What is mental resilience?
Mental resilience can be understood as responding to pressure in a constructive and positive way in which someone can retain their psychological integrity despite any hardship or challenge. According to the American Psychological Association, it is defined as the process by which an one can adapt to difficult life experiences through developing mental, emotional and behavioral flexibility and through adjustment to external and internal demands (Spielberg et al., 2014).
In popular culture, being resilient is typically associated with terms that evoke invulnerability or durability. Although some elements of these traits may be relevant to mental resilience, they fail to capture the true nature of what it means to be resilient. Suppose we delve deeper into its underlying meaning. In that case, we begin to realize that it rather means we can pivot and adjust depending on a given circumstance. Hence, new explanations for what it means to be mentally resilient arise when we consider this perspective. More importantly, another question that needs to be considered is whether there is an inherent ability that makes us respond to pressure better.
Hence, in the following essay, we will demonstrate the current scientific literature surrounding this process and list the different methods that can be implemented in order to foster an efficient state of mental resilience. To explore this, we will begin by highlighting the major role of mental resilience in human functioning: its role in the stress response (literature review on stress management). Following this, we will outline the different factors that underlie the process of resilience and impart the techniques that have been proven to foster it.
Stress and resilience
One factor that highlights the human ability to be mentally resilient is stress and how it is coped with. Exposure to stress can generate many outcomes depending on its degree of intensity and how it is responded to within the human mind. Some instances of stress can come in the form of environmental, social and financial stressors, which have the potential to impact individual lives significantly. In more severe cases, prolonged exposure to stress can lead to trauma forming within the brain (Southwick et al., 2014). However, research into the effects of trauma has found an overarching ability that can mediate whether exposure to stress will lead to eventual trauma – mental resilience (Southwick et al., 2014).
When an individual becomes exposed to stress, research has shown that how they cope with this exposure dictates whether trauma is formed within the brain (Metel et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2013). During stress exposure, we can boil down the continuum of possible responses into two primary domains: maladaptive or adaptive. Depending on the chosen response, the subsequent effects can be harmful, and a deciding factor for this is how the person can cope with it.
Maladaptive coping styles are typically associated with processes such as avoidance, thought suppression and fear in response to stressful circumstances. As a result, research has shown that these responses have the potential to produce detrimental neurochemical responses that lead to trauma (Kashdan & Kane, 2011). More specifically, a maladaptive response to stress can lead to heightened levels of cortisol, otherwise known as the stress hormone, which has been shown to have debilitating effects on neural circuitry, potentially leading to episodes of anxiety and depression (Herbert, 2013). Accordingly, those who lack mental resilience typically resort to maladaptive coping styles as they struggle to confront challenging experiences with the appropriate cognitive mechanisms (Wu et al., 2020).
On the other hand, adaptive coping mechanisms are associated with factors such as optimism, emotional self-regulation and intellectual functioning, which have been shown to significantly mediate the stress response during challenging experiences (Crum et al., 2013; Folkman & Maskowitz, 2000). The difference between the two coping styles is that one is more likely to generate an acute and prolonged stress response, whereas the other inhibits it. More importantly, the latter is associated with the ability to be mentally resilient.
The underling factors of mental resilience
One important distinction is that resilience does not arise from one singular process within the brain but through a combination of many (Lin et al., 2017). Research has showen that being resilient equates to developing various factors that come together to form a person’s mental resilience. If we break this process down into different sub-components, themes such as emotional and impulse control, determination and confidence arise in relation. Accordingly, these elements can be considered the psychological factors that form resilience. This was outlined by Clough and colleagues (2002), who characterized mental resilience with four connected but independent underlying processes, which are:
- Control of life and emotional events – The ability to keep any emotions or stress responses in check in the face of adversity (literature review on emotional regulation)
- Commitment – The commitment factor relates to the tendency of mentally resilient individuals to remain in pursuit of a given goal despite any difficulties that may arise.
- Challenge – The ability to perceive challenging situations as opportunities for learning and self-development. This can also be considered a form of optimism and personality trait that veers toward positivity.
- Confidence – Confidence is a key factor that dictates how someone behaves in response to setbacks and hardships, making it a cornerstone of mental resilience. (developing confidence)
Moreover, subsequent studies have also outlined similar psychological processes that contribute to mental resilience. Factors such as optimism, intelligence, self-efficacy and the use of adaptive emotional regulation strategies all fall under the umbrella of mental resilience if appropriately cultivated (Ong et al., 2006; Sapienza & Masten, 2011).
