It is often thought that resilience is something people either have or don’t, that it cannot be learned and is intrinsic to someone’s nature. But behavioural experts say the truth is that resilience, the ability to adapt to whatever difficulties life throws at you and quickly bounce back, is a trait we all have and is built through health and emotional strength.
These days, we all need a degree of resilience to make it through stress-filled days that place heavy demands on our energy, drive and general wellbeing. The pressures are everywhere, from work to family responsibilities and an online world overflowing with content and information that can leave us feeling drained.
Dealing with all of this without losing your mind comes down to solid nutrition, better ways of managing stress and recovery habits, the experts say. And it can be, they say, that the smallest changes we make can have the biggest impact on the way we cope.
Baby Steps
If you want to become more resilient to life’s pressures, start out simple and small. That’s the message of Rebecca Ahmed, education director and life coach instructor at the Advanced National Health & Coaching Organization in the US state of Utah.
“Our daily routines, especially how we start and end each day, play a crucial role in shaping our physical and mental resilience,” she says. “They set the tone for our mindset and energy levels, and determine how well we can bounce back from challenges.”
From Ahmed’s perspective and experience, attempting to change everything you feel is letting you down, and doing it all together, is wrong.
“A mistake I often see people make on their health journey is trying to overhaul everything at once,” she says. “It’s easy to believe that big, dramatic changes will yield fast results, but this approach usually leads to burnout or disappointment.”
Instead, she encourages people to focus on just one small habit, like drinking a full glass of water every morning. It’s a ritual that tells your brain, ‘I’m taking care of myself today.’ Over time, these small, consistent actions build the resilience you need to handle life’s challenges with confidence.”
Dr. Naheed Ali of Vera Clinic, a hair transplant centre in Istanbul, Turkey, agrees. But he cautions that whatever changes you’re making, stick at it to get results and become more resilient in the long term.
“Consistency is the single biggest factor in building resilience,” he says. “Small, regular habits create long-term strength, while bursts of effort followed by neglect only drain motivation.”
In trying to improve different aspects of your life, habits and behavior all at the same time, in the belief that dramatic change will bring about real results, people often become exhausted or even injured, says Dr. Ali.
“I’ve seen patients give up after a few weeks because their plan wasn’t sustainable with real life in mind. A simple way to start is to anchor one healthy habit to something you already do daily.
“For example, drink a glass of water every time you make coffee, or take a ten-minute walk before lunch. These small actions add up, forming the steady foundation resilience depends on.”
Deep Breaths
When life gets tough, whether at home or work — or both — it can be tempting to crumple under the pressure. But one way of alleviating the stress is to do something so simple you might not even think of it: breathe.
That’s according to Stephanie Sanz, a psychotherapist and neurofeedback clinician at Cognitive Reset Counseling in Brooklyn, New York.
“Many people don’t realise that they have a built-in tool to cultivate resilience in their everyday lives: their breath,” she says.
“The way we breathe can influence the heart, and the heart has a remarkable capacity to bring the brain and body back into balance and alignment.”
The most effective way of blitzing pressures and stress is to slow your breath to an even inhale and then exhale while keeping something positive in your mind, advises Sanz.
This way, she says, “we engage the part of our nervous system that helps us settle and reset”.
She adds that the “best part is how simple yet powerful practicing breath work can be. Practicing this type of breathing for as little as one minute a day can help the body become more familiar with entering this state of balance.
“Over time, it becomes easier to return to this state during everyday challenges, helping us move through life with greater ease and resilience.”
A Second Life
Stress is something entrepreneur Teague Mayfield knows all too well. The founder and executive director of the Secunda Vita Foundation, an organisation that helps transplant survivors through sailing excursions, suffered sudden liver failure two years ago that left him at death’s door.
Having emerged from a coma and gone on to full recovery, resilience is something the American says “is a word that I live my life by”.
