More on resilience
Oct
30
A couple months ago, I wrote about a study showing that those who had experienced a little (but not too much) adversity were better at handling physical pain than their pain-free counterparts.
Now, a new study finds the same trend – but with mental health and wellbeing. It seems that both physical and mental resilience can be achieved through a healthy amount of adversity. When we face hard times, we adapt and build a callous that helps us take on future challenges.
Resilience is often considered a process that occurs in spite of adversity, but we might want to instead think of it as a phenomenon that appears because of adversity. Indeed, we can become even more physically and mentally capable as a result of our misfortunes.
The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
So – You’re saying “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”?
Intuitively, I couldn’t agree more. People who’ve had to deal with difficulty are often more resilient.
I wonder though, is there a multi-dimensional element here (ie: several variables)? Many folks I’ve coached have underlying personaility traits that make it difficult for them to cope with what most people would consider fairly “normal” stressors.
The Israeli genius Moshe Feldenkrais (creator of the sophisticated body-mind approach of the same name) had a unique definition of health:
1. The ability to live out one’s avowed (and unavowed) dreams.
2. The ability to recover from shock.
Also being a judo master, he’d had plenty of practice being thrown, thus learning how to fall, and regaining readiness for the next attack. For him, then, resilience was part and parcel of being healthy. Practice — whether under physical or emotional stress — might thus ‘immunize’ us, enabling rapid recovery.
Mencius ever said 2300 ago:
When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it always first frustrates his spirit and will, exhausts his muscles and bones, exposes him to starvation and poverty, harasses him by troubles and setbacks so as to stimulate his spirit, toughen his nature and enhance his abilities.
(天将降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为，所以动心忍性，增益其所不能。)
So maybe it’s true that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? ; )
Nassim taleb in his book the Black Swan has an interesting thing to say on this topic….the summary being that that the survivors of a stressful experience might be stronger than the ones that dont survive, but it makes them weaker, not stronger after they emerge from the situation. The resilience might be a tool for survival, but “stronger” is really debatable, whether we become “desensitized” or stronger – purely from an mental aspect. Of course a stressful situation like an accident might actually incapacitate physically and leave one weaker rather than stronger. The key is “not too much” – but even here, every experience leaves us weaker, not stronger. The definition of stronger of course is questionable as the point above shows.
Maybe another way to think about this is “have better perspective” or “more balanced”, rather than weaker vs. stronger. After a particularly difficult period of my life (multiple family deaths, new child, international move, big promotion; all in ~15 months); it took a lot more for me to get stressed out. I can compare everything back to that and usually tell myself “this isn’t such a big deal. Chill out.”
Took the saying right out of my mouth Phil…
I tire from people saying it to me, but it is true. You have to have been given the time (inclination, tools, counseling) to get over the first hurdle before the next pops up or else you may end up with PTS. It depends upon the emotional quotient more then the physical one, but both can go hand in hand as Hap says. And being weaker in one can lead to weakness in the other as Phil says.
Mental health is the primary source of strength… more so then physical and part and parcel of physical resilience. Without a brain in good physical condition, PTS will beat you down, body and soul, and keep you there longer.
Nutrition is the key to immunity for physical and mental health and from one who experienced an onslaught of physical and emotional trauma I know rest, exercise and sunlight are next in importance. (or vitamin D and light therapy for us Canadians) I recommend seeking brain and physical health (which includes resilience and elasticity for both) in that order.
Parents have become over protective of their kids… and they are doing the child and the adult they will become a disfavour. (Helicopter moms being a prime example) Also, children who are abused and live with alcoholics and addicted parents also will be hardened rather then resilient.
Mind if I recommend reading Dr. Amen as he studies the brain, trauma and nutrition, viewing results from the inside out.
Ahhh Phil, a kindred spirit.
