Important Facts On Stress Resilience

By Eugenia Dickerson


Stress resilience is the ability of an individual to cope with anxiety and tension. It is an attribute that helps the affected individual bounce back to a previous state of functioning following a major event in their life. The term may also refer to improved functioning after experiencing some difficulties. This is commonly known as post-traumatic growth. It is important to understand this phenomenon as a process that takes time to develop rather than a personal trait.

It is normal for people to react negatively when they are faced with difficulties in life. Events such as trauma, adversity and threats frequently cause negative behaviours and attitudes among the affected. Through resilience, one can overcome these negative thoughts and adopt more constructive positive attitudes. Offering psychological treatment to these persons in the form of cognitive behaviour therapy is greatly helpful. The significance of social support cannot be overlooked.

There are a number of factors that have been identified as enhancing this attribute. Close relationships with your families and friends is one of them. This coupled to the ability to easily share experiences makes it much easier to cope with difficulties. Other factors include ability to seek help and resources, good communication skills and presence of a winning mentality.

Religion has been shown as one of the most important factors involved in developing a positive self-esteem in persons that are faced with challenging situations. It has been demonstrated through research that young persons that join the church improve their academic performance. The improvement appears to be related to the attendance of church and interaction with believers and not the doctrine. The church has traditionally exerted great influence on social, physical and emotional health.

Resilience is measured in an objective manner using what is called the resiliency quotient. In this quotient a number of different life aspects are assessed to determine the quality of life. Some of the areas that are included in the assessment include dietary habits, sleeping patterns and presence or absence of social support structures. Other areas of importance include the level of income and the amount of income raised. All these compared to a certain standard.

Once the resiliency quotient has been determined, the affected person is advised accordingly. Results of the assessment are expressed in percentiles. Persons that have a score that falls above the 90th percentile are regarded as being psychological stable. Those that score slightly below this can be assisted through a little social and medical support to restore normalcy. Those that score very lowly almost always need comprehensive medical support.

Contrary to common belief, stress is not just a psychological issue. It is a condition that affects a great diversity of systems in the body. When the musculoskeletal system is affected patients will often complain of frequent muscle and joint pains. For the parasympathetic system, the main complains are in the gut and the genitourinary system. Other systems that are frequently affected are the cognition system, the sympathetic system and the endocrine system.

Stress resilience requires that one plays an active role in overcoming difficulties. One needs to challenge themselves to look at this from a positive perspective regardless of how difficult the situation is. This has to be something that is done on a daily basis. The importance of family support in this process cannot be overemphasised.




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