Emotional Resilience Helps Us to Prepare for Emergencies

Introduction

Emotional resilience might not be the first thing you think of when you contemplate emergency preparedness. President Russell M. Nelson expressed this concern about emotional preparedness: “I urge you to take steps to be temporally prepared. But I am even more concerned about your spiritual and emotional preparation” (“Embrace the Future with Faith,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2020, 74). Emotional strength and resilience are important traits that can enhance your life in the best of times while also helping you navigate adversity.

Here are a few things you should know to emotionally prepare for difficult situations such as an emergency or another crisis.

What Is Emotional Resilience?

Emotional resilience (sometimes referred to as emotional strength or psychological resilience) is the ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from stress and adversity.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, emotional resilience also encompasses one’s ability to “maintain or return to a state of mental health well-being by using effective coping strategies.”¹ According to the American Psychological Association, emotional resilience is the ability to use emotional flexibility to adapt to life’s challenges.²

Benefits of Emotional Resilience

Many situations can cause emotional stress. For a person who has limited resiliency skills, this stress can contribute to physical and mental health concerns. Those with more emotional resilience still experience emotional pain, but they have the ability to withstand, adapt, and get back up after being emotionally knocked down.

Building emotional resilience before an emergency can help reduce long-term mental and emotional distress. Learning to manage our emotions allows us to feel our emotions, use feelings as information, and choose how we respond.

When we choose how we respond, rather than just reacting, we are more likely to act in a way that is consistent with who we want to be—more consistent with our values (see 2 Nephi 2:26). Understanding, feeling, and managing our own emotions allows us to care for others. We also can be more effective as we try to find needed resources.

Traits of Emotional Resilience

Those with emotional resilience have developed skills of emotional, mental, and behavioral flexibility. They build and maintain safe and close relationships. They may have also developed specific coping strategies to help them adapt to difficult experiences. They use principles of hope and faith to build their emotional strength.

With these skills, resilient people are better equipped to adapt to their circumstances in a way that reduces emotional and psychological distress.

Why Is Emotional Resilience Important in an Emergency?

Whether it’s a natural disaster, unexpected death, or job loss, emergencies can be traumatic events. Common reactions to these challenges include increased levels of anxiety and worry, heightened levels of fear and helplessness, a reduced sense of safety, and feelings of anger. Many people also experience physical symptoms of acute stress, such as sweating, nausea, and sleeplessness, as well as weakened belief in their religion or the importance of life.

These responses can be overwhelming. Excessive stress can lead to poor decision making, which makes it difficult to respond appropriately to the emergency. Feeling overwhelmed by difficult emotions makes it harder to care for yourself and others and to get back into regular routines. If left unchecked, overwhelming emotions can lead to a reduction in overall functioning, disrupted relationships, and mental health challenges.

Healthy coping strategies to try:

1. Journal your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

2. Follow a regular routine.

3. Take a break from the news.

4. Spend time with family and friends.

5. Ponder and meditate.

For more, check out “Facing Challenges: A Self-Help Guide.”

Building Emotional Resilience before a Crisis

Building resilience before a disaster occurs is a good way to be prepared. Mental resilience isn’t something that just happens, so how do you build greater resilience?

Everyday Principles

Start with the challenges you currently face. Even if you’re not currently experiencing an emergency, you are likely facing something that causes some level of anxiety or psychological distress. These stressful situations provide excellent opportunities to build your emotional resiliency.

Emotional resilience is closely tied to principles like mindfulness and compassion for self and others. Consider how the stressful situations in your life could be improved if you applied more compassion. How can being more mindful help? Often, applying these principles doesn’t change the situation, but it does change how you perceive and emotionally respond to it. This reduces stress and builds your emotional resilience.

Build resilience now:

1. Learn calming techniques.

2. Build relationships.

3. Make safety and communication plans.

4. Identify reliable sources of information.

5. Identify your strengths.

6. Connect with Christ and nurture your faith.

7. Remember to have hope.

Have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions. (Alma 34:41)

Finding Strength in the Lord: Emotional Resilience Course

The Church offers a self-reliance course on emotional resilience. In this course, you can learn more about mental health, emotional resilience, and how to apply principles of hope and faith to better withstand life’s trials. Participants work in groups, which helps to provide the social support and connection that emotionally resilient people need to thrive.

Make a plan: How will your family build emotional resilience to withstand life’s trials? What principles of emotional resilience can you apply in your parenting?

How Can I Be More Resilient in a Crisis?

If you’re currently experiencing an emergency and feel overwhelmed by anxiety and stress, there are things you can do to improve your emotional wellness—even if you have limited previous experience with building resilience skills.

Acknowledge and Feel Your Emotions

First and foremost, remember that having emotional resilience does not mean shutting off or ignoring your emotions. Strong emotional responses can be a normal part of a crisis. Resilient people find healthy coping mechanisms that help them progress through their challenges. So how do you do that amidst a crisis?

Take Care of Your Body

In crisis situations, it is common for the body to activate its fight, flight, or other protective response. You might experience hypervigilance, fear, rage, or emotional shutdown. You might not feel like eating and might find it difficult to sleep. These responses can help to protect you in a crisis, but if these experiences are prolonged, the responses can become unhealthy. So remind yourself to take breaks. Do your best to get sufficient sleep. Eat, hydrate, and exercise. Remember to care for your body so you can mentally recharge and be prepared to help yourself and others.

Strengthen Interpersonal Connections

It’s also important to remember that practicing emotional resilience doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Resilient individuals rely on social and spiritual supports. Stay connected with God and those around you. Strengthen your support network, serve others, and encourage compassion in yourself and your community. Connecting with God and others helps to lower your stress levels, which reduces the long-term effects of an emergency. And don’t forget to communicate your needs. Emotionally resilient individuals don’t try to do it all themselves; they ask for help when it’s needed.

Focus on Problem-Solving

Resilient people also work to maintain a realistic and positive mentality. If you’re in the middle of a crisis, it may be useful to focus on problem-solving. Keeping a goal-oriented perspective can help your emotional well-being as you experience positive emotions from working toward a goal—even if that goal is as small as waking up, saying a prayer, and getting ready for the day. Exercising your sense of humor can also help.

Building resilience in a crisis:

1. Feel and acknowledge emotions.

2. Take care of your body.

3. Strengthen interpersonal and spiritual connections.

4. Focus on problem-solving.

Emotional Resilience Is a Vital Preparedness Skill

Everyone, no matter their circumstances, experiences times of hardship. Emotional resilience is an important skill that can help you withstand, adapt to, and recover from life’s challenges. And in cases of extreme hardship, emotional resilience can help reduce the long-term distress caused by loss and trauma.

As you seek to become more prepared for all kinds of emergency situations, don’t neglect to build your emotional resilience. Seek social support from your friends and family. As you do so, you can become a role model of emotional resilience that inspires the building of resilience skills throughout your family and community.

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. (Deuteronomy 31:6)

Notes

1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Individual Resilience,” Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, aspr.hhs.gov/at-risk/Pages/individual_resilience.aspx.

2. See “Resilience,” American Psychological Association, apa.org/topics/resilience.