Each of us knows some­one who ei­ther bounces back quick­ly or nev­er seems to be af­fect­ed by trau­mat­ic events. Some peo­ple do not break af­ter bad events be­cause of re­silience, strong sup­port sys­tems, and cop­ing skills.

Re­silience refers to the make-up of hu­man be­ings that al­lows some peo­ple to han­dle hard feel­ings and adapt to change eas­i­ly. It is the abil­i­ty to adapt well and re­cov­er quick­ly from tough life events, stress, or change. It acts like a men­tal elas­tic band that helps peo­ple bounce back in­stead of break­ing un­der pres­sure, says the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion (apa.org).

Sev­er­al fac­tors con­tribute to how well peo­ple adapt to ad­ver­si­ties, apa.org says, “pre­dom­i­nant among them are (a) the ways in which in­di­vid­u­als view and en­gage with the world, (b) the avail­abil­i­ty and qual­i­ty of so­cial re­sources, and (c) spe­cif­ic cop­ing strate­gies.”

Any­one can learn re­silience. Learn­ing re­silience in­volves be­hav­iours, thoughts and ac­tions that are well with­in our con­trol and man­age­ment. It may take pro­fes­sion­al in­put or ther­a­peu­tic sup­port but each of us can learn new re­spons­es to sit­u­a­tions by ad­just­ing our thoughts and ac­tions.

When times get dif­fi­cult, there are cop­ing strate­gies to help us stay calm. When we feel dis­cour­aged, there are in­stru­ments to aid our re­cov­ery in­to find­ing hope. In dif­fi­cult times, we can learn to prac­tise fo­cus­ing on so­lu­tions rather than am­pli­fy­ing the prob­lem or is­sue or giv­ing up.

Men­tal flex­i­bil­i­ty can be learned. It may be hard work. It may take prac­tise. It may re­quire in­vest­ment in time and fi­nan­cial re­sources, but it can be achieved.

“Like build­ing a mus­cle, in­creas­ing your re­silience takes time and in­ten­tion­al­i­ty,” says apa.org. The ad­vice is to pay at­ten­tion to four core com­po­nents: con­nec­tion, well­ness, healthy think­ing, and mean­ing. These, they say, can “em­pow­er you to with­stand and learn from dif­fi­cult and trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences” (apa.org/top­ics/re­silience/build­ing-your-re­silience).

High among the ad­vice I give to most peo­ple is grow­ing in the aware­ness of the pow­er of the mind. Our thoughts are pow­er­ful and can act to sup­port us or to sab­o­tage us when we are faced with trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences or ob­sta­cles.

Ir­ra­tional think­ing, such as a ten­den­cy to cat­a­strophise dif­fi­cul­ties or as­sume the world is out to get you, puts a per­son risk for low re­silience, says apa.org.

In­stead, try­ing to adopt a more bal­anced and re­al­is­tic think­ing pat­tern can al­le­vi­ate the self-sab­o­tag­ing be­hav­iour.

For in­stance, if you feel over­whelmed by a chal­lenge, apa.org says, “re­mind your­self that what hap­pened to you is not an in­di­ca­tor of how your fu­ture will go, and that you’re not help­less. You may not be able to change a high­ly stress­ful event, but you can change how you in­ter­pret and re­spond to it.”

Be­tween 50 to 70 per cent of peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence at least one trau­mat­ic event in their life­time.

Ma­jor ac­ci­dents, se­vere abuse, ac­ci­den­tal or sud­den death of peo­ple close to us are among some of the main sources of trau­ma. But there is a small per­cent­age of peo­ple who do not reg­is­ter what is called high-mag­ni­tude trau­ma.

These in­di­vid­u­als may have pro­tec­tive fac­tors that work to shield them from a cri­sis. Healthy cop­ing skills and emo­tion­al lit­er­a­cy, cou­pled with com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, good fa­mil­ial re­la­tion­ships and safe spaces and peo­ple, are all pro­tec­tive fac­tors.

Self-reg­u­la­tion, op­ti­mism and good cop­ing skills have been my per­son­al for­mu­la in try­ing to heal my ner­vous sys­tem as it strug­gles to cope with life’s trau­mas. But my life is an ex­am­ple that the ner­vous sys­tem can heal.

I am high­light­ing some prac­ti­cal tools from lifestylemed­i­cine.stan­ford.edu that con­tin­ue to help me reg­u­late on an on­go­ing ba­sis

How to ac­tu­al­ly reg­u­late:

Prac­ti­cal tools

These are phys­i­o­log­i­cal in­puts, not mind­set shifts, and they act as sig­nals to the body to help with read­just­ment and re­new­ing of the mind

Phys­i­o­log­i­cal sigh: Dou­ble in­hale through the nose fol­lowed by a long, slow ex­hale through the mouth. Re­search from Stan­ford’s Hu­ber­man Lab iden­ti­fies this as the fastest re­al-time down­reg­u­la­tion tool avail­able. It takes 30 sec­onds and works any­where.

Move­ment as stress cy­cle com­ple­tion: The body was de­signed to phys­i­cal­ly dis­charge stress. A ten-minute walk af­ter a hard meet­ing or day is not a lux­u­ry, but it is neu­ro­log­i­cal hy­giene. It com­pletes the bi­o­log­i­cal stress cy­cle the body ini­ti­at­ed but nev­er re­solved.

Tran­si­tion rit­u­als: A de­lib­er­ate end-of-day sig­nal such as chang­ing your clothes, a short walk, five min­utes of breath­work, or any­thing con­sis­tent that says “work is over.” The ner­vous sys­tem learns from rep­e­ti­tion. Give it a cue to calm down and switch gears.

Parasym­pa­thet­ic an­chors: Small in­puts through­out the day that sig­nal safe­ty: eat­ing slow­ly with­out screens, hum­ming, spend­ing time in na­ture, soft­en­ing the jaw and eyes – un­clench the mouth and drop the shoul­ders may seem mi­nor but these to­geth­er are pow­er­ful.

Sleep as the mas­ter reg­u­la­tor: The ner­vous sys­tem re­pairs dur­ing deep sleep. Poor sleep means start­ing to­mor­row al­ready dys­reg­u­lat­ed, which in­creas­es cor­ti­sol, which wors­ens sleep. Treat sleep as in­fra­struc­ture, not a re­ward (lifestylemed­i­cine.stan­ford.edu).

One must de­sire to be well and well-reg­u­lat­ed and then do the work to achieve this. Re­silience is achiev­able. Make a com­mit­ment to your­self to help your­self heal and make the sac­ri­fice.