2/a psychological immune system?
“The psychological immune system: four ways to bolster yours – and have a happier, calmer life”
From The Guardian
Yes, we do have one. Before I go there, let me share an observation.
In what I believe to be an excellent development, we are increasingly seeing coverage of mental health issues in magazines and newspapers since the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that discussion of our psychological wellbeing is commonplace and occurring beyond academic journals is good for all of us. It is important that we talk about these issues more and good coverage increases our awareness.
I had that reaction after recently reading “The psychological immune system: four ways to bolster yours - and have a happier, calmer life” by Ammar Kalia in The Guardian.
While the article delivers on simplifying four things we can do to build resilience (1. Move from negative to neutral, 2. Access the present moment, 3. Find your meaning, and 4. Practice acceptance), I appreciated that it rooted the conversation in the research around our very real psychological immune system.
Simply put, just like our biological immune system helps protect our bodies from viruses or diseases, our psychological immune system is our powerful brain processing the stress or threat before us in a way that helps us understand it, cope with it, and ultimately rebound from it.
Dan Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and author of the bestselling book Stumbling into Happiness discusses it this way: ''The thing I'm most interested in, that I've spent the most time studying, is our failure to recognize how powerful psychological defenses are once they're activated…We've used the metaphor of the 'psychological immune system' -- it's just a metaphor, but not a bad one for that system of defenses that helps you feel better when bad things happen.”
Without a doubt, your psychological immune system has come to your defense and helped you deal with a particularly stressful event in your life. Learning about our psychological immune system can help strengthen it and empower us to better address the adversities we will face.
Hope you find the article helpful.
