By Clara and Justin Hamel
Last week, we explored emotional traumas’ effects on the mind and the body, and how our emotional stress is inextricably entwined with our physical wellbeing. We also ended with an important and encouraging thought: our past experiences do not have to determine our future well-being.
Why? A beautiful little thing called resilience.
Resilience is our ability to adapt, recover and grow when life takes a detour. It does not mean stress no longer touches us, or that difficult experiences have no effect on us. But it does mean developing the internal and external resources that help us move through life’s detours in healthier ways.
Increasingly, research suggests that resilience is not simply something innate, but something we build on, strengthen and grow throughout our lives.
A large meta-analysis examining 268 studies designed to influence resilience found that interventions to promote resilience produced a small but statistically significant improvement in resilience overall. Interestingly, there was not a single skill that stood out as the key to building resilience. Instead, resilience is shaped by a combination of how we think, how we respond to stress, how we care for our bodies and the support systems we have around us.
So, what can we actually do to build it?
Let’s start with one of the most foundational tools for bolstering resilience, mindfulness.
Mindfulness has received considerable attention for its overall effect on well-being, and it does not fall short when it comes to resilience. Multiple peer-reviewed studies found a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and resilience. In other words, people who demonstrated greater mindfulness also tended to demonstrate greater resilience. While this type of research cannot prove that mindfulness alone causes resilience, it does suggest that the ability to stay present and aware may be an important part of how we respond to stress and adversity.
Intervention research provides even more insight because it looks at what happens when people are actually taught mindfulness skills. In a randomized controlled trial involving stressed adults, researchers compared different approaches to mindfulness training. They found that two important skills worked together. The first was learning to notice what was happening in the present moment, including our thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. The second was learning to accept those experiences without immediately judging them or trying to push them away.
This distinction matters. Simply noticing that we are stressed is different from getting caught up in that stress and reacting automatically. When we can recognize what we are feeling and give ourselves a moment to pause, we create space to choose how we want to respond rather than letting stress control our reaction.
We can practice this technique by simply becoming more aware of what is happening in the moment. When you notice yourself becoming stressed or overwhelmed, pause and take a few slow breaths. Notice what you are feeling in your body, recognize the thoughts running through your mind, and allow those thoughts and the feelings they evoke to be there without immediate judgement or reaction.
Remember, being mindful does not mean we have to get familiar with spending 30 minutes in lotus daily. Mindfulness can be much simpler. It can begin with noticing tension in your shoulders, taking a few slow breaths before responding to a text, or simply becoming an observer of your thoughts instead of a reactor to them. Whether it is recognizing that you are becoming overwhelmed and stepping away for a few minutes rather than pushing through. Or whether it is spending time outside without your phone, immersing yourself in your surroundings and paying attention to even the subtle cues nature is offering around you, mindfulness does not have to be complicated. It is cultivating small, intentional moments throughout the day that help us slow down, reconnect with ourselves and respond rather than react.
These small moments may not seem significant, but they create an important pause between what happens to us and how we respond. That pause is where resilience can begin to grow.
Next week, we’ll continue exploring additional ways we can strengthen our resilience and better equip ourselves to navigate life’s inevitable detours.
*Dr. Justin Hamel and Clara Hamel have a combined over 30 years of experience in health fields. Reach them at 1° Performance & Longevity, located at 46 N. Central Park Plz., Suite 101, in Jacksonville, on Facebook or by phone at 217-243-6358.
