The Resilience Perscription

The Resilience Perscription

By Dr. Dennis Charney

 

1. Positive Attitude

• Optimism is strongly related to resilience.
• Optimism is in part genetic, but it can be learned (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Reward circuits, converse of learned helplessness

2. Cognitive Flexibility Through Cognitive Reappraisal

• Traumatic experiences can be re-evaluated by altering the event’s perceived value and meaningfulness.
• One can receive a benefit from stress and trauma: one can reframe, assimilate, accept and recover. These skills can be learned.
• Failure is an essential ingredient for growth.
 Neurobiological Mechanisms: Memory Reconsolidation, Cognitive Control of Emotion, Memory Suppression

3. Embrace a Personal Moral Compass

• Develop a set of core beliefs that very few things can shatter.
• For many, faith in conjunction with strong religious and/or spiritual beliefs is associated with resilience.
• Altruism has been strongly related to resilience. Survivor Mission.
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Neural Model of Human Morality, Altruism and Human Evolution

4. Find a Resilient Role Model

• Role models can be found in one’s own life.
• Imitation is a very powerful mode of learning.
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Neuronal Imprinting of Human Values
 

5. Face Your Fears

• Fear is normal and can be used as a guide; facing your fears can increase your self-esteem.
• Learn and practice skills necessary to move through the fear.
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Extinction, Stress Inoculation
 

6. Develop Active Coping Skills

• Resilient individuals use active, rather than passive, coping skills.
• Minimize appraisal of threat, create positive statements about oneself, seek support of others.
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Functional Neuroanatomy of Fear Mechanisms

7. Establish and Nurture a Supportive Social Network

• Very few can “go it alone”; humans need a safety net during times of stress.
• Considerable emotional strength accrues from close relationships with people and organizations.
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Social Behavior

8. Attend to Physical Well-Being

• Physical exercise has positive effects on physical hardiness, mood, and improves self-esteem.
Neurobiological Mechanisms: Effects on neurogenesis, cognition, regulation of emotion, immune function, etc.

General Principles
(we underestimate capacities of Mind, Brain, Body)

9. Train Regularly and Rigorously in Multiple Areas

• Change requires systematic and disciplined activity.
• Concentrate on training in multiple areas: emotional intelligence, moral integrity, physical endurance.

10. Recognize, Utilize and Foster Signature Strengths

• Learn to recognize your character strengths and engage them to deal with difficult and stressful situations

~ By Dr. Dennis Charney


~~~~~~~~~~



Will Smoot forwarded this to me and I thought some of you out there might benefit from it as well. 


Keep going!
~Craig

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Uncomfortable Situation

Image
  Funny pic (and movie) about a not so funny situation… In training as in Life, it’s better to treat people with dignity and respect. However… What does that look like in the moment? Being that I’m teaching a Women’s Assault Prevention and Response Workshop this weekend - it’s probably a good time to talk about… Uncomfortable Situations Let’s talk about training at the academy for a minute… We run open co-ed classes at the local academy. What does that mean? Men and women train together, but we don’t stop there. People of different skill levels, backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual orientations, careers, religious beliefs, political affiliations, ages, injuries, pre-existing conditions, life experience, training expectations etc. etc. train together! We ALL work together! Overall, I think it’s better this way. Of course sometimes there’s static, you know, conflicts, and misunderstanding. When something happens, most of the time it’s just that, a misunderstanding… Sometimes people ...
Read more

What'd You Say?!

Image
  You ever have a conversation with someone who really lifted your spirits? How about having a conversation with someone who’s a real downer?! We spend a lot of time talking to people. Matter of fact, talking is one of the most under rated and under trained aspects of protecting yourself. It’s much better if you can talk your way out of a bad situation, rather than having to resort to some form of physicality. This is why we spend so much time on sharing effective communication frameworks in the PeaceWalker course. But All of that Aside… When we think about communicating, we often just think about talking to other people. We forget how we talk to ourselves! You may have heard it called, “Self talk.” All day long we talk to ourselves. We carry on an inner dialogue in our heads that only we can hear. Unfortunately, this means it's very easy to be hard on ourselves. There's something about privacy which makes it easy to say the things you would never say out loud to another living...
Read more

Cracks in Your Foundation?!

Image
  Last night we had one of our weekly coaching calls for the PeaceWalker Evolution Course. What a great call! Rob and Jenn, a couple of the Level II - Momentum folks (people who graduated from Evolution last year and came back for the second Level.), were tasked to run the meeting as part of their training. I must say, they did a stand up job! The topic of discussion was building an Unshakable Foundation. WTH is that!? It’s basically the way you live. Your habits. What you do in your day to day life. How do you train your… Body  - Your physical health Mind  - What you’re filling your head with Mouth  - How you’re communicating Heart  - How you foster your relationships Why?! Without a solid foundation it’s difficult to remain balanced. When you are not balanced, it more difficult to stay calm, cool, and collected, (especially) under pressure. As I often say,  “You can’t hide crazy.” (It eventually comes out!) Regardless… You don’t have to be in the PeaceWal...
Read more