EB 388 – Resilience and Longevity
One of the more fashionable buzzwords today as related to Longevity is the term: Resilience. You may have seen recent articles in newspapers and magazines about the importance of Resilience to Health and Longevity.
What is Resilience? It’s the ability to bounce back from adversity and stress in a positive way. Stress has been know as a “silent killer” for many decades but only now does it seem to have been looked at beyond a strictly medical level. Academia and business are getting involved in “resilience” in a major way.
According to a publication of the Harvard Medical School, Resilience is the ability to cope with stress in a positive way and is associated with longevity, lower rates of depression, and a greater satisfaction with life. A lack of resilience is the inability to handle stress and is associated with high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, and other health challenges.
According to a publication by the World Health Organization, entitled, Strengthening Resilience: a priority shared by Health 2020 and, the Sustainable Development Goals, Resilience is a major priority, not only at an individual level but systemically through all levels of society.
Let’s stay with Resilience at the individual level. Since we are all affected by stress in some ways, what is the best way to conquer the stress and develop resilience? The following is a bit technical but as I said, Academia is getting more and more involved in the subject . . .
In his nearly 800 page book, The Future of the Body, Esalen Institute co-founder Michael Murphy recognized the problem and suggested that resilience can be developed through: “1. Reduction of habitual muscular tensions by somatic disciplines or biofeedback training. 2. Self-reflection that produces hopeful, though realistic, perspectives on life in general. 3. Relinquishment of chronically negative attitudes in psychotherapy or witness meditation. 4. Practiced contact with the self-existent delight revealed by witness meditation, contemplative prayer, and other religious exercises.” (Murphy, Michael, The Future of the Body, p 578).
Hmm, got all that?
The Harvard Medical School publication I mentioned above put it like this:
How to build resilience:
1. Meditation
2. Reframe the situation
3. Being involved in a “real” social network (real life)
4. Positive thinking
5. Laugh more
6. Be optimistic.
The only thing that the Harvard article left out was: Exercise. And I believe that exercise is one of the best tools to help cope with stress.
Anyhow, the better our ability to handle the stresses of not only crisis situations, but those of everyday life, the better chances we have of living longer and better, and maintaining our mental and physical health.
Thank you for reading.