Strategies For Building Resilience To Improve Your Mental Health

Resilient people are often able to bounce back, function, and even thrive when dealing with significant challenges, becoming even stronger than they were before. Alternatively, those who feel they don’t have the resilience to recover from life’s difficulties may experience negative mental health outcomes and find themselves stuck. For some people, resilience may seem like a personality trait, but it is a skill anyone can learn. Keep reading to learn more about resilience and how it can help you improve your self-awareness and mental health.

Defining resilience

According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors.”. The difficult experiences people face and the process of bouncing back from them can offer profound opportunities for growth.

Everyone faces significant challenges at some point, whether it’s losing their job, losing a loved one, or facing a global pandemic. Still, everyone copes with these situations differently. Becoming more resilient can help you get through tough times and may even lead you to experience personal growth along the way. 

It can be easy to assume that resilient people have positive psychological traits that allow them to handle life’s challenges easily without distress, anxiety, or pain. However, it can be quite the opposite. Even the most resilient individuals can face considerable difficulties on the road to recovery after tragic, heartbreaking, or otherwise difficult events or circumstances. With this in mind, it can be important to know that gaining resilience is something that anyone can learn. In fact, some experts believe that the ability to learn resilience is not extraordinary and can be accomplished as long as a person is willing to put in the necessary time and effort.

Strategies for building resilience

There are many steps you can take to try to build resilience, but they can be grouped into four main ideas: finding purpose, embracing positive thinking, fostering wellness, and connecting with others.

Finding purpose

Every individual can have a unique purpose in life, whether that’s excelling in their career, becoming a dedicated parent, or seeing the world through travel. When building resilience, it can be helpful to ask what your purpose might be, and relying on the tips below may move you closer to finding it. 

• Help other people. When you help others, you foster your own self-worth and make connections with people who are doing positive things for the community. Whether you volunteer at an animal shelter, serve dinner at a homeless shelter, or help a neighbor by mowing their lawn or bringing them a plate of food, helping others can help you feel good about yourself. The positive connections and emotional intelligence you gain can help you grow in resilience.
• Focus on self-discovery. When you’re going through hard times, it can be easy to feel like things will never get better or to tell yourself that the situation is impossible to overcome. By learning to focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t, you can gain confidence and become more resilient in the process.
• Set goals and do something regularly to move toward them. If you have a lofty goal, like changing careers, going back to school, or taking the vacation of a lifetime, it can feel overwhelming trying to reach it. However, by breaking it down into smaller and more manageable pieces, you can usually make measurable progress. Ask yourself, what is one thing I can do every day to meet get closer my goal? Making any type of progress can help you gain confidence, which can increase resilience.

Embracing positive thinking

Your mindset can impact many different aspects of your life, including how resilient you are. In fact, resilience is largely a matter of mindset, and the tips below may help you change yours to your advantage. 

• Try to keep things in perspective. How you think about a situation can affect how resilient you are. If you’re engaging in irrational unhelpful thinking, like catastrophizing, trying to reframe your thoughts to see situations as opportunities to grow can help you see the bigger picture. Remind yourself that what is happening now does not mean that things will continue to be hard in the future and that you are not helpless. You may not be able to control or change what is happening, but you can control how you react to it. 
• Learn from your mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone knows how to learn from them. Look back on previous times that you’ve faced challenges with a growth mindset. What worked? What didn’t? Is there anything you can do differently this time? Reflect on what you learned from past experiences to determine how to move forward and remind yourself that you have faced challenging times before and gotten through them.
• Stay hopeful. It can be hard to stay positive when life feels difficult, but staying hopeful can be a key to resilience. Resilient people can look at a bad situation, remind themselves that it is not permanent, and remember that good things happen, too.

Fostering wellness

The connection between the mind and body is well-researched. When you’re physically healthy, you may stand a higher chance of being mentally healthy as well, and vice versa. Fostering wellness in your life could help you develop resilience more effectively, which you may be able to accomplish through the following:

• Take care of your body. Self-care can be an essential part of Self-care can be an essential part of maintaining positive mental health and can also help you build resilience. Dealing with challenges in life can be exceptionally stressful, which may affect both your mental and physical health. Getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, drinking enough water, and getting enough regular exercise can help you strengthen your body and mind. 
• Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness may seem like a bit of a buzzword, but the practice it can be beneficial to your mental health in many ways. Mindfulness refers to the practice of being in the moment, focusing on what is going on around you, and observing without judgment. Rather than worrying about things you can’t control, mindfulness encourages you to stay centered and engaged with what you do have control over. Journaling, meditation, and yoga can all be forms of mindfulness exercises that can help you think more positively and have hope for the future, which can boost your resilience. 
• Avoid unhealthier coping mechanisms. If you’re going through a tough time, it can be tempting to turn to unhelpful coping mechanisms, such as rely on substance use, isolation, or disordered eatings, like drugs or alcohol to cope. You may also turn to other behaviors like gambling, isolation, or overeating. It can be important and beneficial to remember that these things do not help heal any wounds and may often can make them worse. Further, alcohol and drug use are risk factors for other mental health concerns.

Connecting with others

Humans are social creatures, and enjoying meaningful connections with others can improve your mood and boost your resilience. Consider the tips below for forming genuine bonds with others:

• Prioritize relationships with other people. You might assume that resilient people don’t need help and support, but positive social relationships can actually be key to resilience. Connecting with understanding people whom you trust and who validate your goals and feelings can help you remember that you’re not alone during difficult times.
• Don’t isolate yourself when things get tough. Some people find it difficult to ask for help, but reaching out to the people in your circle who genuinely care about you can be vital. Rather than withdrawing from others, which may only make things worse, allow the people in your life to walk alongside you and help you navigate the challenges you’re facing.
• Join a group in your community. Some people find that being active in an organization, like a church, civic group, sports team, or support group gives them the social support they need to stay positive. Joining a group can also help you find purpose, which, as mentioned, is another way to gain resilience.
• Talk to a therapist. If you’re facing a particularly challenging time and can’t seem to get through it on your own, it may be helpful to speak with a therapist. Whether you’re working through emotional pain or need help with stress management, the one-on-one support of a therapist can be useful. 

Consider online treatment

Online therapy could be a helpful option if you’re hesitant to talk to someone face-to-face or if you’re looking for a convenient and effective alternative to in-person care. Speaking with a qualified mental health professional who can help you with resilience training can have many positive impacts on your mental health. When you sign up on an online therapy platform like BetterHelp, you can get matched with an available therapist within 48 hours so you can get started on your healing journey right away. You can attend sessions from the comfort of your home or anywhere you have an internet connection, so there’s no commute to worry about. This can be ideal for individuals with busy schedules or other demanding lifestyles, such as those with parental responsibilities. 

The efficacy of online therapy for resilience

Research shows that online therapy is just as effective as in-person therapy in addressing a range of concerns. In one study, researchers assessed the efficacy of an online intervention based on positive psychology for promoting resilience among college students. They found that all participants demonstrated had significant improvements in resilience and related outcomes. Additionally, participants reported that the program was easy to use and were mostly satisfied with it.