Can you teach resilience? What makes one person more resilient than the next?

[Lanzarotelady]

Genuinely interested in this, what makes one person more resilient than the next?
Two people go through the same, ie nurses working in covid ICU, what makes one person cope better than the other?
Can resilience be taught?
I am asking as we have a pot of money to use at work ( NHS ICU ) and people have asked for resilience training, but I can't help but think, you can't be taught it?

I’d ask the staff at the coalface how they would like the money spent.

They have.

I work in the NHS and a lot of focus in last few years seems to be being spent on 'wellbeing'- managing stress, reducing absence.
To be honest it feels like being gaslit, you put people in impossible systems with ridiculous pressures and then throw them a half hour mindfulness thing at 4.30 one day.
It doesn't build resilience it just makes people cross.
If you can't change the system and reduce the pressures then at least use the money to provide meaningful support-good supervision, access to therapy, adequate training for the job they are doing, time to attend medical appointments etc..

It's accumulated from life experiences as well as the character they were born with. I don't really think you can teach it, though you can teach coping mechanisms for when times are tough.

Some of the most resilient people I know are fantastic at compartmentalising. I find this hard and am so impressed by friends who can be going through hell but will meet up for a walk or run, or go to an evening class and just enjoy it without offloading because that's how they refuel - they ditch the massive problem at home or work temporarily and just enjoy the moment.

I think this is important - each individual finding the thing that will allow him or her to set aside worry and stress. For some it's faith and prayer, for others it might be a long walk, or listening to music, or just finding a quiet place to sit and look at a garden.... For Winston Churchill it was painting. He writes about it in his essay Painting as a Pastime. Each person needs to find their own thing.

And put down/switch off the phone, to allow the mind time to deal with stuff, rather than being continually bombarded with new stuff.

A lot of resilience comes from difficult experiences.

We start with allowing children to explore things safely and push personal boundries at clubs, music, drama and sports but we don't throw unsafe experiences at them. However if they happen chance to get involved in a risky experience, cope, and survive...they may have built some additional resilience from that. Their personality helps too - some are more risk taking than others.

Then as get older we have challenges and work opportunities come our way - some of those (more than others) help build.resilience.

I think innate resilience comes out of (probably mostly early) life experiences

Innate means that you were born with it. If it is a result of life experience it is not innate.

I don't think you can teach resilience but you can teach better coping strategies such as dealing with stress, better time management and sometimes just the ability to recognise that you can can't do anymore and just say 'no'.

I haven't RTFT so apologies if repeating
IMO children are not allowed to fail or struggle. Parents should allow a child to struggle with a task, to fail it and problem solve it. Stepping in too soon tells the child the parent is not confident they can work out a problem

I’m talking about the skills and strategies, world view, that allows you to function in a stressful environment.

Some people pick them up in their families. They are encouraged to balance perseverance and self care, to problem solve, conflict resolution, boundaries and so on.
Others learn toxic messages instead- they are lazy, it’s their own fault, no one likes a whiner…

There are things we can learn as adults that better equip us for difficult situations, so we become more resilient. I didn’t become more resilient by powering through stressful situations. All that did was burn me out and make me ill!

I had to learn a whole host of new attitudes and skills. I’m less resilient in some ways as I now have a chronic illness and have limited capacity. My skill set is now awesome and I’m in recovery. I am good at sharing my learning with other people facing stress, at least that’s what they tell me when they come for support!

This is a really interesting thread. It's made me think about what we even mean when we talk about resilience. How can you know, without being in someone's brain? Are we looking at distress levels or ability to continue despite distress levels?

I think people would say I am resilient. However, I went through a very dark time a few years ago, triggered by some difficult circumstances. Didn't miss a commitment - showed up every day and performed well at work, was available for family and friends and always appeared very together. I prided myself on my resilience - my ability to get on with it and try and focus on positives. But I was secretly deeply unhappy to the extent that I had significant suicidal ideation. I'm not convinced that makes me much more resilient than the same person who was faced with the same circumstances and didn't get out of bed for 6 months?

And different people are resilient in different ways surely? For example, I don't really 'get' work related stress - I'm sympathetic but if I'm honest I don't truly understand it. But I'm sure I ruminate on things that others brush off.

Sense of humour.

My family has been through a fair share of tragedy, but are funny and we laugh a lot. One family member is hands down the funniest person I know but also suffers in his MH.

I think it can help take the harshness off of reality, we brits do love a bit of satire and a panel comedy show don’t we.

This is classic chicken and egg.

When I feel happier and healthier, I can do those things. There's a great study [not found] that says that the top few ways to help with MH are running, walking and dancing. If someone starts running, or goes to Zumba, they will feel better. But one of the unsuccessful ones (worse than control) is, essentially, 'being told to run or walk'. Even, and this is important, if they then run or walk. It's hard not to interpret that as meaning that people do self-care when they feel well enough to do self-care. If they are told to do it, they feel guilty, do it anyway, feel worse.

