High Resilience

Humans frequently turn on the stress response that was intended to assist our survival in reaction to the everyday challenges we face. Professor Michael Marmot conducted a study in England of 28,000 people’s health over a course of 40 years. Each person was a British

Animals and Humans have a biological stress response intended to facilitate survival in the case of a life threatening attack or severe illness. This is commonly referred to the “fight or flight” response. Some primates, including humans have developed the unhealthy propensity to trigger this response for psychological or social reasons. Humans in particular experience the stress response exponentially more often for psychological reasons than for the purpose of survival (Stress, 2008). For example, we are may feel “stressed out” about work or school and if we think about it too much and get upset, we may experience a stress response Just by thinking about something that is bothering us, we can trigger the biological “fight or flight”

Our book describes stress as “any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and tax one’s coping ability” (Weiten, 2014). Stress is not necessarily a traumatic, life destroying event. It can be as simple a small change in one’s daily schedule. People will have multiple stresses throughout their lifetime. Some will be little and daily, but overtime these add up and can affect you in many ways. Stress can be positive or negative and can take many forms; a few being frustration, internal conflict, change, and pressure. All of which make almost a daily appearance in my life (Weiten, 2014).

Stress can do incredible things to the human body, including helping us be more productive, work harder, or think faster. However, when a person experienced extreme stress in response to uncontrollable circumstances such as fighting in a war, a physical attack, an accident, or a natural disaster, it can be detrimental. A person who will live through a major traumatic event often could not cope with

Stress is induced by life events .Lazarus and Flokman in (Cavanaugh and Blanchard –Field (2005) point out stress is defined by the person and that no two people experiences stress the same event in exactly the same way. Each individual has a specific tolerance for stress depending on general level of adjustment, the internal and external resources available to that person, flexibility of learned coping mechanisms and the degree and type of stress being experienced .The rise in stress that results from emotional

Exogenous threats can shape stress responses across the lifespan, and influences the rate of aging (ES-2014-aging). Environmental stressors include any factors that cause cell injury, such as heavy metals, radiation, heat exposure, reactive oxygen species, osmotic fluctuation, as well as social and psychological stressors (ES-2014). These trigger the stress response and related behavioral pathways through neural networks and interconnected neurohormonal and immune patterns. The capacity of human beings to learn about, imagine, remember, and anticipate stressful situations and their warning signs can create chronic states of vigilant arousal in the body. Besides, there are multiple individual differences that make some people more vulnerable to stress, where the identical stimuli cause exaggerated stress responses (ES-2014).

Resilience across a lifespan can happen different ways from physical development to cognitive development. We also have social and emotional development. Throughout this paper resilience will be applied to all of the above mentioned concepts. Resilience across a lifespan is described through theories, measures, and even personality characteristics. Resilience has also been applied to the impacts of disasters and traumatic experiences in which will also be touched on throughout this paper.

Resilience is affected both by psychobiological, personality, and social factors which may work together to protect individuals from any psychological disturbances when faced with stress (Ortega & Saavedra, 2014). Genes play an important part in determining an individual’s resilience. These genetic factors plays a role in determining how an individual respond to an adversity in life. Although there is no exact explanation on how genes affect resilience, it plays an important role in determining how an individual responds to various adversity in life. Studies on DNA have found out that genes play an important part in our response to stress by regulating the sympathetic nervous system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the role of the brain so that our response to stress could be too high, too low, or just within the range that could be

Stress has troubled mankind for a long time, yet the research behind this common phenomenon on its effects and how to deal with it is still being explored. Hans Seyle, notable for his work in this field, has described stress as being a demand of the body requiring a non-specific response and he has also developed a model known as GAS (General Adaptation Syndrome) describing the body’s response initiated by stress (Greenberg, 2009). There is two forms of stress that can initiate GAS process; one being eustress, when the demand is positive, and the other being distress, when the demand is negative (Blonna, 2007). Everyone perceives and deals with stress in their own way, making my perception of life stressors affecting me unique. In order to

Vulnerability and resilience among children continues to be a popular topic in research of developmental psychology. The two definitions are closely tied together as they are considered both sides to the spectrum. Schaffer (2006) defines vulnerability and resilience “as the susceptibility to develop malfunctioning following exposure to stressful life events, as opposed to the capacity to maintain competent functioning stress”. If stressful life events are the trigger here, why is it that some children are far more vulnerable, yet others are more resilient? The three studies discussed in this paper will attempt to explain why these differences occur and what can we do to enhance protective factors.

Question: Discuss the impact of chronic medical conditions on adolescents and identify ways of promoting resilience or positive development.

A positive relation between active/disinhibited temperament at 12-30 months of age and adult resilience has been found. Parenting style perceived as “inconsistent” relates negatively to manageability scale and total score of Sense of Coherence. The research showed the links between resilience and personality characteristics in adolescents, emerging/young adults and adult people. In school-age-children, Smith and Prior (1995) have found that positive temperament (low emotional reactivity, high social engagement) best discriminated children showing resilience on all indicators, i.e., behavioral and social competence both at home and at school, with maternal warmth and the number of adverse life events the child had recently experienced also contributing. Similarly, Tschann, Kaiser, Chesney, Alkon and Boyce (1996) have found in preschool children that a difficult temperament acts as a vulnerability factor for internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems and observed aggression, while an easy temperament functions as a protective

Research in this field has originated in two fields of traumatology (looking at adults) and developmental psychology (looking at children and youth). Early researches with adults mainly focused on identifying what led some individuals to avoid traumatic stress whereas in developmental psychology, researchers aimed to identify personal qualities, as self-esteem, differentiating children who had adapted positively to socioeconomic nuisance, abuse or neglect and tragic life events, from children showing comparatively poorer outcomes (Luthar, Cicchetti and Becker, 2000). However, the root of research in resilience shows some limitations to the early approaches.

A TED Speaker, the health psychologist, Kelly McGonigal, stated that instructing patients to reduce their physical or emotional stress is the wrong method towards their journey of self-care. Consequently, individuals who perceive stress in a positive view do not undergo the same side effects than the individuals who perceive it negatively. In fact, individuals, who believe stress as a way the body prepares itself for a challenge, tend to live healthier, gain a higher self-esteem and have a better cognitive mind. This video leads to questions such as how does stress affect the human biology? More importantly, how would this kind of information relate with stress disorders?

Trauma and stress are part of everyone’s life. At some stage or later in life, individuals experience some situations that alter their life in a great deal. The term stress is used by many people, which describes some unusual events that change the behavior of a person towards a specific scenario. Many times, the term stress is used to describe the condition of the person which is inappropriate. While stress is an ongoing and part of everyday life, it is essential that every person learns to manage stress on a regular basis. Managing and coping with stress is linked to improved health and a sound life. There are many strategies by which a person can manage stress. Some people tend to manage stress while others are on a medication to cope with the stress and helps them to control it.