Building the Resilient Brain

Building the Resilient Brain

So, the resilience literature turned out to be way more complicated than I anticipated.  The resilience literature comprises one of the many streams of research in Positive Psychology, and one of the most fruitful because it covers such a broad range of human behavior.  It lends itself better to study than some of the other positive psychology constructs like spirituality and flow--which remain challenging to conceptualize and evaluate.  Yet, because it crosses such a broad range of psychological literature, along with an extensive history, it has become a nightmare for me to sort all of this.

Just writing this entry will help me enormously.  In the past few years the literature on resilience has begun to sort itself into separate dimensions for personal resilience and employee resilience.  This is an academic distinction, you really do not want to wade through this, unless that is your thing.  It is my thing with regard to school.  There are days where i regret choosing Psychological Capital as my thing.  But, those of you who know me, know that I also really like therapy and I miss it terribly.  One of the most painful aspects of this odyssey through doctoral work has been that i left the field of direct practice (for the most part).  There are days where it occurs to me that I may have entirely deviated from the path I was supposed to follow. I continuously encounter things that would have made me ten times better as a therapist. I have no way of applying them. 

Tonight, Kanishka asks me “why blog, about it?”   Because, I have no idea where I am going with any of this, and I want to document it and trace if back if necessary.  I see everything more clearly than I ever have before.  I don’t know what I will come back to, but the writing helps me refine the ideas.  Also, some people find the information helpful, and that helps me to sleep at night when I ponder whether I made erroneously career choices.  Also, it helps me to fulfill a small piece of what is missing from my soul since I am unable to practice counseling.  Also, KK, I thought you and other people might comment and argue with me and therefore make me know my material better…

So, the article referenced below was fascinating.  It has applicability to the workplace, but its relevance is universal and worth sharing.  It has a bunch of information that will be practical if you are a counselor, or a human being who has suffered.  In other words, all of us.  I was lucky to have had training in CBT and DBT, along with the professional experience to apply these interventions.  They work and one of the fortunate qualities of these therapies is that they are not difficult to grasp conceptually.  The challenge is recognizing how and when to apply them appropriately.  I was intrigued by this article specifically because well over a decade has passed since my training.  Neuroscience is now validating why some of these interventions are effective.

Tabibnia and Radecki (2018) surveyed the resilience literature for specific intervention strategies that were known to increase neuroplasticity.  It should come as no surprise that stress in both acute and chronic forms has a significant impact on neuroanatomy.  This has consequences for both physical and mental health.  The chronic activation of systems designed to respond to fear, reinforce pathways long after a dangerous situation has resolved, impairing memory and learning in the process.  Fortunately, there is now compelling evidence that these conditions can be reversed by removal of the stressor.  That said, I want to caution that “removal” of the stressor is complicated; i wish the authors had used a different term.  There are several strategies to remove a stressor, but some are way more effective than others.  Avoidance, is a prime example and it will be covered below.  It has its place, but it is nowhere near as effective as acceptance and transformation.

The authors identify 15 resilience interventions that are supported by empirical data, 3 behavioral pathways and 2 cognitive pathways.

Behavioral Pathways

Reducing Fear and Stress Responses

1. Exposure and Reconsolidation: the best method for extinguishing fear is systematic exposure to the feared stimulus in a setting that is safe.  This allows for new pathways to be formed between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, which ultimately facilitates reconsolidation--the movement of memory from short to long term storage.
2. Active Avoidance:  This is an effective strategy in certain contexts, and should be distinguished from passive avoidance (which is bad).  Active avoidance reminds me of the DBT skill Distract.  It is the doing something instead of nothing technique, and this can be incredibly important in stages where the stress is acute. (over reliance has a downside e.g frequent hand washing during flu season is good, excessive hand washing is a maladaptive compulsion)
3. Controlling the stressor: self-efficacy--set tasks where control is possible--e.g in the workplace--if you fear your boss, initiate a short neutral conversation with the expectation that this is the only thing you set out to accomplish. Repeat. Often. It leads to mastery.  Mastery produces feelings of control.
4. Stress Inoculation: Approach stress proactively. Extend the above technique to other areas.  Exposure to manageable stress is healthy, it helps in application of the skill set and reduces anxiety. Performance improves as a result. Performance improvement makes one feel more prepared for the next challenge. You are inoculating against stress.

