According to a new study, adversity is good for you — but not too much and not too little.
“Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability, and Resilience,” was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on October 11, 2010.
The researchers looked at web surveys that were administered from 2002 to 2004 to 2,398 respondents.
The benefits of stress
Those who reported a high number of negative life experiences (cumulative adversity) showed increased overall stress and less life satisfaction, as would be expected.
Those who reported a moderate number of negative life experiences showed “lower global distress, lower functional impairment, lower PTS (Posttraumatic stress) symptoms, and higher life satisfaction.”
And those who reported zero negative life experiences showed increased overall stress and less life satisfaction, though not necessarily to the degree of those who faced the greatest adversity.
So too much life stress — as well as too little — was shown to have negative effects on mental health and well-being.
The survey used seven categories for thirty-seven negative events that respondents could report:
- Own illness or injury
- Loved one’s illness or injury
- Violence (e.g., physical assault, forced sexual relations)
- Bereavement (e.g., parent’s death)
- Social/environmental stress (e.g., serious financial difficulties, lived in dangerous housing)
- Relationship stress (e.g., parents’ divorce)
- Disaster (e.g., major fire, flood, earthquake, or other community disaster)
Stress as a buffer
The researchers measured Posttraumatic stress symptoms regarding respondents’ reactions to the events of 9/11, referred to as “a recent collective trauma… that generated psychological responses nationwide, including among people who were not directly exposed.”
As predicted, they found that “people with a history of some lifetime adversity appeared less negatively affected by recent adverse events [9/11] than did other individuals.”
As such, prior exposure to negative life events served as a sort of buffer in dealing with a current or recent negative event.
Toughness and resilience
The results of the study show a correlation between exposure to moderate adversity and resilience and toughness:
“Resilience has been defined as successful adaptation or the absence of a pathological outcome following exposure to stressful or potentially traumatic life events or life circumstances. Thus, it involves both the capacity to maintain a healthy outcome following exposure to adversity and the capacity to rebound after a negative experience.
… Toughness leaves individuals more likely to appraise situations positively (i.e., perceiving them as more manageable), more emotionally stable, and better able to cope psychologically and physiologically with difficult stressors and minor challenges, relative to nontoughened individuals. Once toughness develops, it can permeate across domains.”
In exploring resilience and toughness, the authors referenced Dienstbier’s (1989, 1992) theory of psychophysiological toughness.
When adversity is good for you
The study suggests that negative life experiences are good for you — in moderate amount.
But just because you face them doesn’t mean that it will toughen you, or that you’ll develop more resilience because of it. You could very well try to avoid the adversity or succumb to it (that is, not develop healthy coping strategies).
Adversity is only good for you if you can make meaning from it, or integrate it into your new identity.
Getting through adversity means creating a slightly updated identity for yourself. Not a “better” identity, but a more mindful one.
It’s another way of saying that you have to develop new skills to more effectively adapt to the uncertainties of life.
It’s not just about adversity
Those people in the study who didn’t have “enough” adversity weren’t defective. They weren’t doomed just because they lived a more comfortable life.
They just didn’t have enough of a catalyst to examine their identity, mindfully choose their values, and commit to living in alignment with those values.
Adversity is slightly different from conflict. Everyone faces boatloads of conflict in their life. But not everyone will get caught in a flood or lose a loved one to cancer, two examples of negative life events listed on the survey.
However, the chances are high that at some point everyone will face some adversity, such as the loss of a parent — that comes with age. The survey only took a snapshot of responses from individuals ranging from eighteen to one hundred one years of age.
People who don’t have “enough” adversity right now in their lives aren’t out of luck in the resilience and toughness department.
They still have conflict to deal with. It’s just that people tend to gloss over conflict or not take it personally.
This not only compounds problems and makes conflict harder to face in the future, it also buries the opportunity to grown and learn from the pain. You’re built to toughen up and armor up your emotional resilience in the face conflict.
A very privileged person with high levels of stress and dissatisfaction with life — likely doesn’t respond to conflict effectively.
Respondents who reported zero cumulative adversity in their lives (and consequently reported increased stress and decreased life satisfaction) could get away with glossing over and not taking conflict personally — whereas those experiencing negative events couldn’t ignore the great degree of problems and the conflict.
Adversity raises the stakes. It’s set apart from “normal” life. You have to pay attention to it because it won’t just go away.
Adversity helps you take inventory
Adversity shakes you up. Makes you more aware of your lack of:
- Identity
- Mindful values
- Commitment to building your life as a mindful construct
Put another way, if you’re not creating your life as your mindful construct, you won’t be very successful at overcoming (or integrating) adversity. You might make it once, but there’s no guarantee you’ll make it the next time.
When you do create your life as your mindful construct, you use negative life experiences to fuel your growth and to stay on track — of continually creating your life as a mindful construct.
