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To get straight to the point: resilience is different from acting unbothered or forcing yourself to be positive when your situation is not. Resilience allows you to bend without breaking; it is an adaptive state of mind that recovers and grows through adversity.
The true meaning of resilience
Mental resilience is the ability to adapt positively to stress, setbacks, trauma, or major changes, and picking yourself up again in order to regain balance and function effectively. It is not a personality trait you’re born with; it is a skill — a collection of habits, thought patterns, and emotion regulation — that anyone can develop. Resilient people still feel stress, disappointment, and frustration, but they can deal with it more effectively and restore their balance to consciously move forth.
The importance of a resilient mind
Busy, busy, busy: deadlines, expectations, relationships, and continuous comparison in a modern world. A resilient mind helps reduce the impact that sources of stress might have. When you’re resilient, setbacks feel less like failure and more like temporary detours. You solve problems more easily, regulate emotions better, and are more motivated, even in adverse situations. With time, such mental flexibility offers protection against burnout: it reduces the emotional toll of daily stress. Furthermore, it supports your overall well-being. Its merits are evident.
The neuroscience of resilience
As is many psychological concepts, resilience is rooted in biology. The brain owes its adaptability to what’s called neuroplasticity. Every time you handle stress in a healthy way, you strengthen neural connections involved in doing so, making it easier to deal with similar situations in the future. Mindfulness, physical training, hobbies, breathing exercises, and cognitive restructuring (learning to detect thought patterns and positively reshaping them) influence brain regions implicated in emotional regulation and decision-making. As such, resilience can be trained like a muscle.
Common resilience-myths
There’s a number of persistent misconceptions about resilience that distort its image:
- “Some people are born more resilient than others”: Genetics and developmental factors indeed play a role, but much less than practice and support.
- “Resilient people deal with their problems autonomously”: On the contrary, a core facet of resilience is a strong social network to rely on.
- “With resilience you don’t feel stress”: Resilient people do experience stress—they just deal with it better, enabling quicker and stronger recovery.
It’s important to acknowledge these myths and disregard them, as it helps make resilience less mysterious and a more realistic goal.
How to build a resilient mind
Small, consistent steps are most impactful and can be made in various ways. You could start with one of the following:
- Reframe challenges: Instead of “Why is this happening to me?”, ask “What can I learn from this?”
- Practise mindfulness: Learning how to stay aware of the moment helps prevent thoughts from spiraling into worries.
- Cherish relationships: Talking to a friend or family member can help many situations appear less grave.
- Set realistic goals: Small successes improve motivation and confidence.
- Take care of your body: Sleep, physical exercise, and nutrition have a direct influence on how your brain handles stress.
A future-proof mindset
In the end, developing resilience is investing in your future self. It won’t prevent adversity, but it will change how you respond to it. In an unpredictable world, the resilient mind holds great value: stability, clarity, and the confidence that you’ll eventually find your way, no matter the weather.
The resilient fall as much as anyone else—they just get up better, and increasingly smoothly.
Credits
Author: Lucas Geelen
Buddy: Natalie Nielsen
Edits: Vivek Sharma
Translation: Wieger Scheurer
Editor translation: Lucas Geelen
Image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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