Any change, large or small, requires resilience.
According to the American Psychological Society, resilience is the “process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors.” In other words, resilience is how well you bounce back from difficult experiences.
Resilience is not a gene you either have or don’t have. Genetics plays a role in your response to stress. For example, individuals with specific polymorphisms (gene variations) may be less resilient to mental stressors and more susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But it’s not your genes themselves but rather your behaviors, thoughts, and actions that regulate gene expression. That expression, when positive, allows your body to respond to stress from a place of strength instead of weakness.
Having a higher capacity for resilience has been shown to help manage emotions and neutralize mental and physical stress responses. It is the #1 predictor of success in handling any health challenge or trauma.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
~ Viktor E. Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist
A misconception about resilience is that you have to “tough it out” or “put on a brave face” when challenged. In reality, developing resilience is both complex and personal. It is a combination of genetics, psychology, biology, relationships, and spirituality. Just as there is no one best way to improve physical strength, the strategies for building resilience are as varied as the individuals implementing them. It takes time, intention, and a willingness to persist.
Why is resilience important? Because it protects us from experiences that could lead to overwhelm. It helps the body maintain homeostasis (a state of equilibrium) through stressful periods in life. It also supports mental health when the mind is trying to make sense of the stressors and their implications.
You’ve likely heard the term emotional resilience. It’s the ability to manage the emotional impact of stress. In addition to this type of resilience, we develop three other types throughout life.
- Inherent resilience is our inborn resilience that informs how we explore and discover the world, learn to play, and take risks at an early age.
- Adaptive resilience occurs when we experience a difficult situation like the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, or having to look for a new job. It is learned on the spot and can help us manage pain in the moment.
- Learned resilience is acquired over time and activated by recalling past experiences. We begin to understand when to draw on this type of resilience and how to use it when new and different stressors arise. Learned resilience lets us tap into strengths we didn’t know we had.
A worthwhile read is Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges by Steven M. Southwick and Dennis S. Charney. In this book, the authors investigate resilience from multiple scientific perspectives and synthesize the latest research on the topic.
So how do you strengthen your resilience? By attending to multiple health aspects that are the foundation for a flexible and robust mind, body, and spirit. It’s not just one thing. Nor is there a quick fix. No matter how healthy you are or how well you manage your life, stressors will always pop up, and likely when you least expect them.
Over the next several weeks, I will share ten foundations of resilience and tips for addressing each one. When each foundation is integrated as a lifestyle choice, your ability to more easily take difficulties in stride and feel confident navigating inevitable stressors will improve.
To get you started, sign up to retrieve my Stress-less Foods ebook and begin to build your nutritional reserves today.
References:
American Psychological Association. (2012, January 1). Building your resilience. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience
Miles, J. (2015, May 19). The importance of building resilience. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/the-importance-of-building-resilience
Southwick, S. (2012, September 13). The Science of Resilience. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666
Wu, G., Feder, A., Cohen, H., Kim, J., Calderon, S., Charney, D. & Mathé, Aleksander. (2013, February 15). Understanding resilience. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573269/
