9 Ways to Overcome Adversity

Of the many distinctions that have accompanied the career of psychiatrist Dennis Charney, longtime researcher of depression and PTSD, shepherd of ketamine, dean of New York’s Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and president of its medical center, 15 came completely unannounced. On the morning of August 29, 2016, in the parking lot of a suburban deli where he had stopped to get a buttered bagel and an iced coffee for the hour-long drive to work, a scientist the medical center had dismissed seven years earlier for research data fraud pumped 15 shots into Charney’s chest, puncturing a lung, breaking a rib, endangering his liver, but missing his heart.

The blast put Charney in the ICU for a week and pitched him into a most singular experiment, a test of the through theme of all his life’s work—how well could a person recover the ability to function after a shattering experience? With a colleague, Charney had written a book on the topic—Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges. Then he was called on to live it.

From the research and experience of Charney and others, there is a growing consensus on what it takes to survive the major and minor insults life throws our way, whether a childhood of racial discrimination or poverty and deprivation, an intimate betrayal, a crippling accident, an earthquake, the death of a comrade in your arms, or a direct assault on your life. All have the capacity to overwhelm the system, to stress it to the breaking point, to shatter the sense of safety that allows mind and body to flourish, to destabilize the neural circuitry powering everyday life—affecting what we notice and pay attention to, the degree of control we have over thoughts and feelings and fears, our sense of self, our ability to maintain inner calm.

All have the capacity to put people on a path to disorders of mind and body. Or not. All also have the power to force us to redraw our relationship to ourselves and to life and to make us feel stronger than before.

Resilience, from the Latin re and salire, literally means to jump back. To bounce back. It is the prevailing vision of how people overcome adversity. But it is, on the face of it, a lie. Steel bounces back; it returns to its previous form after a perturbation. People do not, cannot. People are invariably changed by experience. At the very least, neural connections are ruptured, rearranging lines of communication between control centers in the brain. People must redress the altered ways they are typically pushed to think and feel and behave so that they can continue to function, to be able to live in the new realities of their habitat—that is, after accepting those realities.

What they go back to, if they are lucky, is a state of equilibrium, but it is a different one from before. At its core, resilience is the capacity to adapt, to update ourselves, to adjust to new conditions after an unexpected and almost invariably unwanted experience has disrupted our old moorings. It is a necessary capacity for setting up the human tent in an unrelentingly dynamic and often unpredictable world. “It doesn’t mean that people don’t have symptoms or problems,” says Charney, “ but they get through it. And in many cases they thrive.”

We enter the world with a certain capacity for resilience. Our neurons are designed for adapting, their ability to connect to one another and the strength of those connections responsive to experience, to training and practice, at least up to a point. The tricky part is maintaining cognitive functioning in the face of emotional overarousal brought on by the upset of adversity. After all, we need our cognitive faculties for figuring out how to navigate the altered conditions of life, although the jolt of adversity tends to override them through an alarm circuit thrown into threat-detection overdrive—what researchers see on brain scans as signals from a hypervigilant salience network swamping a central executive network.

The problem with resilience, though, is that it sounds suspiciously like a tidy package of inspirational traits you either have or you don’t. And in the wake of a disaster, it’s easy to feel you don’t. It’s taken researchers decades to figure out that getting beyond adversity is a process, a very active one, sometimes a very messy one.

Still, a shake-up in thinking is occurring: While it’s necessary to process the upheaval of adversity when it occurs, it is possible to have resilience all along, so as to be able to manage serious disruption when it strikes. Because it almost certainly will. Early exposure to challenge reduces hyperactivity of the stress-response system so that there is less upheaval to contend with and less perception of calamity.

There’s no one magic capacity of resilience; it takes deploying an array of them and switching among them as needed, to reset multiple systems of body and brain. In the ICU, Charney clung to a Bruce Springsteen anthem, “Tougher Than the Rest.” Inspired by its title, he recalls, “I kept saying to myself, ‘I’m going to be tougher than the rest in how I recover.’ And believe it or not, just repeating that to myself was very helpful.”

No question, getting through adversity is typically a struggle. It’s one you have to be willing to engage in, believing that you can get to the other side. What follows are nine strategies of resilience that, research shows, can help pull a person through.