Adversity helps you compensate for lack of resilience and toughness
Parenting, schooling, and other social programming doesn’t teach you how you to lead your life as a mindful construct (let alone work with your emotions). By the time you’re an adult, you’re ill-equipped to deal with life’s curve balls.
So you’re lacking something that should be there — that would be there if your parents and authority figures and society taught you how to take care of yourself, maintain healthy boundaries, stay connected to your emotions, and cultivate integrity.
So how can you make up for that lack?
One way is through self-education. But it will only be as effective as it is emotionally relevant. Meaning, you have to have real motivation to learn. Such motivation most often comes from the pain that results from making mistakes. If you’ve been trained from an early age to numb out from out that pain, self-education will be a fruitless mental exercise.
You can’t just read a gazillion self-help books and expect to be an expert on life. Besides, it’s more useful to be an expert on your own life, and find your own answers to your Big Life Questions.
A better way to make up for that lack is to use each and every adversarial situation that comes your way. Juice it as an opportunity to peel back the veil — and see those life-coping skill sets that require your attention.
It’s when you’re amidst an adversarial situation, and emotionally honest about what’s going on, that you can admit to your lacking skill sets and all those dysfunctional programmed beliefs that get in your way of overcoming (or integrating) that adversity.
Adversity is your ally
Adversary is your opportunity to temporarily unplug from the matrix and assess your life-skills toolkit. It gives you the context to ask yourself:
- Which beliefs are helping you?
- Which are causing you harm?
- What can you toss out or change?
- What will ultimately help you overcome this negative experience?
- How can you move on without compromising your integrity?
- How can you learn from the situation?
- Can you take response ability for how you may have co-created the situation?
- Will you take response ability for what needs to be done next, without fretting over what blame goes where, so you can take better care of yourself?
The gift of adversity
Adversity is good for you because it gives you an opportunity to become more mindful about who you are and how you want to live. It helps you build emotional toughness and resilience.
You’re a survivor. Humans may be weak and vulnerable and sometimes needy, but we’re resilient.
Adversity makes us stronger.
So it there a sweet spot?
That’s what the research indicates.
Why too much adversity can be harmful
People who are overloaded with adversity lack the resources or support systems to transmute those painful experiences into growth. That makes sense, given that we live in a negative-emotion-allergic world.
For instance, how can returning combat soldiers cope with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder if there’s a great shortage of mental health resources back home? A war Vietnam veteran emailed me about his doctor prescribing mindfulness meditation, even though it wasn’t helping. It’s insensitive to tell someone who’s struggling to integrate intense pain to essentially shut off their emotions. If you never feel the pain, how can you integrate it? And if you can’t integrate it, how can you ever hope to rebuild your identity, let alone your life?
Why too little adversity can be harmful
On the other end of the spectrum, those people who don’t have “enough” adversity go through life unaware of how plugged in to society’s dysfunctional programming they are. They can get away with stuffing down negative emotions because the conflict is to a lesser degree. But only to a certain point, say, a midlife crisis, when you no longer can suppress the signal that there are clear problems you need to address.
How to find a balance
You can’t control what happens to you in life, but you can choose how you respond.
Too much or too little adversity is harmful when people don’t work with their emotions. Emotions are there to help you integrate negative experience, heal, and move forward with the strength of the human spirit.
You can work with your emotions no matter how life unfolds. But you have to stay committed — overcoming (or integrating) adversity is no easy feat.
What do you think?
About the Author: Melissa Karnaze founded Mindful Construct to inspire greater emotional resilience. Sign up for her free 10-part e-class on how to work with your emotions, which comes from understanding how your life is your construct.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Melissa,
This is a remarkably well written and researched article. I know people who have had too little hardship in their lives. Those who were pampered and protected as children seem to suffer from self-pity. In addition, they go through life very dissatisfied and trying to manipulate in an attempt to get their needs met. All because they MUST suppress or dull (as you said) the feelings they refuse to acknowledge. They will not allow themselves to cry, but willingly are inconsiderate to other people. Thank you for the inspiring article!
Hi Sandra,
It really is sad how many problems result from suppressing emotions. I thought this was a great study that hints at that, and opens up so many questions about coping and resilience and well-being.
Melissa, you are always so thought-provoking, which is why I always look forward to your posts. Keep it up.
“When you do create your life as your mindful construct, you use negative life experiences to fuel your growth and to stay on track — of continually creating your life as a mindful construct.”
Exactly. Negative experiences can be positive resources.
“A war Vietnam veteran emailed me about his doctor prescribing mindfulness meditation, even though it wasn’t helping. It’s insensitive to tell someone who’s struggling to integrate intense pain to essentially shut off their emotions.”
I don’t think of mindfulness meditation as shutting off your emotions, but rather being more attuned to them.
Thanks Steven.
Neither do I.
However, the mainstream approach subverts the emotional experience. To find out how subtle it is, you can check out my critique of an article that summarizes the mindfulness literature as it pertains to psychology research. (That article is part of a greater series on the topic of mindfulness and how it’s being misused.)