Resilience is like a rubber band that when stretched bounces back to its original shape. If you are resilient, you handle problems better – while others are frozen by stress, you are able to take control. You are proactive and future focussed, because negativity doesn’t overwhelm you. Building a resilient attitude means becoming more optimistic.

 

The ‘can do’ attitude that comes from optimism is often self-fulfilling. Very little progress would be made if everyone sat around fuelled by negative thoughts, like “I’m hopeless” or “I will never be able to do this”. As Thomas Edison said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

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Techniques to Increase Tolerance and Resilience

 

Scheduling Activities

Useful to maintain activity level when condition is acute

Schedule activities to ration/conserve energy

 

Working to Quota

Useful to increase activity level and build tolerance

'do no more on a good day, no less on a bad day’. Disrupt learning relationship between symptom (pain/fatigue/stress/worry) and activity

 

Planning Activity

Useful for low mood, less motivation

'rewards’ completion of difficult or challenging activities with pleasurable ones