1. Find a role model

It’s always reassuring to know that someone else has experienced the same challenge you have; it mitigates the sense of alienation that difficulties create. It’s even more helpful to know that they got through it—and how.

Whether it’s people in the flesh, subjects of biographies, or fictional characters, role models provide tangible proof that it’s possible to get through adversity and the inspiration to do so. It’s an axiom of human psychology that we rarely attempt what we don’t believe we can do.

What’s more, role models serve as instruction manuals in how to do what needs to be done. Social transfer of information is not just the most indelible form of learning, it’s the oldest form. Our brains are wired for it. A neural circuit known as the social behavior network, connecting six major nuclei in the brain, including parts of the amygdala and hypothalamus, makes us exquisitely sensitive to the behavior of others and facilitates the processing of social information.

Personal contact is not even necessary for absorbing the wisdom of role models: Simply having a mental representation of someone who’s survived a major blow allows us to imagine what they would be doing if they were in our shoes, providing material for emulation. The process goes beyond copycat coping—in the doing one learns skills for handling future challenges and rules of behavior that can be applied to them.

Role models are extremely important because they provide a road map of how to overcome what you’re facing, Charney says. He believes that’s the best place to start in becoming resilient. Where to find role models? They’re hiding everywhere; if asked, most people recall having endured some adversity.

2. Seek—and give—social support

Because the human system is built for social connection, individuals deteriorate mentally and physically in its absence. A partial catalog of the ways positive social connection promotes well-being would acknowledge that it’s one of the most powerful human motivators—it shores up self-esteem, it bolsters immunity, it lowers blood pressure and helps the heart.

Not least, it also calms the nervous system. Social connection prompts the release of oxytocin, a hormone known to curb reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), the key orchestrator of the body’s response to threat, and of the amygdala, minimizing reactivity to stress-
inducing signals. Deliberately seeking the assistance and comfort of others reduces negative feelings and helps stabilize emotions.

But here’s the twist. Giving social support to others is at least as important as getting it. Social connection is a two-way proposition, and both parties benefit from a social interaction. Being the support for others adds several distinct dimensions of well-being; acts of giving activate networks of reward in the brain. They provide a sense of purpose. They increase self-efficacy and confidence. Not to mention that helping others takes your mind off your own discomfort.

3. Face your fears

Avoidance is a distinguishing feature of anxiety disorders; unfortunately, avoiding situations related to a distressing experience prevents recovery. It’s a form of defeat: What you do and especially what you don’t do is controlled by fear of threats signaled by the alarmist amygdala. Acts of avoidance actually magnify the fear and fog the brain, keeping it from learning to distinguish past threat from present threat. With the brain’s frontal lobes taken offline by high levels of norepinephrine, the capacity to rationally assess situations and figure out a way to adapt and move forward is inhibited.

Directly confronting fears in a safe environment as quickly as possible after a disruptive experience reduces the consolidation of fear-etched memories and helps extinguish already consolidated ones. It also bolsters the ability of the prefrontal cortex to quiet the amygdala.

Techniques to manage fear, like deep breathing, help. So do exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy. A short-term treatment often used for those with PTSD and for victims of violence and natural disasters, cognitive processing therapy helps people modify the maladaptive thoughts related to their traumatic experience. Exposure therapy involves repeatedly facing direct reminders of such an experience.

4. Do difficult things

Deliberate exposure to increasingly challenging situations in childhood—and likely to some extent in adulthood—builds physical and psychological stress tolerance. Exposure to moderately difficult circumstances, studies show, alters the HPA axis, dampening subsequent HPA reactivity, reducing both the hormones that put the system in alarm mode and the duration of their effect. It softens the perception of being overwhelmed. And it allows people opportunities not merely to develop an array of coping skills but to acquire confidence in their ability to make it through. Individuals change during the process of coping with stressors, researchers find. The change results from activation of dynamic mechanisms of cognitive processing, not by becoming insensitive to stressors.

Ironically, the idea of exposing children to increasing levels of difficulty directly contradicts contemporary parenting practices, although it protects them far more and for far longer than most present-day efforts to keep them safe. Knowing the facts, Charney was committed to taking his children, as teenagers, outside their comfort zone. “I worried that if my kids had it too easy, they wouldn’t be resilient.” He took them on “adventure trips that were semi dangerous, that pushed the envelope a bit.” He recalls fondly one such occasion, when a thunderstorm struck and “some wildlife” appeared; one of his daughters looked him straight in the eye and declared, “I despise you.”

