Health Viewpoints
We are bombarded with advertisements and other messages telling us life should be easy, that all our problems can be solved by better products, drugs, and policies—but this simply isn’t true.
Life is hard and tends to get harder as we go.
But we also get stronger as we go. We learn to deal with hardship. We gain skills, wisdom, and fortitude. And critically, we become more resilient.
“Resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenging or traumatic situations, to be able to adapt and overcome adversities and setbacks to emerge stronger,” Dr. Gayle Myers, an internist who practices integrative medicine,
told The Epoch Times.
She calls resilience “a superpower that allows you to access your wellspring of tenacity.”
Resiliency is built into your biology. When your muscles are strained, they grow stronger. When your bones are put under load, they become denser. When you get an infection, your body learns how to contend with a new virus or bacteria. And just as you can support your immune system and strengthen your body, you can cultivate psychological resilience through your own efforts.
There are, of course, exceptions. Some people suffer traumas that dysregulate their stress response and undermine this process. Our current culture, where comfort
and distraction reign supreme, also stunts the rise of our resiliency.
This is partly why Florida is investing more than $21 million to create a resiliency curriculum in schools. The curriculum will help train parents and teachers in teaching children resilience.
“It’s about learning to persevere, to never give up, to overcome and become triumphant, living up to your God-given potential,” Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis said
about the effort at an event last year.
The program aims to teach kids foundational skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, grit, empathy, self-management, responsible decision making, and honesty.
It’s a wise investment.
Resilience
is linked to better physical health, quicker healing, and better overall well-being. A resilient person recovers more quickly from life’s inevitable inequities and tolerates the rise and fall of fortune more nimbly. Resilience is closely wed to psychological flexibility, which is our ability to adapt to the demands of the present moment without losing sight of our longer-term interests.
Everyone will face pain, suffering, and tragedy, but resilient people don’t fall into a passive victim mentality so easily.
“The fundamental aspect of resilience is believing that while you can’t control everything that happens in your life, there are many things you can change and you can impact,” Mary Alvord, a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavior therapy,
told Epoch Times sister-publication American Essence.
“People who are mentally more flexible are happier because they can think of different possibilities. They are often also able to view a challenge not as something awful but as an opportunity for change,” said Ms. Alvord.
Some research suggests that strong social support is
a key factor in psychological resilience and I suspect having a strong and healthy upbringing is critical as well. However, if you have neither, you can actively cultivate resilience. Doing so is one of the best guarantees that you will better weather whatever trials and tribulations the future may bring.
