What Is Resilience? Your Guide to Facing Life’s Challenges, Adversities, and Crises
What is resilience, why is it so important, and how do you know if you’re resilient enough?
“It’s your ability to withstand adversity and bounce back and grow despite life’s downturns,” says Amit Sood, MD, the executive director of the Global Center for Resiliency and Well-Being and the creator of the Resilient Option program. (Dr. Sood is also a member of the Everyday Health Wellness Advisory Board.)
RELATED: Resilience Resource Center
It’s important to note that being resilient requires a skill set that you can work on and grow over time. Building resilience takes time, strength, and help from people around you; you’ll likely experience setbacks along the way. It depends on personal behaviors and skills (like self-esteem and communication skills), as well as external things (like social support and resources available to you).
Being resilient does not mean that you don’t experience stress, emotional upheaval, and suffering. Demonstrating resilience includes working through emotional pain and suffering.
9 Essential Skills That Make You Resilient
Common Questions & Answers
A survey conducted by Everyday Health, in partnership with The Ohio State University, found that just 55 percent of Americans believe they are at least very resilient. Take the Everyday Health Assessment to find out your resilience score and learn skills to become more resilient.
The 7 Cs resilience model was developed by Ken Ginsburg, MD, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, to help children and adolescents build resilience. The 7 Cs are: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control.
What Is Resilience Theory?
People face all kinds of adversity in life. There are personal crises, such as illness, loss of a loved one, abuse, bullying, job loss, and financial instability. There is the shared reality of tragic events in the news, such as terrorist attacks, mass shootings, natural disasters, a global pandemic, and war. People have to learn to cope with and work through very challenging life experiences.
Resilience theory tells us that resilience isn’t a fixed trait (you can grow your capacity to practice resilience). And it’s not constant, in that you might demonstrate a lot of resilience when it comes to one challenge you’re faced with, but struggle more with being resilient when it comes to another stressor you’re up against.
Sood says resilience involves these five principles:
- Gratitude
- Compassion
- Acceptance
- Meaning
- Forgiveness
The Top Factors That Build Resilience
Developing resilience is both complex and personal. It involves a combination of inner strengths and outer resources, and there isn’t a universal formula for becoming more resilient.
According to the APA, some of the key factors that contribute to personal resilience include:
- The ways you view and engage with the world
- The availability and quality of social resources
- Specific coping strategies
A variety of factors contribute to building resilience, and there isn’t a simple to-do list to work through adversity.
RELATED: 20 Tips for Building and Cultivating Your Resilience
According to resilience theory, other factors that help build resilience include:
- Social Support Research shows that your supportive social systems, which can include immediate or extended family, community, friends, and organizations, foster your resilience in times of crisis or trauma.
- Self-Esteem A positive sense of self and confidence in your strengths can stave off feelings of helplessness in the face of adversity. A study in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that self-esteem and resilience were closely related.
- Coping Skills Coping and problem-solving skills help empower a person who has to work through adversity and overcome hardship. Research has found that using positive coping skills (like optimism and sharing) can help bolster resilience more than nonproductive coping skills.
- Communication Skills Being able to communicate clearly and effectively helps people seek support, mobilize resources, and take action. Research has shown that people who are able to interact with, show empathy toward, and inspire confidence and trust in others tend to be more resilient.
- Emotional Regulation The capacity to manage potentially overwhelming emotions (or seek assistance to work through them) helps people maintain focus when overcoming a challenge, and this trait has been linked to improved resilience, a study showed.
What Does the Research Say About Why Resilience Is Important?
Resilience is what gives people the emotional strength to cope with trauma, adversity, and hardship. Resilient people utilize their resources, strengths, and skills to overcome challenges and work through setbacks.
People who lack resilience are more likely to feel overwhelmed or helpless and rely on unhealthy coping strategies (such as avoidance, isolation, and self-medication).
Resilient people do experience stress, setbacks, and difficult emotions, but they tap into their strengths and seek help from support systems to overcome challenges and work through problems. Resilience empowers them to accept and adapt to a situation and move forward, Sood says. “[It’s] the core strength you use to lift the load of life.”
What Are the 7 Cs of Resilience?
Ken Ginsburg, MD, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a cofounder of the Center for Parent and Teen Communication, developed the 7 Cs model of resilience to help kids and teens build the skills to be happier and more resilient.
The 7 Cs model is centered on two key points:
- Young people live up or down to the expectations that are set for them, and they need adults who love them unconditionally and hold them to high expectations.
- How we model resilience for young people is far more important than what we say about it.
- Competence This is the ability to know how to handle situations effectively. To build competence, individuals develop a set of skills to help them trust their judgments and make responsible choices.
- Confidence Ginsburg says that true self-confidence is rooted in competence. Individuals gain confidence by demonstrating competence in real-life situations.
