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How to Boost Your Mental Resilience
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We all know how good and important exercise is for building strength and keeping our body ticking over. And in recent years, there’s also been a lot of talk about how regular fitness helps you feel better in your mind too. But did you know that exercise has a positive impact on your mental resilience?
Let’s take a look at how.
What is mental resilience?
Mental resilience is sometimes known as ‘mental toughness’. But being resilient is about a lot more than just being tough. It’s about how well we bounce back when things get difficult. It’s about how motivated we feel when hard times come our way. It’s not about ignoring difficult times or not addressing them. It’s about facing them head on with optimism and strength.
When you have more mental resilience, you might find it easier to get out of a challenging situation. And the situation itself might not seem as limiting as it once did. You may also find that you recover from hard times a lot quicker.
Mental resilience is partly something that you’re born with but whether you’ve got a little or a lot, there are always ways to develop your resilience more.
Traits of mentally resilient people
Mentally resilient people are usually optimistic or have a positive outlook on their future. While it might not all be rosy, they can see glimmers of hope and ways to make a situation more comfortable or manageable.
They also often have a lot of confidence in themselves and their abilities as well as a strong sense of who they are and what they’re capable of.
As a mentally resilient person, you look for new ways to face the challenges ahead of you. Rather than having tunnel vision, you’re able to think critically in broad and unique ways to come up with solutions. It makes you good at solving problems in other areas of your day-to-day life, at work or in your relationships.
Mentally resilient people also have a good ability to regulate their emotions. It means that strong feelings don’t get the better of them and that they are able to push through, even when it feels uncomfortable.
Does working out improve mental resilience?
The science says: yes. Studies have shown that as your exercise levels increase, so too does your resilience. There are a few scientific reasons for this.
Exercising increases the size of your hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that handles learning, emotions and your memory. Typically, people who frequently exercise have a larger hippocampus than people who don't, which means that they can regulate their emotions easier and face difficulty head-on.
When you exercise, your brain also adapts to produce more feel-good hormones like serotonin and dopamine. And when that happens, you’ll find you can more easily fight off stress, anxiety and depression.
Regular movement is also another way to build mental resilience. Exercise causes stress on the body - that’s natural. But it’s a controlled stress. Constantly putting yourself under a controlled stress shows your body how to adapt to challenging situations and reinforces the idea that it can bounce back. Essentially, you are showing yourself that you can come back from difficulty time and time again. And that knowledge can be transferred to other areas of your life where you feel stress.
Exercise helps you manage stress by releasing endorphins and hormones like serotonin
Exercise improves blood flow in your brain which helps with neuroplasticity or learning new things, like how to adapt to situations or solve problems
Exercise gives you a sense of achievement and boosts your self-confidence
How to build mental toughness through movement
But surely it’s not that simple. Are we really saying that you just need to move your body and you’ll feel more resilient? In a way, yes.
Studies have shown that it doesn’t necessarily matter how hard you push yourself to feel improved mental resilience. What matters most is that you’re moving and doing something you enjoy. So you can choose to work out at an intensity that you prefer and you’ll still see the benefits.
And of course, it’s not just exercise that helps. Being intentional about your all-round wellness will help. That’s what we’re here for. To help you:
Build connections, maybe through friends you meet in class
Support your body with nourishing food
Find hobbies that you enjoy
Take time to relax and unwind
Pause for internal reflection, maybe through Sound Bath or Yoga
As always, building up your resilience is also about showing yourself compassion. About recognising where you are today and how strong you already are. Be kind to yourself and move with intention, knowing that every step, swim and side plank is bringing you closer to a more resilient mindset.
Ready for your next workout? Check out all the group exercise classes available at Virgin Active.
Not yet a member? Find your nearest club and start your membership today.
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