FOUR TYPES OF RESILIENT BEHAVIOR

As you face the pressures of life, being resilient is a character trait that is often recommended. What does resilient behavior look like?

In a TED Talk, Jane McGonigal described four types of resilience. When defining them, she said that people who practice these behaviors regularly live longer than those who don’t.

Here are the four types:

• Physical resilience. You are physically resilient if you don’t sit still longer than an hour at a time. You keep moving, especially when you don’t feel like it. I don’t know about you, but as I age, the temptation to sit on the couch or to nurse a pain by not moving is high. A physically resilient person works out the kinks and prioritizes physical activity.
• Mental resilience. You are mentally resilient if you test your brain. Do puzzles. Play board games. Try new hobbies. Read new books. Stay engaged in work. Grow a garden. In short, mentally resilient folks stay challenged.
• Emotional resilience. You are emotionally resilient if you regularly reflect on things beautiful, fanciful, and visionary. Emotional resilience exercises our capability to imagine, dream, plan and create. It fortifies the soul. Emotional resilience allows us to find positive things even when circumstances stay grim.
• Social resilience. When you stay in touch with others socially, you are socially resilient. Hugs and handshakes stimulate the brain. Having a friend, who you look forward to visiting and taking the initiative to stay engaged with, is social resilience.

We admire those folks who “happen to the world.” Becoming resilient is one of the ways to achieve it.