Resilience: Adversity Makes Me Stronger
Resilience is defined as the ability to face an adverse situation and emerge strengthened from that situation. It is the basis for us to use the problems that arise as a learning experience that helps us to improve. Resilience is put to the test in prolonged situations of stress or suffering, such as the unexpected loss of a loved one, surviving a natural disaster, childhood abuse, etc.
At the other end of the concept of resilience may be the development of a post-traumatic stress disorder. When experiencing a traumatic episode, each individual has different ways of dealing with what has happened. Furthermore, everyone can assess the same fact differently.
According to D’Alessio, emotional resilience encompasses the set of personality traits and cognitive mechanisms developed by an individual that provide protection against adverse situations, preventing the development of a mental disorder.
Resilience from a neurobiological point of view
The brain is central to the biological system responsible for resilience and regulates the individual’s neurobiological, psychological and cognitive mechanisms linked to the stress response. The functioning of the brain is dynamic and can change its structure depending on perceived needs thanks to neuroplasticity.
Recovery of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus together with dendritic removal of the hippocampus are the main structural changes associated with resilience and that can be altered during prolonged stress. The factors that make each individual react differently to the same potentially stressful stimulus have a different nature: they can be genetic, circumstantial, relational, etc.
In resilient individuals, constitutional, biological and genetic variables interact with environmental variables and learned behaviors to resolve certain adverse situations. They do this by preventing or preventing a psychiatric disorder. Thus, it is not possible to speak of a single variable that makes a person resilient.
Influential Factors
There are numerous factors that influence resilience and the way to face adverse situations. For example, it was observed that situations of high maternal care in childhood favor it. People who received this care are more resistant to stress, needing highly stressful events for the body to trigger the same response as in another individual.
Stress is a physiological mechanism necessary for our bodies to function, to carry out activities or to respond to threatening or dangerous external stimuli. But chronic stress can trigger harmful changes in the brain by having higher levels of stress hormones (cortisone and adrenaline).
Learning during childhood is another factor that can influence. The development of coping strategies from an early age can also favor the development of resilience.
Adversity as learning
Resilience doesn’t just offer a way out of traumas or problems that in other people can favor the development of serious illnesses or problems. It is also characterized by giving a reinforcement that emanates from the negative experience itself. To accept what has been lived and use it to move forward so that the meaningful experience is not forgotten but transformed.
Living a traumatic experience will always have an impact on our life and a negative implication, as it is a highly stressful situation. The key is to turn this pain into strength to move forward and have a full life. Many victims of disasters or similar experiences use their experience to help people in the same situation.
Accepting that we cannot change what happened and that we are not always in control of what happens to us are strategies that can help to overcome various difficulties that arise. Not being afraid to ask for help from those closest to you or those who have gone through it and trusting in our abilities can be very effective strategies. Use them!