- Connection Close ties to family, friends, and community provide a sense of security and belonging.
- Character Individuals need a fundamental sense of right and wrong to make responsible choices, contribute to society, and experience self-worth.
- Contribution Ginsburg says that having a sense of purpose is a powerful motivator. Contributing to your community reinforces positive reciprocal relationships.
- Coping When people learn to cope with stress effectively, they are better prepared to handle adversity and setbacks.
- Control Developing an understanding of internal control helps individuals act as problem-solvers instead of victims of circumstance. When individuals learn that they can control the outcomes of their decisions, they are more likely to view themselves as capable and confident.
The 7 Cs of resilience illustrate the interplay between personal strengths and outside resources, regardless of age.
Types of Resilience: Psychological, Emotional, Physical, and Community
The word resilience is often used on its own to represent overall adaptability and coping, but it can be broken down into categories or types:
- Psychological resilience
- Emotional resilience
- Physical resilience
- Community resilience
What Is Psychological Resilience?
People who exhibit psychological resilience develop coping strategies and skills that enable them to remain calm and focused during a crisis and move on without long-term negative consequences, including distress and anxiety.
What Is Emotional Resilience?
Emotionally resilient people understand what they’re feeling and why. They tap into realistic optimism, even when dealing with a crisis, and are proactive in using both internal and external resources to get through. They are able to manage external stressors and their own emotions in a healthy, positive way.
What Is Physical Resilience?
Physical resilience refers to the body’s ability to adapt to challenges, maintain stamina and strength, and recover quickly and efficiently. It’s a person’s ability to function and recover when faced with illness, accidents, or other physical demands.
Healthy lifestyle choices, connections with friends and neighbors, deep breathing, time well spent to rest and recover, and engagement in enjoyable activities all play a role in physical resilience.
What Is Community Resilience?
Community resilience refers to the ability of groups of people to respond to and recover from adverse situations, such as natural disasters, acts of violence, economic hardship, and other challenges to the group as a whole.
Real-life examples of community resilience include New York City after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; Newtown, Connecticut, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting; New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina; and the communities of Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio, and Uvalde, Texas, in the wake of mass shootings.
For many Americans, the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic tested their resilience like never before.
Research and Statistics on Resilience
How Do I Train Myself to Be More Resilient?
The good news is that resilience can be learned. And it’s not about learning how to “grin and bear it” or to simply “get over it.” Nor is it learning to avoid obstacles or resist change.
Building resilience is a process by which people become better at reframing thought patterns and tapping into a strengths-based approach to working through obstacles.
As a process, it doesn’t happen overnight, and even if you are already resilient, it’s something you have to work at to maintain. The following are steps that can help you build resilience over time.
- Develop self-awareness. Understanding how you typically respond to stress and adversity is the first step toward learning more adaptive strategies. Self-awareness also includes understanding your strengths and knowing your weaknesses.
- Build self-regulation skills. Remaining focused in the face of stress and adversity is important but not easy. Stress-reduction techniques, such as guided imagery, breathing exercises, and mindfulness training, can help you regulate your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
- Learn coping skills. There are many coping skills that can help in dealing with stressful and challenging situations. They include journaling, reframing thoughts, exercising, spending time outdoors, socializing, improving sleep hygiene, and tapping into creative outlets.
- Increase optimism. People who are more optimistic tend to feel more in control of their outcomes. To build optimism, focus on what you can do when faced with a challenge, and identify positive, problem-solving steps that you can take.
- Strengthen connections. Support systems can play a vital role in resilience. Bolster your existing social connections and find opportunities to build new ones.
- Know your strengths. People feel more capable and confident when they can identify and draw on their talents and strengths.
Resilience is not a permanent state. You may feel equipped to manage one stressor and overwhelmed by another. Remember the factors that build resilience and try to apply them when dealing with adversity.
RELATED: Take the Everyday Health Assessment and Get Your Resilience Score
Resilience and Health Conditions
Mental Health and Resilience
Resilience is a protective factor against psychological distress in adverse situations involving loss or trauma. It can help in the management of stress levels and depressive symptoms. Psychological resilience refers to the mental fortitude to handle challenges and adversity.
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Resilience in Children
Kids confront any number of challenges as they grow — from starting school and making new friends to adverse, traumatic experiences, such as bullying and abuse.
The 7 Cs model specifically addresses how to build resilience in kids and teens. It lists competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control as essential skills for young people to handle situations effectively.
- Foster social connections.
- Help children by having them help others.
- Maintain a daily routine.
- Take breaks from sources of stress.
- Teach self-care.
- Set realistic goals.
- Nurture a positive self-image.
- Keep things in perspective.
- Encourage self-discovery.
- Accept change as part of life.
There is no universal formula for building resilience in young people. If a child seems overwhelmed or troubled at school and at home, parents might consider talking to someone who can help, such as a counselor, psychologist, or other mental health professional.
