include: taking a 90-second pause, slow deep breathing, exercise, connecting with nature, talking to a friend, or listening to calming music. These strategies help you get back into your Upstairs Brain where you can feel more positive and discover new possibilities.

2. H=Happiness Habits

Cultivating more positive feelings can help us build our hopeful mindset and spend more time in our Upstairs Brain. Some happy habits include: having a positive morning routine, eating healthy food, getting regular exercise, playing a musical instrument, practicing kindness, expressing gratitude, and spending time with friends.

3. I=Inspired Action

Setting meaningful goals gives our lives meaning and direction, something to look forward to. SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound—can be a positive strategy. Set a specific goal, a date you wish to achieve it, and break it into small, manageable steps. For each step, think of an alternative in case that step doesn’t work. Then visualize yourself taking these steps and reaching your goal (Feldman & Dreher, 2012)

4. N=Network for Hope

Building a hopeful mindset involves teamwork, sharing our goals, successes, and setbacks with a support network of people who care about us. Who is on your hope team? Your best friend? A wise mentor? A trusted family member? A supportive teacher, doctor, therapist, faith leader, counselor, or coach? Cultivate your hope network by reaching out with acts of kindness, recognition, and gratitude. Relationships, like plants in a garden, need cultivation in order to flourish.

5. E=Eliminating Hope Challenges

These challenges include habits that can drag you down from hope to hopelessness. Some of these are worry, rumination, limiting beliefs, and a negative inner voice that says, “You’re not good enough.”

To overcome these challenges to hope, you can use your stress skills, happiness habits, inspired actions, and hope network. What is one of your hope challenges and what can you do about it?

These five keys to hope can be transformational. When I was in college, I learned to drive by shifting the gears in an old red Volkswagen. But no one taught me how I could develop greater hope by shifting from my Downstairs to my Upstairs Brain. Now, there’s a new Hopeful Mindsets program for college students that helps them do just that—learning about how their brain works and how to shift from an anxious or depressive mood to a hopeful mindset using these five keys.

There’s also a Hopeful Minds curriculum for elementary school teachers to teach to their students and a Hopeful Cities program to help us build more hopeful communities. These programs have adopted the sunflower as the symbol of hope because it grows it turns toward the sun, reminding us that we can turn toward the light of hope by shifting our awareness.

This post is for informational purposes and should not substitute for psychotherapy with a qualified professional.