Mental health isn’t about a single “tool”

Resilience doesn’t come from a single trick that works the same way for everyone, but rather from many small, individually tailored strategies that each person must discover for themselves.

In resilience workshops with different teams and at various levels within organizations, I almost always encounter the same question: Is there a tool that works immediately when stress levels rise or thoughts start going in circles? This desire is completely understandable—but to this day, I haven’t found that one “button” that works the same way for everyone. What I experience time and again, instead, are very different, very personal moments.

Two Workshop Moments That Stick with Me
In one workshop, a participant says in the middle of the exercise: “I’m deleting my Instagram account right now.” Not just the app from her phone. The entire account. Right in front of the whole group. In another workshop, a few weeks later, a different participant: almost the same scene. She realizes that she’s more drained afterward than before, that she’s running out of time—and makes the decision right there in the room.

Two different people, two different workshops, the same moment: realization and action with almost no time in between.
For others, the trigger looked completely different. Someone decided to try ALI regularly—a short exercise involving breathing, smiling, and pausing, lasting less than a minute—and has since noticed that ght now?—and follows it with a short physical sequence that calms the nervous system.

The trigger is different for everyone
That’s exactly what I mean when I say: she goes about her day more calmly and approaches appointments differently. Someone else takes a minute in the morning to tune into their body—how tense am I riMental health doesn’t adhere to a one-size-fits-all toolkit. The trigger is different for everyone. And sometimes it’s tiny, sometimes radical.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why don’t resilience tools work for some people?
  Because resilience isn’t a uniform set of techniques; rather, it’s closely tied to an individual’s stress situation, personal expectations, and social environment. A breathing exercise that noticeably calms one person’s nervous system may have no effect on another—not because the exercise is wrong, but because it doesn’t fit that person’s specific stressor or personality. In coaching practice, therefore, one thing becomes clear time and again: The first step is not to try out as many techniques as possible, but to gain a precise understanding of one’s own stress patterns—before even selecting a method.
• How do I know which stress management approach is right for me?
  A good starting point is to observe your own reaction to stress more closely: Do you tend to withdraw, do you become restless, or do you overcompensate with activity? From this, you can determine whether calming practices (e.g., breathing exercises, physical regulation) or clarifying, cognitive approaches (e.g., questioning your own expectations) make the biggest difference. This alignment between stress patterns and methods is often precisely where coaching begins.
• What can companies do to support their employees’ mental health?
  Beyond providing individual tools or apps, sustainable mental health in the workplace requires three things above all: space for genuine self-reflection, a culture where stress can be openly discussed, and leaders who take these signals seriously. Experience shows that resilience programs that combine individual practice, team dynamics, and leadership culture have a significantly more lasting effect than mere knowledge transfer.