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"Unprecedented. Uncertain. Unknown. Words like these have come to define recent months for many of us. We’re living through difficult times and, to help us get through them, we need to reach for our resilience .  Resilience is the ability to adapt well to adversity and bounce back. It’s what you use to get to the other side of hard experiences with your wellbeing intact. Fittingly, the word resilience comes from the Latin verb resilire , meaning to rebound or recoil.  Mental resilience is a huge part of the Army ethos and the Army Cadet Force. It’s a trait we actively build in our cadets and our adult volunteers. Here are some of our key points to help you on your journey to more resilience.  1. Understand why resilience is important  Life throws many challenges our way – job loss, grief, illness, trauma, financial difficulty, relationship struggles etc. All of these are major stressors. Any one can send us on a downward spiral. We begin to feel helpless and negative; we get anxious and sad. We struggle to cope with our emotions and this impacts our decision-making, relationships, work and overall mental state.  Getting stuck in this downward spiral can be hard to avoid. Resilience is what helps us through. When we can manage our emotions, use healthy coping strategies and change our thought patterns, we can move forward in positive ways. Resilient people aren’t immune to emotional distress or the negative effects of life’s traumas. However, they’re better able to cope with and grow from them.  2. Know that you can build resilience  Decades of research has shown that you can become more resilient. Resilience can be developed through intentionally practicing specific behaviours and thoughts. Of course, some people have personality traits that make resilience come more easily. There is a genetic element, as well as the impact of previous life experience. But everyone can improve their resilience if they know how.  3. Reframe your experience  Have you ever found yourself thinking really negatively about a bad experience? Feeling trapped, stuck, upset and sure it will never change. It’s common, and it’s the kind of thinking that hinders resilience.  Psychologists often refer to these thought patterns as thinking traps, where we either ruminate (relive the event over and over) or catastrophise (focus on how terrible it is). Thinking traps give us one narrative of trauma – it’s permanent, set in stone and all-encompassing. This narrative of our experiences makes it very difficult to adapt or bounce back.  A more resilient approach to thinking about traumatic events is interpreting them as temporary, changeable and specific.  From permanent and fixed to temporary and changeable  Permanent and fixed: “This will be this way forever and there’s nothing I can do about it.”  Temporary and changeable: “Things can change and I can do something to change them.”  In life, things are changing all the time. Change is a part of life, and when we accept that, it becomes easier to deal with it. This also gives you agency in how you respond and react to challenges long-term. Figure out the things you can’t change and the things you can. Then focus on the latter.  From general to specific  General: “This shows that everything is wrong with my life.”  Specific: “This is one bad situation or one aspect of my life that isn’t going well.”  In difficult times, it can feel like everything is going badly. Positive things can be easy to miss, so we need to make extra efforts to focus on them. Writing a daily or weekly gratitude journal can help. This practice reminds you of what things are going well and helps you to appreciate those.  These changes in how you think about your experiences will have tangible effects on how you handle them. You’ll increase your self-awareness and be more open to the positives in your situation. You’ll be better able to understand, express and regulate your emotions about what’s happening. You’ll improve your self-belief and feel stronger in the face of challenges. In effect, you’ll become more resilient.  4.Practice mind"
<https://armycadets.com/features/how-to-be-more-resilient/>