A lot of resiliency 'training' is a lot of guff about self-care, and a huge amount of gaslighting. We're training workers to feel like they should put up with terrible working conditions and if they feel shit, have a bubble bath and if they don't feel better it's their fault.

By all means teach reframing or meditation or a Zumba class. But make it voluntary and don't call it 'resiliency' training.

I can't find the post but I agree, please don't just make it a mindfulness workshop. That is the most cynical assault of working conditions I have ever seen. 'accept whatever shit is thrown at you and make it your own problem rather than push for improvements in conditions'. Not to say it didn't start out with good inentions.

This. 100x this.

I agree ultimately we are masking the awful problems in the nhs and gaslighting people into thinking they need be be stronger and stronger to just get on with it. But the reality is the system ain't changing any time soon but there are things we can do to help people keep working and be less affected by it. These people are in contracts of employment and our power to change the system is limited, we can however help people cope while we challenge this higher up. It's a shit situation.

I think resilience is the wrong word in this context.

But something around recognising the signs that things have had a negative impact on wellbeing, appropriate debrief strategies and methods for dealing with high stress situations and their aftermath might be more achievable (and probably less likely to anger your staff).

Agree re masking. Overall I find this debate really interesting as I really don't know.

Overall I agree with you. It's very interesting, I'm glad you're stronger despite your chronic condition

I think you can teach certain strategies to deal with a stressful situation in the moment and how to respond. But that may not change someone's internal resilience to that situation. For example I know how to manage a stressful situation, but I am someone who hates conflicts, it causes me severe anxiety and I dwell on it for a long time, keeps me up at night if I said/did the right thing etc etc. I am naturally a people pleaser. But the next person may have also been taught the same strategies, dealt with a situation in exactly the same way i did and not think twice about it. I don't think you can change that in people core.

I don't think it could be taught. I think there are so many things that contribute to resilience and see it more as a trait than a skill. Early childhood experiences shape it massively. Having an early attachment, growing up knowing that you have someone there for you to help you overcome struggles. There is research around how a healthy attachment helps children become more confident and independent, they will go an explore away from a parent if they feel secure knowing the parent is there to go back to if needed.
I think every little thing about us contributes to resilience so it can vary in an individual throughout their lives. Positive personality traits, looks, IQ, social skills- having all of this will help resilience. Being financially secure, having healthy relationships with spouse/friends/family. Having time to relax, engage in self-care, have fun. Physical and mental health. Positive self-esteem.
Two nurses doing the same job aren't comparable for measuring resilience, there will be so many tiny factors that all interplay to form the overall level of resilience.

But the reality is the system ain't changing any time soon but there are things we can do to help people keep working and be less affected by it. These people are in contracts of employment and our power to change the system is limited, we can however help people cope while we challenge this higher up. It's a shit situation.

It is a shit situation in too many professions at the moment. I do think though that providing “resilience” training in whatever form places the solution to the problem at the feet of staff. Oddly enough people who work in well resourced, well managed organisations with realistic case loads, decent supervision arrangements and supportive managers don’t need resilient training, or wellbeing initiatives because there are organisational and systemic processes in place to protect their wellbeing initiatives the first place.

You can’t meditate your way through an impossible workload and hostile work environment.

Sense of humour
My family has been through a fair share of tragedy, but are funny and we laugh a lot.

I once worked with someone whose husband was an ambulance driver - in the days before they were paramedics. He had attended some major incidents. She said black humour was the way they dealt with things they had seen and done.

I think there's actually some variation in what people mean by resilience on this thread which also impacts the views on how much it can be taught. There's resilience in the form of not letting something bring you down completely and being able to shake off or move on from tough times at a fairly emotional level, and then there's the more advanced version which is when you do that and then also get back up and carry on doing whatever it is that you've been struggling with.

I think there are absolutely tools that can be taught for the first one - helping people to learn how to look at things in perspective, how not to obsess etc. DH, for example, has tended to over focus on something to the point that it can prevent him from carrying on with normal things and he has learnt how to 1. break the cycle (he uses a combination of physical and psychological tools and 2. how to force himself to look at the issue more objectively.

I think the second one - where someone is struggling but has to keep getting up and going on is something that can be strengthened and built, but there's an aspect of personality. It's also easier to build that in childhood. DS is naturally quite resilient but we have helped him to strengthen that, which he will need because some things ar ehard for him due to ND. DD is not naturally resilient at ALL but we've been working with her on this for a long time and she has definitely improved her resilience.

Would love to know if/how resilience can be taught! Would teach it to my DD if it were possible: beyond being happy and healthy, it’s the one thing I’d wish for her — to be more robust. I think it would make her life so much easier…

TW: suicide
On a separate note, the team at my old company all had resilience training a while back; I remember nothing about it, so don’t think it could have been great. The facilitator had been a tennis player then a sports coach (I think). Tragically, a year or so after our training with him, he killed himself. It made me think resilience really can’t be taught.

How old is she? Because parenting for resiliency is possible. Training it into harried NHS workers is less easy.