Coincidentally, the NYT has an article today on resilience in adults:

“You have to invite stress into your life. A human being needs stress; the body and the mind want stress....“Stress is the stimulus for growth, and recovery is when the growth occurs,” said Dr. Groppel. “That’s how we build the resilience muscle.”

"You can build your resilience by putting yourself in challenging situations...There is a biology to this... Your stress hormone systems will become less responsive to stress so you can handle stress better. Live your life in a way that you get the skills that enable you to handle stress.”

" A Harvard study found that people who viewed stress as a way to fuel better performance did better on tests and managed their stress better physiologically than those taught to ignore stress."


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/well/mind/how-to-boost-resilience-in-midlife.html