Research shows that the mental protection such experiences confer generalizes to all kinds of challenges of all degrees of intensity, creating a kind of global resilience. Stress inoculation stimulates active coping. And it accelerates the extinction of fear memories stamped into neural circuits by heightened levels of norepinephrine from the amygdala during the original perturbation. In doing so, it is akin to one of the most effective treatments in the psychotherapeutic universe—exposure therapy for anxiety. What researchers don’t yet know is whether there is an optimal time window, such as adolescence, for stress inoculation.

5. Loosen your grip on yourself

Toughness is one way to resilience. There is another way, what University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson calls the “quiet path”: instead of subduing distress, building the skills of well-being, making friends with one’s mind through “befriend strategies.” Then, when adversity strikes, as it surely will, recovery is fast. That’s important, Davidson says, because speed of recovery protects against the entrenchment of anxiety and neuroticism. It also attenuates cortisol outpouring, amygdala overarousal, the disruption of neural circuits, and other biological consequences of an acute jolt.

Decades ago, after exploring why some people are vulnerable to anxiety and depression in the wake of adverse experiences, Davidson shifted his focus toward human flourishing. He identifies four major elements of resilience—two that are cited by almost everyone else: connection to others and a sense of purpose. But two others are unique to his perspective—awareness and insight. All four compose what he calls the “pillars of well-being,” and they can be cultivated. “Our brains are constantly changing, shaped by the forces around us,” Davidson says, “but we typically have little awareness of what those forces are and little control over them. We can actually take more responsibility for our own brain by transforming our minds.”

He has spent decades demonstrating that an effective way to cultivate those capacities of mind is through meditation, actually a variety of contemplative practices, including mindfulness meditation. Even five minutes a day for a month is enough to start affecting experience. Underneath are changes in the brain’s neural circuitry and gene expression, altering the function of brain cells.

Awareness, Davidson’s first pillar, is the capacity to focus attention to resist distraction. It also includes meta-awareness, knowing what our minds are up to. It starts with acceptance of what is present and deepening awareness of it, which briefly intensifies the experience of pain, only to accelerate recovery.

Davidson describes insight as curiosity-driven knowledge of the self—“the entity we’ve created that we call ‘me’ or ‘I’”—and it liberates people from the negative self-talk that, for many, is the architect of defeat and depression. Having a resilient mind isn’t so much about changing the self-narrative as it is changing one’s relationship to it, seeing it for what it is—not rock-solid truth but a bunch of thoughts.

The power of insight, especially developed through mindfulness meditation, is visible in MRI scans: The self-referential default mode network unhooks from other parts of the brain it can dominate with its negativity. It limits rumination over past and potential threats and the damage it can wreak. Says Davidson: “People stop holding onto a ‘me’ or an ‘I.’”

6. Dance!

Everyone knows that physical activity is good for the body. It is at least as good for the brain, and it is almost perfectly designed to nurture resilience. It lowers vulnerability to stress by dampening HPA reactivity. Exercise is itself a stressor, prompting release of cortisol. Courtesy of negative feedback loops in the HPA, the more cortisol released by exercise, the less released by psychosocial stress.

But that’s just the start of it. Activity also begets neuroplasticity, by stimulating release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor. It builds white and gray matter in key parts of the brain. It bolsters short- and long-term memory, not only facilitating cognitive performance but shielding against damage. It counters inflammation and speeds nutrients to the brain.

How much physical activity? No one can say for sure. Any is better than none. A moderate amount is better still. But bouts of vigorous exercise may be best of all, done regularly.

Walking works. So does running and bicycling. But if you really want resilience, turn up the music and dance.

7. Search for meaning

“In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning,” Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning. It’s not circumstances that make life unbearable but only lack of a sense of purpose.

Having a sense of purpose, and adhering to values that support it, provides the structure of something positive—and serves as proof that some part of you isn’t damaged by adversity. Purpose pulls people forward; it’s a motivational force that operates even—perhaps especially—in the face of difficulties. And while it is generally relegated to the spiritual domain, it has biological consequences.

