Personal resiliency is the mortar allowing healthy building blocks to perform stronger and longer. Understanding personal resilience is the first step to purposefully building and growing capacity. Greater resilience / capacity is increasingly important as the United States faces a mental health crisis which threatens long-term negative health outcomes and is primarily driven by stress caused by financial situations, relationships, work, poor health, climate change, and other concerns (Baban & Morton, 2022). 

The behavioral and physiologic effects of stress link directly to poorer health outcomes (Boban & Morton, 2022). Stress-related psychological factors impact the development or prevention of cardiovascular disease (Reddy, 2022). The modern era provides more and more stressors with fewer opportunities to avoid exposure and influence without developing stress-relieving, or stress-management, techniques (Boban & Morton, 2022). Furthermore, those already stressed face greater challenges in implementing positive lifestyle changes. In fact, stress can guide people toward counterproductive, unhealthy, and even destructive behaviors (Boban & Morton, 2022).

Definition of stress:  a sensation of physical or emotional tension caused by your perception of or intellectual, emotional, or physical response to an event.

Definition of resiliency:  the ability to adapt to unpredictable events, setbacks, and misfortunes.

Greater personal resiliency allows for quicker recovery, or bounce back, following a significant event. Resilience does not eliminate problems; however, it helps a person cope with situations in a more positive manner, promoting avoidance of potentially negative or destructive behaviors. Additionally, it helps protect against depression and anxiety (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020). Positive self-care habits are important tools countering the negative effects of stress and preventing or delaying the onset of many chronic diseases.

Tips to improve personal resilience:
According to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (2022) and the American Psychological Association (2020), the following strategies can help you become more resilient. Keep in mind, “resilience involves behaviors, thoughts, and actions that anyone can learn and develop” (APA, 2020).

Get and stay connected to loved ones, friends, and understanding people. Some people tend to isolate after traumatic events; compassionate and trustworthy connections can help, support, and guide you through the difficult time.
Join a group and draw on the strength of community. Religious, civic, and other organizations offer social support and may help you find hope and a sense of purpose when you need it most.
Take care of yourself by maintaining physical fitness, getting plenty of sleep, eating healthy foods, participating in fun activities or hobbies, and practicing stress management / relaxation techniques, such as yoga. Taking positive lifestyle steps to strengthen your body prepares it to adapt to stress influences as well as reduce the effect of emotions such as depression or anxiety.
Be proactive and take initiative to address your problems instead of ignoring them. You may not be able to change the circumstances, but you can take time daily to identify what you need to do, develop a plan, and make into incremental steps toward recovering from the setback, event, or loss.
Accept change and recognize change is a normal part of life. Adverse events or situations might make some goals or plans no longer attainable. Accepting the unchangeable circumstances outside your control can help you focus on the ones you can influence. Accept the reality of the situation but not the finality.
Set and continuously move toward realistic goals that enable you to continue working through the situation. During difficult times a large task may seem wholly unachievable. By breaking it down into smaller, realistic goals you can continue to see progress through the situation rather than feeling frozen in the situation.
Try to remain hopeful with an optimistic outlook that empowers and allows you to expect good things in your future. You cannot change the past, but looking to the future you can anticipate change and find it easier to adapt to new challenges with far less anxiety.
Apply positive lessons learned to help you navigate your current challenges. Strategies and coping skills that helped you in the past may help once again. Remind yourself who or what helped you find strength before.

Nutrition
Plant-based foods may help stress management as well as other psychological conditions due to their positive influences on brain function and both physical and mental health (Baban & Morton, 2022). Consider eating more whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables as part of your stress-coping strategy (Baban & Morton, 2022).

Exercise
Physical exercise and activity are critical to positive mental and physical health; physical activity and psychological stress are inversely related (Baban & Morton, 2022). Stress can impair efforts to participate in physical activities and exercise has a positive impact on stress management (Baban & Morton, 2022).

Sleep
Just like nutrition and exercise, above, stress and sleep have a reciprocal relationship: “Poor sleep can compound stress levels as sleep deprivation results in the human brain being more attuned to negativity” (Baban & Morton, 2022). Efforts to maintain good sleep hygiene in pursuit of good quality sleep will support all areas of your personal stress-management strategy (Baban & Morton, 2022).

Environment
Sensory stimulation from the environment significantly impacts our health (Rindfleisch, 2020). Light levels and colors affect mood, loud noises can elevate heart rate and blood pressure hours after exposure, excessive clutter can undermine concentration, and room temperature influences mood and productivity (Rindfleisch, 2020). A planned, purposeful design to living and work spaces can promote a calmer environment, less stress, healthier emotional states, better sleep, and increased comfort (Rindfleisch, 2020).

Seeking help
Increasing resiliency takes time and effort. Many people we'll find success using strategies like the ones mentioned above alongside their own resources and tools. However, sometimes people get stuck or feel they do not know where to begin. Seeking assistance from a mental health professional can improve personal resiliency and mental health (APA, 2020; Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2022).

Conclusion
Purposeful consideration of the many factors and influences that can either allow stress unfettered influence on you or that can mitigate the impact while also promoting greater capacity and personal resilience should lead you to a multi-modal strategy.

Note: All content provided on this page is for informational purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for advice from your health care provider.

Resiliency References