The Health Benefits of Resilience
摘要
Resilience is the ability of an individual to bounce back from adversity and move forward with life. In this chapter, the focus is on four elements of resilience and how they impact health. The four aspects of resilience discussed fit into the GROW framework: good emotions, reason and purpose, others, and connection to the world (support from and to others), and wellness flexibility. Each of these elements impacts health in a variety of ways. When patients have high levels of good emotions, a strong sense of reason and purpose, consistent support from and to others, and the ability to be flexible, self-aware, and learn from mistakes, and their health outcomes are often better in various diseases. This chapter includes evidence for the impact of resilience in cancer, cardiovascular, metabolic, neuropsychiatric illnesses, and kidney disease. Patients can improve their resilience in these four domains by practicing skills such as gratitude, identifying values and setting goals, mind-body exercise and meditation, working toward self-efficacy and disease self-management, building and deepening relationships, volunteering, and accepting one’s faults and failures and learning from them. These techniques and practices should not be seen as a substitute for traditional medical treatments for medical conditions, but instead as important adjunctive strategies to improve self-management and self-care. Clinicians can encourage patients to enhance their resilience with simple interventions that might, in turn, improve their overall health and well-being.