Whether one finds it through religion or oneself, people’s sense of purpose is woven into their self-narrative, which influences the critical activity of the brain’s default mode network. By keeping people focused on what matters, a sense of meaning and purpose curbs the repetitive negative thinking that fuels psychological distress.

Its contribution to resilience doesn’t stop there. Having a sense of purpose in life also has demonstrable effects on the immune system. It is associated with reduced levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6—a substance known to trigger the HPA axis. It builds cognitive reserves, holding a line against dementia.

Spoiler alert: Searching for meaning takes cognitive work. But benefit-finding after a traumatic experience transforms that experience. The ability to do that relies on another resilience factor, cognitive flexibility.

8. Flip your mind

At the heart of adapting is the readiness with which a person can selectively switch between mental processes to generate behavioral responses that meet the demands of a situation. Understanding any situation—assessing what’s needed, and deciding on and deploying workable strategies—rests with the executive control network, so essential for many tasks but notably for its ability to modulate the output of the threat-signaling amygdala and the negative emotions it unleashes.

To come up with solutions to challenges and selectively deploy them you have to know when and how to disengage from distress and other negative emotions—a tough task, given how compelling our emotions are. Cognitive flexibility not only enables emotion regulation—so-called affective flexibility—it undercuts rumination, a potent perpetuator of negative feelings. Further, cognitive flexibility enables people to know which coping strategy to deploy and when.

The most effective way to enhance mental flexibility is cognitive reappraisal—deliberately changing your thoughts, seeing a difficult situation from a different perspective than comes automatically to mind—a technique known as reframing. Extracting some positive meaning from adversity, learning something from it, even seeing humor in it, is a signature feature of mental flexibility.

When people talk about their post-traumatic growth, being transformed by tribulation, cognitive flexibility is usually one of the reasons. To get through adversity people learn to reframe and extract something of value from unwelcome experience—an ability they carry for the rest of their life. The capacity to positively reframe experience is especially helpful to those who had a difficult childhood—and feels far better than the alternative, suppressing expression of negative feelings.

9. Balance your bugs

Resilience is almost universally regarded as a psychological phenomenon, and most approaches to resilience target the mind. But new research makes a persuasive case that resilience is a whole-body phenomenon, and one of the most active processes takes place in the gut. To create a resilient brain, you need to create a resilient microbiome. Microbes in the gut release a suite of biochemicals that, acting via the gut-brain axis, shape the neural circuitry of the brain and how it functions.

UCLA researchers recently found that a specific array of bacteria—a “microbial signature of resilience”—enables the brain’s executive center, headquartered in the frontal cortex, to put the brakes on the overactive emotional centers operating on overdrive. “No one brain region functions in isolation,” says psychologist Arpana Gupta, co-director of UCLA’s microbiome center.

Gupta’s team determined the biological profile of resilience by examining 116 people, half of whom ranked high on a scale of resilience—such as tolerance of negative affect and positive acceptance of change—and half of whom did not. At the microbiome level, high resilience shows up as a specific cluster of bacteria-generated biochemicals—metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids and neurotransmitters—and genes expressed by those bugs that regulate their functions.

What distinguished all the substances was that they all helped reduce inflammation and maintain the integrity of the gut barrier. They are, observes Gupta, “things that prevent you from getting sick. They keep the bad stuff out and the good stuff in.”

Gupta had previously found that excessive stress overactivates not only the emotional center of the brain but also dopamine-rich reward centers. Switched on, they crave calorie-dense foods, especially sweet ones. The new study showed that with a resilient microbiome, “the frontal regions of the brain were able to modulate the hyper-responsive reward regions. The brakes were working really great.”

How, then, to create a resilient biome? Gupta is conducting clinical studies of blends of prebiotics, which stimulate the growth of good bacteria, and probiotics, the bugs that make up the microbiome of resilience. But there’s no need to wait for the results. The microbial composition of the gut is exquisitely responsive to influence by diet. “The easiest way to increase resilience is to have a balanced diet,” diverse in fiber and probiotics, omega fatty acids, and antioxidants, while light on processed foods. “Be sure to get at least 30 different fruits and vegetables per week in your diet,” Gupta commands. Start counting!

Submit your response to this story to letters@psychologytoday.com.

Pick up a copy of Psychology Today on newsstands now or subscribe to read the rest of this issue.