Resilience
8 Surprising Strategies for Boosting Your Resilience
Science-based secrets for coping when we don’t know what’s coming next.
Posted April 24, 2025 Reviewed by Margaret Foley
Key points
- Reframing difficult situations and practicing altruism can counteract stress and build resilience.
- Naming emotions and thinking positively about the future turns bad experiences into opportunities for growth.
- Regular nature breaks and speaking kindly to yourself create sustainable resilience practices.
Resilience is a natural capacity. We all have it. But how do we nurture and boost it so it can serve us when we don’t know what's coming next on life’s journeys? Research finds that we can actually change the neural circuits in our brain by what we choose to say to ourselves and what we choose to do when we are anxious, overwhelmed, or emotionally exhausted. But, if you think you’ve heard about them all—meditating and mindfulness, expressing gratitude, building social support, practicing self-care, self-love, and self-forgiveness—keep reading, because most of the science-based strategies that follow were new to my patients, and many were new to me, too.
1. Realistic Relabeling
This means downgrading a "disaster" to an "inconvenience," in both our mind and our conversations. Whether we are talking about hot flashes or a malfunctioning laptop, words are triggers for the fight-or-flight response, and using words that are not dramatic or exaggerated is enough to shift how our brain and body respond to a problem. Reframing situations using words that signal manageability rather than panic allows our natural resilience to reassert itself. It's a tool used by therapists to help patients, and it's a tool you can use to help yourself.1
2. Therapeutic Benevolence
Create a giving experience daily if you can. Let's say your company is downsizing. Why give away time, effort, compassion, or even money just when you feel oppressed by your own problems? First, because altruism activates the reward centers of the brain and stimulates the release of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin—all brain neurotransmitters that create a sense of emotional comfort and renewed hope. Second, neurobiologists find that the pleasure centers of our brain also become activated and counteract anxiety and depression, both of which block our natural resilience. Next, you'll find that we automatically imagine what the recipient will feel like after receiving our help, and that gives us a vicarious lift and energy. And finally, such acts distract us from our problems and remind us that we are not alone—others have difficult journeys also.2
3. Cataloguing Emotions
Instead of avoiding, suppressing, or trying to ignore your emotions when you are going through a difficult time, like a loss, divorce, or infertility experience, try the reverse. Use your emotional intelligence to identify and name your emotions as accurately as you can. Research finds that much of the therapeutic effects of both journaling and therapy come from recognizing, clarifying, and owning our emotions. When negative emotions operate in the dark, they often seem to grow. When they are seen in the light, they can be cut down to size, and healing can kick in. So if you keep a diary or send a steady flow of texts to a friend while you are going through a breakup, you are organizing emotional confusion and creating a logical sequence for your experience. Call it narrative processing, and know that it sets the stage for the growth of resilience.3
4. Positive Anticipatory Ideation
It's easier than it sounds. Instead of reliving the past by spending time thinking about "should haves" and "could haves" (which we can do nothing about), try picturing the most positive future outcomes you can instead. This helps refocus us on optimism, action, and hope rather than pessimism and limitations. Researchers call it "prospection" and find it is an important element of resilient thinking. All your hopeful time-traveling into the future may not exactly come true, but thinking optimistically does not jinx the present and moves you forward through your daily life. 4
5. Mental GPS
Be like Waze. First, map out your ideal emotional journey, then try to anticipate problems and roadblocks that may pop up, and finally, develop a game plan for each scenario that could get in your way, including a reroute. No giving up. Some researchers call this Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII). More simply, it encourages resilience by increasing goal commitment and activation rather than deactivation when there are obstacles or complications. Making "if-then" plans like this is a hallmark of resilience, and it takes practice. If you are going through a fertility journey, for example, it can help you see each setback as an opportunity to gain more information about your medical situation and investigate the next steps for you in family building.5
6. Natural Priming
Did you know that just a few minutes outdoors, surrounded by natural sights and sounds, can reset our nervous system by reducing cortisol and increase our perspective—instant natural therapy.6
- It brings us into the present, where we have some control.
- It restores our perspective; we are just a part of nature and less self-focused.
- It helps us relax physical tension when we breathe fresh air, which signals our brain that there is no danger or emergency.
- It slows our breathing, which turns down adrenaline rushes.
- It quiets the brain circuits that respond to problems and initiates relaxation and appreciation instead.
- It increases our capacity for feeling peacefulness, so take microbreaks. Neurons can send a danger signal about 270 to 300 miles per hour and fire up to 45 times a second, so every time out, even if it's brief, is retraining our brain and priming it for resilience.
So, if you work remotely and are feeling technologically overwhelmed and ruled by your headset and call queue, step outside, even if for three to five minutes. Just four times a day is enough to boost your resilience.
7. Personal Power Practice
Like the Marvel superheroes, we all have some signature strengths, and we are often surprised when they emerge. In fact, for many of us, that may be the first moment we really feel resilience. For me, it was when I explained to my grandmother why she was not to blame for her ulcer. It was bacteria. I've been looking for explanations and research ever since and using both to help myself, as well as patients, gather emotional strength. So identify and use your personal talents and "powers" in as many ways as you can each day. Be you—as often, and in the best ways, as you can.7
8. Third-Person Self-Talk
It sounds like psychobabble, but it's kind and simple. In times of stress, just imagine what someone who loves you would be saying to you and say it to yourself. Echo your best friend from school, your aunt when you were a teen, your coach, your brother, or your counselor or therapist, and then say it to yourself. Researchers say this increases emotional control and encourages clearer cognition during stress by providing an outsider's perspective, but I say the echoes are comforting and remind us to talk to ourselves with kind understanding rather than self-blame and unrealistic expectations.8
And always practice hope. We are born with the capacity for hope. We practice it when we are young, every time we look forward to our birthday party or our best friend’s visit. But as we become older, practicing hope isn’t easy because life’s journeys are so unpredictable. But pessimism makes the journey even harder and does not protect us from disappointment. Instead, pessimism alters our brain’s neurochemical activity and makes it more difficult to cope with disappointment or to enjoy success. If you feel you have lost your capacity for hope, you can choose to reinforce it again. Call up hopeful images, focus on the positive, and look for moments of joy. Practice actually changes the physicality of our brain. The outcome of our daily challenges may not be changed, but the quality of our daily life will be. Start practicing hope because its partner is resilience.
References
(1) Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257–301.
(2) Piliavin, J. A., & Siegl, E. (2007). Health benefits of volunteering in the Wisconsin longitudinal study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 48(4), 450–464.
(3) Sloan, D. M., et al. (2015). Written exposure therapy for PTSD: A randomized controlled trial with 3-month follow-up. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 28(6), 541–549.
(4) Meevissen, Y. M., Peters, M. L., & Alberts, H. J. (2011). Become more optimistic by imagining a best possible self: Effects of a two week intervention. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry, Sep;42(3): 371–8.
(5) Oettingen, G., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2010). Strategies of setting and implementing goals: Mental contrasting and implementation intentions. In Social Psychology and the Unconscious (pp. 114–135).
(6) Capaldi, C. A., et al. (2015). The relationship between nature connectedness and happiness: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 976.
(7) Wood, A. M., et al. (2011). Using personal and psychological strengths leads to increases in well-being over time: A longitudinal study and the development of the strengths use questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(5), 668–673.
8) Kross, E., et al. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324.