Focus and mental resilience
Moving deeper into a cognitive scale, studies have associated processes such as inhibitory control with the presence of mental resilience (Afek et al., 2021). Inhibitory control is a component of the brain’s executive functioning that refers to the ability to maintain goal-directed behavior while ignoring irrelevant information (Miyake & Friedman, 2012). Hence, the higher the ability to exercise inhibitory control, the more likely it is that the person will be able to remain on a stable path towards their initial goals. Conversely, if someone has lower ability to exercise inhibitory control, they will be more likely to stray and become overwhelmed by concurrent distractions.
Cognitive processes such as emotional and psychological flexibility have been frequently mentioned in the literature to positively contribute to mental resilience (Spielberg et al., 2015; Shi et al., 2019). The ability to confront and adequately process difficult emotions without allowing them to “bite” you is a fundamental cornerstone of what it means to be resilient. It drives the ability to adapt and to appropriately re-orient oneself in the face of adversity and challenge, thus reducing the negative impact of a given event.
Mental resilience – How can we cultivate it?
Research into mental resilience has put forth a dual paradigm that can be used to inform us about how it can be cultivated. These two interconnected themes need to be considered when we discuss mental resilience development: (1) Formative experiences and (2) Support and coping resources.
- Formative experiences relate to the instances where a person goes through a unique experience that generates a switch in perspective due to challenges, setbacks, sustained commitment, failure and even trauma (Powell & Myers, 2017).
- Support and Coping Resources refer to the subsequent events that enable the individual to adaptively process the formative experience that has just been completed in a way that leads to psychological growth. Examples of support and coping resources are social support or engaging in reflective practice (Powell & Myers, 2017).
Ultimately, considering these two themes, we see that the process by which mental toughness is cultivated demands someone to undergo a formative experience that has to be coupled with subsequent support and coping resources. It is crucial to consider this, as this dual paradigm can be applied in any field of human performance for anyone to develop mental resilience.
Furthermore, the notion that mental resilience is developed in the face of adversity is also a heavily cited idea within the literature (Sarkar et al., 2015). This process is utilized within military settings, which integrate significantly aversive training procedures within their selection process to filter out and cultivate mentally resilient trainees (Duckworth et al., 2007). It has also been similarly introduced within athletic settings, where studies are beginning to show the robust benefits of adversity concerning the improvement of athletic performance (Tedeschi & Calhood, 2004a). Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is often cited in relation to this, where reports demonstrate how mental resilience and subsequent performance receive a boost following episodes of acute challenge.
Studies have also outlined that improvements in mental resilience are more pronounced when there is an active intent toward being exposed to challenging events instead of being exposed to them unwillingly. Hence, we observe a clear association between proactivity, determination, and a willingness to embrace adversity as elements that prompt mental resilience and growth. However, similar to the dual paradigm outlined by Powell and Myers (2017), mental resilience improves only when an adaptive method of integrating challenging experiences is present and the challenge itself is not far beyond someone’s current ability to cope.
What does this mean for the layman seeking to develop mental resilience? Considering these findings, mental resilience can be cultivated by purposefully engaging in challenging but manageable activities while simultaneously adapting to the final outcome in a constructive way for your growth (Powell & Myers, 2017) with the help of external support of personal coping strategies. Simply put, it demands a person to leave their “comfort zone” and enter an area of novelty that brings in either mental, physical, or emotional challenge. If one is more suited for athletics, a method to prompt resilience would be to increase the duration and speed of their run and undertake a physical activity that will push them toward their physical and mental limits. On the other hand, if an individual is more academic, they can involve themselves in a mentally intensive task with a higher probability of failure than what they usually take on.
Essentially, according to these studies, it is not the outcomes that are of interest but rather the level of challenge (neither too much nor too little) and the person’s subsequent ability to process the experience (through external support and personal coping strategies) that together prompt mental resilience.
The Bottom line
Through this essay, we have shown that mental resilience is the process by which an individual can adapt to a given experience and that through exposure to challenge, they can become mentally resilient if the necessary factors, including adaptive coping, are present. Moreover, we have seen that mental resilience is an umbrella term that encompasses a myriad of factors that work together to form resilience. Briefly defined, the more an individual can control their impulses and the more emotionally flexible they are, the more conducive they will be to developing mental resilience compared to those who are not. Mental resilience is not a unique or exclusive trait present only in a select few, but rather a mental disposition that can be cultivated through sustained effort and a willingness to confront challenging experiences head-on.
References
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