Physical Health

1. Sleep: 7-8 hrs is the ideal amount of sleep for the brain health
2. Exercise: aerobic exercise--affects hippocampal cell production, regulates stress
3. Diet restriction--calorie reduction by 20%, intermittent fasting diet (5:2) have been linked to BDNF production

Connecting Socially

1. Social connectedness and support--(positive social connections, particularly close friendships with deep meaning, as opposed to large network of casual friends)
2. Gratitude: (gratitude comes up almost everywhere  in the positive psychology literature--expressing to self or others. I can share that when I was going through my divorce there were days that I had to sit and list every last positive thing in my life to break the despair thinking.  There are times when I have been effusive with praise and expression of gratitude to others.  It is because at the core I recognize that none of what I have achieved or done is my own doing)

Cognitive Pathways

Emotion Regulation

1. Emotional disclosure--verbalizing one’s emotions privately or to others moves activity out of the limbic system.  
2. Affect labeling--this is referenced in DBT, we were often encouraged to tell patients to put a label on the experience--”I feel…”  After reading Why Buddhism is True, and practicing mindfulness meditation, I have modified my thinking.  Part of the Buddhist philosophy is that identifying to closely with the ego increases suffering.  I made considerable progress, by reformulating to “sadness is occuring in me” or “I am present to sadness.”
3. Cognitive reappraisal--see the end of my post on optimism (this is the same)

Cognitive Training

1. Cognitive bias modification--we all are prone to the negativity bias--the brain is wired to attend more to negative situations as a protective mechanism.  The world is neutral, however if it is filled with stress, our evaluation will shift to default negative. It takes work to reorient the mind to more positive evaluation (this is why the gratitude letter helps, along with the positive social connections)
2. Mindfulness training--yes it’s everywhere, yes it’s getting obnoxious.  Yes, it’s scientifically proven--you are shifting your brain out of what is called the default node network (that is the uncomfortable autopilot place full of rumination where you end up with no idea how you got there).  Mindfulness does not have to be practiced purely with meditation.  It is about being present to the moment.  If you are doing the dishes, mindfully do the dishes.  If you are mindfully running, mindfully run.  Don’t run and balance the checkbook.  The idea is to get away from all of the multitasking. There is no problem with doing multiple tasks throughout the day, but give each one 100% attention.  This is the mistake we all make.  We end up doing 3 things at 33%.
3. Cognitive therapy--it’s very helpful, but i also believe it has limits.  I have long recognized that there were points where people needed something closer to coaching.  This is because the skills need to be practiced, and applied repeatedly, and to novel situations. The insight that our thinking highly influences our behavior is usually grasped early in therapy. From that point is practice, and self-correction.

Those are the 15.  These are all interventions that have found validation in the neuroscience literature for neuroplasticity.  One additional note, if you are going to practice these there are three mindsets that are helpful in facilitating:

1. Positive expectations--spend time in the hope and optimism mindset, this stuff works.
2. Growth mindset--recognize that this is a capacity and like any capacity it can be developed.  Carol Dweck has all kinds of research on this.
3. Self-affirmation--for God’s sake give yourself credit.  There is nothing wrong with spending time with pride and meditating on times where you achieved success, as long as one does not slip into ego-intoxication. If you feel awesome do something with it to make things better for someone else. You will feel even more awesome. Nobody likes the person who runs around thinking and telling everyone how awesome they are. And accept that it is ok, when you feel awesome, spend a few minutes there. If you are like me, something is coming soon to steal it away and bring us back to reality.