We often treat stress and rest as complete opposites. We try to power through one and try to squeeze in the other when we can! But resilience science reveals that they’re actually partners and need to be thought of together.

Yes resilience science is a real thing for those of you who haven’t heard of it – it “studies the capacity of a system, be it a person, a community, or an ecosystem, to withstand, adapt to and recover from adversity.” For humans, it is how effectively our bodies can move between stress and recovery. We can think of it from a purely physical sense, e.g. following an intense workout how quickly can our body return to its resting state. Or also from a mental health perspective – how do we cope with and recover from stress. What makes one person more adapted to high stress situations really boils down to their resilience, their ability to recover quickly, not how stressful they find the situation in the first place.

When you experience stress, your body activates its fight-or-flight response. Cortisol floods your body, your heart rate spikes and your muscles tense. This is an entirely normal response and in itself isn’t the problem. If our bodies didn’t mount this stress response we might be at risk of serious harm! But resilience measures our ability to turn this off and recover when we deem the risk has passed. And often this needs to come with rest. Without enough rest, your stress response never fully switches off. Your baseline cortisol remains elevated, sleep deteriorates and your nervous system becomes stuck in a constant state of stress. Chronic stress as we now know, leads to inflammation, a weakened immune system and often to chronic disease.

So it’s important to recognise the value of rest in whatever form that might take for you. As every athlete knows – strength isn’t built during the workout but during the recovery period. For those of you that practice yoga, the śavasana at the end of a yoga practice is deemed just as important as the dynamic poses. The corpse posture helps the nervous system shift back into restorative mode.

Rest is seen by resilience scientists, as an active biological process. During our rest times, the parasympathetic nervous system supports digestion, cellular repair, memory consolidation and emotional regulation. And although I would recommend meditation or mindfulness it doesn’t even have to be this structured. Even a brief moment where we take the time to slow our breath, take a walk outside, or even just five minutes of quiet, can have a remarkable effect on our bodies physiology and move us back to a balanced state.

The science is very clear on this. Resilience is built through regular cycles of stress and recovery, NOT by trying to eliminate stress entirely. So it’s these small restful practices and prioritising small pauses throughout the day, which mean we strengthen the systems that allow us not just to cope, but to adapt and thrive.

Dr Elizabeth Thompson