Becoming More Resilient

September 17, 2012

Interview with Dr. Steven Southwick, author of the book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges

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Mike Carruthers:
Just how resilient a person would you say you are?

Dr. Steven Southwick:
Resilience is the ability to bend but not break and to bounce back from adversity and often to continue to grow.
 

Dr. Steven Southwick, author of the book Resilience...

It ends up being very important because all of us at some point are faced with various levels of stress and tragedy and trauma – none of us really escape that. And the way that our bodies respond to stress is really critical for our physical and mental health.

If you’re not very resilient the stress you experience can actually be more damaging than the experience that caused the stress in the first place.

One of the things that happens is that our own stress hormones if left unchecked can cause damage to the hippocampus, for example, an area of the brain that’s critical for new learning, learning new memories, and for controlling and containing the stress response itself.

Some people just seem more resilient than others - how do they do it?

Resilient people find resilient role models and they imitate a variety of behaviors. Resilient individuals also generally have positive emotions they’re optimistic but it’s a realistic optimism it’s not rose colored. Realistic optimists see as much of a negative as a pessimist but they don’t dwell on it.