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Resilience: Build skills to endure hardship

Resilience means being able to adapt to life's misfortunes and setbacks. Test your resilience level and get tips to build your own resilience.

By Mayo Clinic staff

When something goes wrong, do you tend to bounce back or fall apart? When you have resilience, you harness inner strengths and rebound more quickly from a setback or challenge, whether it's a job loss, an illness, a disaster or the death of a loved one.

In contrast, if you lack resilience, you tend to dwell on problems, feel victimized, become overwhelmed and turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as substance abuse. You may even be more inclined to develop mental health problems.

Resilience won't make your problems go away. But resilience can give you the ability to see past them, find enjoyment in life and handle stress better. If you aren't as resilient as you'd like to be, you can develop skills to become more resilient.

Resilience means adapting to adversity

Resilience is the ability to roll with the punches. It means that although you encounter stress, adversity, trauma or tragedy, you keep functioning, both psychologically and physically.

Resilience isn't about toughing it out or living by old cliches, such as "grin and bear it." It doesn't mean you ignore your feelings. When adversity strikes, you still experience anger, grief and pain, but you're able to go on with daily tasks, remain generally optimistic and go on with your life. Being resilient also doesn't mean being stoic or going it alone. In fact, being able to reach out to others for support is a key component of being resilient.

Resilience and mental health

Resilience helps protect you against mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety. It can also help offset factors that put you at risk of mental illness, such as lack of social support, being bullied or previous trauma. And being resilient can help you cope better with an existing mental illness.

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References
  1. Creagan ET (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. June 5, 2009.
  2. Karren KJ, et al. Mind, Body, Health: The Effects of Attitudes, Emotions and Relationships. 4th ed. San Francisco, Calif.: Pearson Education Inc.; 2010:543.
  3. The road to resilience. American Psychological Association. http://www.apahelpcenter.org/featuredtopics/feature.php?id=6 . Accessed May 4, 2009.
  4. Mental health: A report of the Surgeon General. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/home.html. Accessed May 28, 2009.
  5. Edward K, et al. The phenomenon of resilience as described by adults who have experienced mental illness. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2009;65:587.
  6. Bonnano G, et al. The human capacity to thrive in the face of potential trauma. Pediatrics. 2008;121:369.
  7. Norris FH, et al. Looking for resilience: Understanding the longitudinal trajectories of responses to stress. Social Science and Medicine. 2009. In press. Accessed May 29, 2009.
  8. Netuveli G, et al. Mental health and resilience at older ages: Bouncing back after adversity in the British Household Panel Survey. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 2008;62:987.

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July 18, 2009

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