Comments on: Overcome Stress and Challenge: 7 Mechanisms of Resilience for High Productivity

By: Timothy So

Timothy So — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:00:41 +0000

Warren, thanks for your feedback. I think to build long term resilience, the habit mechanism would surely play a significant role. Once we make exercising, meditating and etc. our habit, it would be harder for us to be knocked down by stresses and challenges. I hope your project will turn out a wonderful one! Best, Timothy

By: Timothy So

Timothy So — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:00:10 +0000

Thanks for this Bridget. I am thinking to put this model into research to test the utility of the mechanisms so that we can better develop for further training and counselling purpose.

Best, Timothy

By: Timothy So

Timothy So — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:59:36 +0000

Thanks Elaine! It is always sweet to hear from you and I am very much looking forward to seeing you soon again in Phily.

Re your clued question, spirituality surely helps building resilience. Strong and coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe, or an articulate philosophy of life, religious or secular might surely help with dealing with stress. However, I suppose it would be hard for some of the people who are with low spirituality to be developed in a short run. In the model, the cognitive mechanism offers a very similar construct as it also talks about longer and higher term of purpose and thinking and fitting oneself in the larger scheme.
Best, Timothy

By: Timothy So

Timothy So — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:58:21 +0000

Thanks for your encouraging comment Lee. Retail therapy may not be helpful in many cases, and here is an interesting article about how shopping makes us depressed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4181822,00.html

Best, Timothy

By: Warren Davies

Warren Davies — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:45:08 +0000

Good stuff, I like how your suggestions are all based on building long-term resiliency instead of just dealing with symptoms when they come up with short-term solutions.

I had a weird day a couple of days ago where I got very frustrated with a challenging project I’m working on, I got to about 4pm before I went and bought a few beers and a film to de-stress. In the week previous, this project had been taking up most of my time, so I wasn’t exercising, meditating (which I recently started trying) or spending much time with others. So my stress and frustration was exactly what your diagram would predict.

Warren

By: Bridget Grenville-Cleave

Bridget Grenville-Cleave — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:21:40 +0000

Great article Timothy, very strong systems model of resilience. I particularly liked the references to self-awareness and creating habits, which are both essential for developing resilience & frequently forgotten in training.
Bridget

By: Elaine O'Brien

Elaine O'Brien — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:20:46 +0000

Great! Resilience is a hot interdisciplinary topic. Thank you Tim, for developing these 7 Mechanisms for higher productivity. I want to put these into action right now!
I enjoyed your Rocky analogy of getting hit hard and then moving forward and climbing higher, as well as your reflective Einstein citation
Your provocative reflections about the interconnectedness of the Inner Self Mechanisms of physical, meditative; the Relationship Mechanism – the taking and giving awareness as well as self-relationship considerations married with monitoring habits methodically, make sense.
I love the Positive Exercise research, the VIA, Brain, Body, Relational integration. I’ll recommend this article and best to you, Elaine

PS Tim, I’m wondering about the role of spirituality within the model?

By: J.Lee

J.Lee — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:19:51 +0000

Thanks Tim for advising us on how to maintain a habit in resisting stress under this economic situation. I now have clue why i cannot resist stress persistently after reading this article, i only focus on an aspect and ignore another aspect, like i believe most girls like myself treat shopping and taking a healthy dose of chocolate as a common way to destress, however, we always ignore other mechanisms which could lengthen and strengthen our resilience persistency. I particularly realize I used to ignore “cognitive Mechanism” which is needless to say effective to not only resist to pressure, but to become a better person with better psychological well being.

Thanks Tim again for making me a better person through positive psychology! Please keep up with the good articles =)