Resilience

What is it?

• A function of brain activity
• A personal journey
• A learned behavior
• An action Plan

Servicemembers returning from a combat zone can reduce their risk of long term effects such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety. This is done by doing an honest assessment of your current mental health, recognizing and using your strengths and researching and utilizing common skills to build resilience:

Make connections

Good relationships are important. Accepting help and support from others strengthens resilience.

Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems

You can’t change stressful events, but you can control how you respond to these events.

Accept change is a part of living

Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.

Move towards your (realistic) goals

"What’s one thing I can accomplish today that helps me move

in the direction I want to go?”

Take decisive actions

Act rather than detach from problems. Wishing won’t make them go away.

Look for opportunities for self-discovery

After experiencing loss, many people report better relationships, personal growth and increased self-worth.

Nurture a positive view of yourself

Developing confidence in problem-solving abilities and trusting your instincts helps to build resilience.

Keep things in perspective

Avoid blowing events out of proportion and keep a long-term perspective.

Maintain a hopeful outlook

This enables you to expect that good things will happen. Visualize what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.

Take care of yourself

Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in enjoyable, relaxing activities. Exercise. Keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience.

Researchers have developed 7 factors to Resilience:

1. Develop Core Values and Principles

2. Life’s Mission

3. Form support systems with family, friends, community

4. Humor

5. Spirituality

6. Training — in all forms

7. Intellectual flexibility — use your left brain to alter how you perceive an event

There are 7 skills of Resilience:

1. Learning Your ABCs

When confronted with a problem or challenge, are you ever surprised by how you react or wish you could respond differently? Do you ever assume that you know the facts of a situation, only to find out later that you misinterpreted them? If the thoughts running through your head when you're faced with adversity are inaccurate, your ability to respond effectively to that adversity will be severely compromised. We'll teach you to "listen" to your thoughts, to identify what you say to yourself when faced with a challenge, and to understand how your thoughts affect your feelings and behavior.

2. Avoiding Thinking Traps

When things go wrong, do you automatically blame yourself? Do you blame others? Do you jump to conclusions? Do you assume that you know what another person is thinking? When faced with adversity, people regularly make eight mistakes that undermine resilience. We'll teach you to identify the ones you habitually make and how to correct them.

3. Detecting Icebergs

Everyone has deeply held beliefs about how people and the world should operate and who they are and want to be. We call these iceberg beliefs because they often "float" beneath the surface of our consciousness so we're not even aware of them. Often these beliefs guide us to behave in ways that are true to our values. Sometimes, however, these deep beliefs interfere with our ability to live the kind of life we want, and they explain why we overreact to seemingly minor issues or have a hard time making what seem like simple decisions. We'll teach you how to identify your deep beliefs and determine when they are working for you and when they are working against you.

4. Challenging Beliefs

A key component of resilience is problem solving. How effective are you at solving the problems that you encounter day to day? Do you waste time pursuing solutions that don't work? Do you feel helpless to change situations? Do you persist on one problem-solving path even when you see that it's not getting you where you want to be? It's your thinking style that often leads you to misinterpret the causes of a problem, which then leads you to pursue the wrong solutions. We'll teach you how to test the accuracy of your beliefs about problems and how to find solutions that work.

5. Putting It in Perspective

Do you get caught in what-if thinking in which you turn every failure or problem into a catastrophe? Do you waste valuable time and energy worrying yourself into a state of paralyzing anxiety about events that have not even occurred? We'll teach you how to stop the what-ifs so that you're better prepared to deal with problems that really do exist or are most likely to occur.

6. Calming and Focusing

Do you feel overwhelmed by stress? Do your emotions sometimes come on so quickly and fiercely that you can't seem to think straight? Do "off-task" thoughts make it hard for you to concentrate? We'll show you how to stay calm and focused when you're overwhelmed by emotion or stress so you can concentrate on the task at hand. This "fast skill" is often used with Skill 7.

7. Real-time Resilience

Are there times when counterproductive thoughts make it hard for you to stay engaged and in the moment? Do certain negative thoughts tend to recur over and over again? We'll teach you a powerful skill so that you can quickly change your counterproductive thoughts into more resilient ones — with immediate results.

The Resilience Factor: 7 Essential Skills for Overcoming Life's Inevitable Obstacles [Hardcover]

Authors: Andrew Shatte and Karen Reivich

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