Psychological resilience is a powerful tool that can help an individual begin to move past stresses, emotional turmoil, crises, or even traumatic experiences. However, it is also something that requires practice in order to implement effectively and isn’t something that people are inherently born with. However, learning what resilience is and how to build psychological resilience can inform each individual about how they can better maintain a healthy emotional state, even amidst intense stressors, to find an effective solution to a problem.
What Does “Psychological Resilience” Mean?
Psychological resilience is a person’s ability to mentally cope with stresses or traumatic events, and quickly and effectively return to a pre-crisis mental and emotional state. It involves a person processing these stresses in a healthy and effective manner in order to regain control of their own emotions, and thus how they respond to the stresses or crisis at hand. It is an important skill for ensuring one’s safety both in the moment, as well as the days following stressful events. The ability to process and overcome these stressors in this manner can help a person protect themselves against any lingering effects of trauma or stress, and overall creates a solid emotional front that can continue to empower a person and their own identity, rather than succumb to stress.
Psychological Resilience Isn’t Detachment
When thinking of this kind of psychological resilience, many may think of stoic leaders who never show emotion or fear. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. Those who practice and exhibit a high level of emotional resilience oftentimes do so by acknowledging that things are stressful, traumatic, or fear-inducing, and then embracing these emotions. Learning how to improve psychological resilience isn’t about denying these emotions, but having a plan in place to effectively acknowledge and process them quickly through the use of healthy practices and known resources.
How To Increase Psychological Resilience
Building psychological resilience is a process that requires effort and a pre-set plan. Planning ahead of time and having access to coping resources is paramount in effectively bolstering an individual’s psychological resilience. It requires a degree of mindfulness, or the ability to acknowledge one’s own emotions, such as when they are stressed or scared, in order to begin moving past these emotions and regain control of one’s emotional state. Improving one’s psychological resilience also involves a degree of acceptance that change is an inevitability, and practice on learning how to find silver linings amidst stresses. Psychological resilience is less about putting up a front against negative emotions, but acknowledging and contextualizing negative emotions and contrasting them against the positives in one’s life. It is an ability to look at the whole picture, and even see the negative, fear-inducing parts of one’s day as just a part of the larger whole, and move to make that larger whole an overall positive experience in life.