What Is Resilience and Why Do You Need It?

Some think of it as endurance, but when I think of endurance, I think it means the power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process without giving up. Or fortitude? Fortitude is courage in the face of pain or adversity. Indeed, both of these words can be a part of resilience, but don’t thoroughly encompass the whole concept.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back quickly from difficult situations and actually thrive when faced with challenging circumstances! Some ways of thinking about resilience includes being tough, quick to recover, buoyant, irrepressible, adaptable, flexible and can’t be kept down.

How many of these are physical and how many mental traits? Some are physical, but most are mental traits, don’t you think?

Our inner resilience is a part of who we are and is a trait that we can strengthen, cultivate and build upon! Let’s discuss how yoga practices can help cultivate this quality!

First, let’s examine how the autonomic nervous system influences our adaptability. This division of the nervous system is made up of two branches, the sympathetic known as the fight or flight system, and the parasympathetic known as the rest and digest system. These two branches are meant to be in balance to bring about health and mental equilibrium. But what happens when we face some sort of stress? If you are resilient, stress is a normal part of life and managed, but if not, then it can be detrimental. Stress stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight response. If not readily managed, it can result in higher-than-normal heart rates, blood pressure, digestive disorders, build of blood sugars from the liver and more. If the stressor continues, these effects become chronic and the longer-term adaptation kicks in with secretion of your body’s hormones that conserve fat around the abdomen, chronic inflammation of the tissues, irritability with others, insomnia, and potential maladaptive behaviors such as substance abuse.

Yoga builds resilience in the body and mind by introducing small amounts of stress in a controlled scenario.  Think about free divers who swim without the aid of snorkels or scuba gear and can actually hold their breath for more than 10 minutes. They trained by holding their breath for longer and longer periods of time, stressing their brain’s respiratory center by small increasing amounts of CO2. CO2 is what stimulates us to breathe. Rarely is it due to low oxygen levels. But another aspect of this adaptation is the ability to “turn down” the sympathetic system which allows the parasympathetic nervous system to create a more relaxes state. And because of some of these hormones, you can become addicted to overworking and/or overdoing!

Recently there have been many articles written about yoga and the vagus nerve which is a major player in the parasympathetic system. The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve. It contains motor and sensory fibers and because it passes from the brain through the neck and thorax to the abdomen, has the widest distribution in the body. In yoga we utilize a variety of techniques that strengthen the conductivity of this nerve-guided relaxations, meditation and breathing practices. We’ll discuss more about these shortly.

Having discussed some of the physical factors that are important to building resilience, next let’s look at our energy or “prana” as we call it in yoga. Actually, prana is more than just energy. It is our “life force” and is required for all actions, physical and mental.

Obviously, the more physically active we are, the more energy that is utilized but moderate physical activity, like yoga and walking, is an important contributor to overall health and wellbeing. Our mental energy becomes depleted when we have too many unnecessary actions. Think about what activities you have done over the past couple of days. How many were necessary? How many were out of a need for distraction from feelings such as boredom, anxiety, envy, wanting validation, a desire for busy-ness? 

How many of the activities created mental balance and built your energy reserves? Did you go for a walk and look at nature without engaging with your phone? When you wanted something, did you ask yourself if you wanted it or actually needed it? Did you meditate or do some sort of relaxation practice? What about regularity of your schedule? Do you eat meals at consistent times? Go to bed and get up at consistent times? Do you say no when you need to, or do you keep overscheduling your time? Someone once told me that saying no can be a complete sentence. Remember when you say yes to something, you are also saying no to something that might be a better choice. There are only 24 hours in each day no matter who you are.

It all boils down to prana, your life force. If you have too many desires, that energy trickles away here and there and never truly accumulates to reach importance goals. As our energy becomes dissipated, our lives begin to feel fragmented. The will to change, to face our challenges and cultivate resilience cannot happen in this state.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from indomitable will.”   

Lastly, it’s important to have resilience of mind. To be able to find the positivity that exists in our challenges. This requires mental energy and self-awareness.

Psychologists estimate 70% of our thoughts are negative and redundant. Our thoughts and perceptions are beliefs that permeate every cell of our bodies.  We have protein perception switches in the cell membranes that respond to signals by regulating cell functions and behavior.

The most important influence of signals on the dis-ease process is thought, the action of the mind. If the mind misinterprets environmental signals and generates an inappropriate response, survival is threatened because the body’s behaviors become out of synch with the environment. Your conscious mind may be positive and hopeful, but the recorded message of the subconscious mind continues to assure your reality matches that message.

This is why it is vitally important to utilize yoga practices that begin to fine-tune the awareness to be able to negotiate what arises out of the subconsious mind and see it for what it is and accept it. Within the style of yoga that I do and teach, this is a key component to developing mental resilience.

So the key yoga practices that help build our resilience, our ability to bounce back quickly from difficult situations and actually thrive!

First, it’s important to learn how to relax. I suggest trying a guided relaxation like Yoga Nidra for stress management. In this practice, physical, mental and emotional tensions are released. Your ability to witness, to see the subconscious patterns, is enhanced. And to encourage you to try it, it’s said that the relaxation and effects on the body and mind is equivalent to four times that amount of good sleep. In other words, if you do a 30 minute yoga nidra, it can be equivalent to 2 hours of good sleep.

Next, try some breathing practices. Start with natural breath awareness. This will connect our thinking brain with the more primitive, life sustaining areas at the base of the brain, and these connections go through the area of the emotional, reflexive midbrain.

Additionally, practice deep abdominal breathing. Put one hand on the belly and slowly increase the depth of each breath under your hand. This activates that vagus nerve that we discussed earlier that will turn down the sympathetic nervous system. 

If you are feeling particularly anxious, try the calming breath known as bee breath. There’s a guided bonus episode instructing this in early episodes of this podcast. Another way to create more calmness is to gradually lengthen the exhalation of the breath compared to the length of the inhalation.

And lastly, try some meditation. There are several guided practices on my website, swamiatmarupa.com. All of these will enhance mindfulness so that you can see your thoughts without overreactions and increase your ability to overcome limiting belief systems that arise in the mind.

In conclusion, remember these 4 things:

1. Worry Less, Act More

2. Bounce Back, Don’t Look Back  

3. Be Present & Aware

4. Practice, practice, practice! Start now!