Mine was a diagnosis of lung cancer & being told I was going to die and to get affairs in order, then being locked out of my house by an alcoholic husband who told everyone I left him and took everything when all I had was a change of clothes for the hospital, the surgery, the recovery hampered by recurring illness and pneumonia, then the ensuing divorce as I tried to find a place to live and start over with nothing, all in the space of a few months. Plus I had to move 5 times in that year … another sob story lol
I thought I should add that as well in case I looked like a know it all… and not someone who experienced trauma. I also was a mental and physical wreck. All trauma and illness is a lot easier to cope with now, certainly, but I wouldn’t recommend that route to resilience.
I also experienced a bad traffic accident in the next 6 months and as well as a chronic autoimmune Thyroid disease probably triggered by the events.
@Arun your points are very interesting as well. I was weaker both mentally and physically for far longer because I wasn’t able to recover(heal, build resistance) between bouts of trauma.
Two issues come to mind:
First is the 1958 Aronson & Mills research concerning the effect of severity of initiation and its relationship to one’s loyality to the group sponsoring the innitiation ritual. They found a positive causal relationship. I can appreciate the link to your more recent study.
Similar to your findings also is the familiar effect upon muscle formation engendered through the physical demands exercise places upon our bodies. Stress those muscles and they come back stronger than before almost as if to say, “I’ve learned from this. I’ll become better situated to deal with that level of stress in the future.”
Some have pointed to “That which doesn’t kill us….” I would suggest, the more widely used, “No Pain, No Gain,”
I wouldn’t call it resilience. Resilience is the idea that when you recover, nothing is different from before you suffered the stress or pain. You would have to prove that other variables — trust, joy, etc. remain unchanged once the stresses are removed. You may not become more resilient, rather simply “dead” to a set of physical and emotional stimuli.
I’m pretty sure Calvin’s dad called it “building character”.
The strong-vs-weak argument reminds me of Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms: life breaks everyone, and those that break become stronger at the broken point. Life kills off those that refuse to break. A literary, not scientific, idea for sure, but it has always resonated with me.
On the other side, I can also see Nassim Taleb’s point of view. I think it’s an interesting question.
In my case, the life events were easy to cope with at the time I was in them. i just did. My body took care of all the stress and tucked it away somewhere. But, after everything in my life was back to ‘normal’ and I had someone to take care of me (when i was no longer a careGIVER), my body kicked out that storage of stress by way of my eyeballs as they cried over every little thing – I was mentally exhausted and not coping well with any stress. After I recovered, yes, I was more resilient to the later adversity, but not in a dead way. In a more open and empathetic way, I was better able to handle the stress and my body didn’t store it. There are timelines for everything and your body can handle only so much – there needs to be an appropriate outlet to deal with the adversity, otherwise it isn’t a positive resilience.
When does adversity become too much? I would think that it would vary person to person. So people who are taught and learn resiliency would have a higher capacity for handling more adverse circumstances than those who don’t.
Your observations jive with the literature on psychological hardiness or resilience, and with my own experience: the older I get, the more people I meet who are profoundly pessimistic, passive, unresourceful, and risk-averse. These same folks are burdened by aches and pains and increasing ill-health that they insist cannot be lessened through any effort of their own.
I am in alignment with your piece. I tend to practice something like ‘adversity’ with my son diagnosed with ADHD. This, I do, with the notion that if he continues to be challenged he will learn and cope.
Any feedback or research on this?
In reference to one of the earlier comments – One of the most amazing experiences in becoming a trained Feldenkrias practitioners is to realize how much ahead of his time Moshe was. All the research now on brain plasticity – he tapped into through his hands on and personal experiences. There may be somethings one never ‘recovers’ from. Life is constantly changing. Alan Watt’s coined the term in a book title “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” But, if we have a learning brain – a willingness to make new pathways in our nervous system – then life can feel like a river moving forward and not a stagnate pond. I do like the trite definition of insanity – doing the same things and expecting different results. Try some mindful variations some time and see what happens.