Resilience: "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking..."

What image comes to your mind when you think of the emotional quality of “resilience”? I immediately thought of that old Timex watch ad that said, “It takes a licking but keeps on ticking!” Or maybe you think of people you respect who you would consider to be resilient. What are their characteristics? Resilient people meet hardships both small and large with remarkable equanimity – they rarely seem fazed, knocked off their balance or provoked. No one is immune from stress, but how we react to it is the interesting part. You may know the Buddhist parable about the man who is struck by an arrow, but the issue is not that arrows occur in life, but how we respond to that arrow. In other words, do we fire an even bigger arrow at ourselves in response to the first arrow?

 No one is perfect, and perfection is a poor goal in life as it is unattainable. But, how about striving to be ever a bit better? And what lessons can we learn in such a stressful time as this coronavirus pandemic from resilient people? They are the people who take a hit, big or small, and seem to move to the side only briefly, and then bounce back. I know that all people, including resilient people, grieve after a major loss such as the death of a loved one. Yet resilient people tend not to have prolonged grief and they usually learn something from that experience that they can use in a future experience. I want to highlight that learning from difficult experiences is a key characteristic of resilient people.

I perceive of the human brain as a “pattern machine”. We are given a certain kind of situation, and usually respond in a stereotypical way. Most of our psychological and emotional patterns are learned in childhood and adolescence and honed in adulthood. Resilient people usually learn early in life how to respond to a problem in a positive fashion and incorporate that experience into their pattern machine in order to improve the pattern for the next time. I theorize that resilient people are more willing to take on new situations to test their own reactions and add those experiences to their personal emotional bank. Less resilient people have a smaller array of responses available to stresses and tend to fall back on strategies they learned early in life.

Fortunately, resilience is not in short supply. As a physician, I was often amazed at how resilient so many of my patients were in the face of a life altering illness. The question of where resilience comes from – nature or nurture – will not be resolved by me. But I am convinced that a lot of resilience can be taught to people of any age. It’s easier to develop patterns of resilience in childhood. For example, those of you who are parents know the scenario when one of your children falls and bruises themselves slightly. Parents have a range of reactions that I believe shape the child’s perception of the world. The parent who makes a big fuss about the minor boo boo is inadvertently teaching the child that when they suffer even a tiny injury, it’s a big deal and someone else is going to come and fix it. On the other hand, the parent who is calm and reassures the child that they are fine and should get up and go back to whatever they were doing helps build the child’s resiliency – to rely on her own strength to overcome the challenge.

Resilience appears to be connected to positive emotions, including curiosity, joy, forgiveness, optimism and practical problem-solving. Less resilient people are more likely to experience more negative emotions during a stressful event such as anxiety, anger, feeling victimized and capitulating. One study interviewed high achievers with a lot of resilience and found several “main predictors of resilience: positive and proactive personality, sense of control, flexibility and adaptability, balance and perspective, and perceived social support. High achievers were also found to engage in many activities unrelated to their work such as engaging in hobbies, exercising, and organizing meetups with friends and loved ones.” Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology. 3: 46–60. doi:10.1037/spy0000003.

Resilience also correlates with good communication skills and the ability to monitor and control one’s own emotions. Resilience is also related to community, team and family cohesion and support. In the military, it has been shown repeatedly that units with good morale and cohesion show higher prevalence of resilience under stressful circumstances. History is replete with examples of community or even national cohesion and resilience in times of great stress such as what the population of London experienced in World War II.

The American Psychological Association lists the attributes for resilience as follows:

1.      to maintain good relationships with close family members, friends and others;

2.      to avoid seeing crisis or stressful events as unbearable problems;

3.      to accept circumstances that cannot be changed;

4.      to develop realistic goals and move towards them;

5.      to take decisive actions in adverse situations;

6.      to look for opportunities of self-discovery after a struggle with loss;

7.      to develop self-confidence;

8.      to keep a long-term perspective and consider the stressful event in a broader context;

9.      to maintain a hopeful outlook, expecting good things and visualizing what is wished;

10.  to take care of one's mind and body, exercising regularly, paying attention to one's own needs and feelings.

Fortitude, tenacity, resolve, conviction, grit. Resilience is an attribute or characteristic of someone’s personality, but resilience is also a process. We are likely born with the ability to develop resilience and some do it more easily than others depending on both their exposure to adversity and their ability to learn and incorporate the “skill set” of resilience. Shakespeare wrote, "Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms." Maybe oversimplified, but his advice is good. Though admittedly I have simplified this very complex issue about resilience, maybe this piece can stimulate some further thought. One further thought I have is how can we foster resilience in each other? I have some ideas, but would welcome yours…

Cheers!