Does Gender Affect Resilience?
Studies on resilience and gender suggest that men and women may respond differently to adversity and trauma. But the results have been conflicting.
Resilience in Women
Resilience benefits both men and women when they face challenges and adversity. But women also draw on resilience to overcome obstacles that are more often placed in their way, such as job discrimination, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.
Resilience in Men
Research has found that men who lack resilience are significantly more vulnerable to becoming severely depressed after the loss of a spouse.
Resilience in Books, Movies, and TV Shows
Literature and pop culture provide reminders that resilience is common to the human condition. Here are some of the top reads, films, and shows about ways to build inner strength and stories of people who drew on their own resilience.
5 Top Books on Resilience
- Freedom From Anxious Thoughts and Feelings: A Two-Step Mindfulness Approach for Moving Beyond Fear and Worry, by Scott Symington, PhD
- Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
- How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan
- Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, by Rick Hanson, PhD
- Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience, by Allison Pataki
Learn More About the 12 Best Books Dealing With Resilience
5 Top Movies, Documentaries, and TV Shows on Resilience
Learn More About 25 Top Movies and TV Shows Examining Resilience
Examples of Resilience
Celebrities Who Have Shown Resilience
- Randy Travis The country music superstar regained his voice and his life after suffering a massive stroke. Learn more about his struggles and hope for the future.
- J.K. Rowling The author was divorced, on government aid, and struggling to feed her family just three years before she sold the first Harry Potter book. The manuscript was rejected dozens of times before publisher Bloomsbury bought it. Now Rowling and her books are a global phenomenon.
- Emily Blunt As a child, the film actress struggled with a stutter that silenced her in the classroom and among her peers. But a teacher’s suggestion that she try out for a school play helped Blunt finally overcome her stutter.
- Sterling K. Brown The actor, whose uncle died from pancreatic cancer, set out to normalize the experience of cancer survivorship. Learn more about how he is putting a spotlight on life after cancer.
- Jennifer Hudson The singer’s mother, brother, and nephew were murdered by her sister’s estranged ex-husband. In the wake of the tragedy, Hudson worked through her pain by creating the Julian D. King Gift Foundation. Named after her late nephew, the charity provides support and positive experiences to help children from all backgrounds grow into productive and happy adults.
- Lionel Messi The soccer superstar was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency at age 11. The medical costs were too much for his parents, but the sporting director of FC Barcelona heard about his plight and arranged a tryout. Messi made the team and earned the money to cover his treatments.
- Rita Wilson An actress, singer, songwriter, and breast cancer survivor, Rita Wilson and her husband, Tom Hanks, helped alert the world to the new threat of COVID-19 when they shared their diagnosis. The experience inspired Wilson to become a flu shot advocate.
Other Stories of Resilience
Every day, people from all walks of life face health and personal challenges. Their stories of resilience offer hope and inspiration to others facing adversity.
- Cherie Binns The MS-certified nurse is helping others live better with the disease.
- Alisha Bridges Bridges wants others with psoriasis to know that they’re not alone.
- Howard Chang The Everyday Health blogger (“The Itch to Beat Psoriasis”) and his family have had to weather multiple health storms.
- Lydia Emily Painting helps this artist deal with the challenges of MS.
- Tori Geib For Geib, having metastatic cancer means living with the disease as well as she can.
- Sydney Heersink Sydney shares lessons she learned about coping with a cancer diagnosis.
- Tina Aswani Omprakash She has battled Crohn’s disease for over a decade and is helping raise awareness about the condition.
- Don Ray How one man beat the odds and has thrived for decades with type 1 diabetes.
- Nicole Schalmo A young actress wouldn’t let a shocking diagnosis deter her from her dreams.
Resources We Trust
For more information on the importance of resilience, what you can do to build up resilience, and how to practice it in your life, visit the following resources.
The Human Rights Resilience Project
This website brings together research, resources, and tools to improve resilience and well-being within the human rights community.
American Psychological Association — Resilience
Compiled by the APA, this resource helps people learn how to cope with difficult life situations, including trauma.
Edutopia: Resources on Developing Grit, Resilience, and Growth Mindset
This is a curated list of resources to help parents and educators teach and support grit, resilience, and growth mindset.
Mental Health Services
It can be difficult to know how and when to get help with feelings of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. Reaching out for help is a good first step toward building resilience and improving your overall well-being.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Call 988 if you are thinking about suicide or are worried about a loved one who might be. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline is open 24/7 in the United States to assist you by connecting you with a trained crisis worker.
Available 24/7 in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, the Crisis Text Line connects every user with a crisis counselor for confidential help on the spot.
It can be hard to know where to start when looking for a therapist. This find-a-therapist database helps you find support right in your zip code.
Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Sources
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