Mayfield said he spent months learning how to walk and eat again and almost feels as though he has been reborn. “I am now planning on sailing solo across the Pacific Ocean as a transplant survivor, to prove that a second life is possible after facing adversity,” he says.
The most important element in developing resilience? For Mayfield, it’s all about routine.
“True resilience comes down to doing the unglamorous, repetitive task, like taking meds, eating healthy and forcing yourself to move forward, even on the days you are exhausted and no one is watching.”
And again, it’s all about taking it easy.
“One common mistake that people make when trying to improve their health is focusing on the enormity of their recovery, convinced that only big, distant victories count,” Mayfield says.
“They overlook the power of smaller, daily progress, waiting for a flawless outcome rather than embracing each small step that counts as a victory.”
What worked for him was “finding purpose”. When he discovered that “moving forward became much easier and enjoyable. Uncovering your purpose is the engine for success”.
Being Connected
Humans are, fundamentally, social creatures, and we risk isolation that can trigger stress and depression if we isolate and don’t have a healthy friends and family network, experts say. One of them is Brian Lutz, chief clinical officer of Blume Behavioral Health in Redondo Beach, in Los Angeles, California.
“A strong sense of connection is one of the biggest drivers of mental resilience, especially for young people,” says the family therapist.
It can often be the case that when people become overly stressed or anxious, they retreat into their own worlds, avoiding others, but that can create worse problems, says Lutz.
“When stress or anxiety builds, many try to manage everything on their own, thinking independence means strength. That isolation actually increases vulnerability and makes it harder to recover from setbacks.”
He says teenagers especially may stop talking to family and friends, notably when they’re feeling overwhelmed with life, but that the silence “only deepens their distress”.
To help avoid that, Lutz says, “schedule regular, low-pressure check-ins with someone trusted, whether that’s a parent, friend, coach or counsellor”.
“Even brief, genuine conversations can reduce emotional load and remind young people that support is a sign of resilience, not weakness.”
It’s a Journey
Becoming more resilient and fortifying yourself against life’s many knocks is also about setting reachable goals, not aiming for the moon on your first try, says psychotherapist Laurie Singer.
“As both a 66-year-old endurance athlete and therapist who supports the mind/body connection, I would say the biggest mistake those wanting to improve their health make is setting unrealistic expectations,” she says.
“It’s the most common reason people quit their attempts to get more fit and healthy,” says Singer, who runs Laurie Singer Behavioral Services in Camarillo, California.
Goals, she insists, are, however, flexible. “I see it as the difference between only thinking about the destination and not considering the journey. We want the result but don’t connect with what it takes to get there.”
Make sure to set small and attainable targets, Singer advises, and you will be “rewarded with the feeling of success for reaching those goals. This builds confidence, which feeds on itself.”
With confidence growing, it will “flip the switch between us feeling like we have to exercise, which opens the door to excuses, to wanting to exercise because we know the positive benefits we’ll receive when we’re done.
“No one rolls out of bed and runs a marathon. But we can take a daily walk or jog around the block and turn that into two blocks. And then three. Small steps can deliver big rewards.”
Proper Fuelling
Finally, don’t forget that whatever you’re doing and whatever pressures you’re facing, not giving your body what it needs can let you down just when you need to be at your most resilient.
So says Destini Moody of continuing education provider Flex Therapist CEUs, who argues that resilience is largely based on sustained energy throughout the day.
“A common mistake is training hard while under-fuelling, then relying on random supplements to ‘fix’ fatigue or plateaued progress,” says Moody, a Board-certified specialist in sports dietetics.
“Over time, this pattern increases injury risk, disrupts recovery and can even lead to mood changes or burnout.”
People should consider creating a “small ‘performance plate’ around every training session: include a source of carbohydrate for fuel, some protein for muscle repair and fluids with electrolytes if you are sweating heavily”.
If done right and consistently, proper fueling can boost performance and wellbeing, helping people to become ever-more resilient when life’s problems erupt, she says.
