Major issues in the article
The article To better cope with stress, listen to your body, talks about the impact of the internal body response to a stressful situation, and the ability of individuals to be resilient. Resilience means the ability of the body to bounce back to its original state when faced with a significant threat. The article shows how people develop resilience and how it affects their ability to manage stress.
According to Gretchen (2016) when an individual is faced with a state of heightened arousal, it destabilizes the ability to the physical and mental performance of the body, which has a direct impact on stress management. The article also argues that when individuals are faced with situations of heightened arousal, their bodies should be able to dissipate completely after the incident is over. Different people show different abilities to bounce back to normal states after heightened arousal, which determines their ability to manage stress. Scientists argue that some people are more resilient due to the ability of the internal body to communicate.
Evidence in the article
This article is well supported by different scientific researchers, which shows the ability of people to become resilient when faced with heightened arousal. The article starts with well-documented research that examined the degree of resilience on adventure racers and special operation soldiers when they are faced with extreme emotional and physical demands of their occupations.
The evidence from this article was conducted on this individual by observing their brain reaction to heightened situations. Each was required to lie on a scanning machine while inserting their head in a facemask. Since the situation heightens the body emotionally, the researchers were able to observe a consistent pattern in all participants. This research is critical in supporting the conclusion of the article because not everyone can be able to bounce back to his or her normal state after heightened arousal.
Moreover, the choice of this research was suitable because most of the special service soldiers experience heightened emotional situations every day compared to normal individuals. Most of these soldiers have to undergo extreme physical and psychological situations, but their inner body can return to a normal state quickly. The suitability of the group gives the article a strong background to support the conclusion.
Furthermore, the result of the study also compelled the reader to believe the authenticity of the study since they observed a consistent brain reaction pattern from all the soldiers and racers who were examined. The study observed that the flow of messages from the brains that receive signals of heightened body arousal was slight when individuals’ masks were about to close. The study confirms that while the body of the soldier and racers panic at the beginning, they were able to dampen completely the stress without overreacting. This research is consistent with the author’s line of argument and supports the conclusion.
The author uses another research drawn from 48 normal individuals who do not undergo extremely heightened body arousal every day to establish if the same pattern would be observed in their brains. It included 48 healthy adults who were required to complete questionnaires before their brain reaction could be observed in a scanning machine. Based on their score, the people who had shown high resilience showed the same characteristic as the racers and the soldiers.
This convergence of information is of particular importance to the study because it supports the conclusion of the article. Moreover, the consistency of the score and the brain reaction was also paramount in reaching the conclusion. However, the study does not explain the partial differences between those men and women who were faced with extremely heightened arousal almost every day, and those who scored high resilience. Although the study does not explain precisely the rationale behind these observations, it shows consistency, which is critical in supporting the conclusion.
Author’s assumptions
The author assumes that there is a direct correlation between the degree of resilience and body awareness. Specifically, the author’s conclusion highly relies on the narrative that improved internal body communication increases resilience. However, this assumption might be incorrect because they are many factors that affect the ability of individuals to be more resilient. For instance, resilience is determined by the problem-solving skills of a person.
The ability of a person to think before reacting plays a critical role in resilience since it enables individuals to generate alternative solutions by weighing the consequences of a situation. I assume that people who experience heightened body arousal every day are more resilient due to repeated internal body communication. Persons in the armed force experience extreme body arousal because there is continuous communication in the international body daily compared to ordinary individuals in the streets. The assumption that improved internal body communication increases resilience can also be affected by other external factors.
Background information relevant to the conclusion
The author gives background information on factors and situations that give rise to heightened body arousal. The article argues that according to new brain research, some people are more resilient than others. It also shows how we face difficult situations in life that can cause stressful emotions in our body such as finances, safety, and personal health status. The article also uses California’s professor argument to support the main argument in the article.
Evaluating the issues relevant to real-world situations
The ability of an individual to bounce back to normal state after experiencing a heightened emotional situation is paramount in this study and real life. The ability of individuals to remain resilient when faced with adversity is affected by many factors in real life. For instance, when a person has people around him or her who cares about them in tough times increases their ability to be more resilient (De La Rosa, Webb-Murphy & Johnston, 2016, p. 205). Moreover, resilience can improve when an individual has people who believe in their ability to overcome challenges while remaining strong to meet their expectations. Living in a society that allows you to have a meaningful life full of opportunities to prove you can be able to deliver can potentially increase the ability to remain resilient (Courtney, 2015, p. 18).
When an individual is a resilience, they can be able to leverage and harness inner strength to help them overcome different challenges such as disasters, death, and illness. If a person does not have resilience, they might feel victimized or turn to drug abuse to try to overcome those challenges (Besser, Weinberg, Zeigler-Hill & Neria, 2014, p. 1231).
However, in real life, resilience does not solve your problems but gives you the ability to make alternative decisions without being stressed. Resilience can be acquired which will help a person to keep functioning after experiencing trauma, anger, or pain. The ability to remain resilient has more to do with reaching for others’ support rather than being stoic or remaining tough. In real life, resilience is essential because it can protect an individual against mental health anxiety. Moreover, it can help an individual to offset factors that can potentially increase mental health illness because of anxiety.
Clarifying the conclusion
There is a direct correlation between improved body communication and resilience. The author’s evidence supports the conclusion that is consistent with the actual survey conducted by researchers. However, Palm-Fischbacher and Ehlert (2014) noted that they are many factors that determine individual resilience such as problem-solving skills and the ability to feel secure (p. 46). The author opts to have explained other factors that have a direct impact on individual resilience apart from internal communication. However, the information and evidence provided by the author strongly support the conclusion.
The implication of the conclusion
The author’s conclusion has a direct impact on future researchers who might be tempted to base their argument on this conclusion without considering another factor that affects resilience. The conclusion highly relies on international communication of the body as the only factors that affect resilience. However, in real life, this may not be the case. Another external factor determines the degree of resilience such as problem-solving skills. Moreover, the ability of an individual to think before acting has a direct link on individual ability to remain resilient.
References
Besser, A., Weinberg, M., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Neria, Y. (2014). Acute Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress and Dissociative Experiences Among Female Israeli Civilians Exposed to War: The Roles of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Sources of Resilience. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 70(12), 1227-1239.
Courtney, J. (2015). The war on stress: resilience in the military. Occupational Health, 67(12), 18.
De La Rosa, G. M., Webb-Murphy, J. A., & Johnston, S. L. (2016). Development and Validation of a Brief Measure of Psychological Resilience: An Adaptation of the Response to Stressful Experiences Scale. Military Medicine, 181(3), 202-208.
Gretchen, R. (2016). To Better Cope With Stress, Listen to Your Body. Web.
Palm-Fischbacher, S., & Ehlert, U. (2014). Dispositional resilience as a moderator of the relationship between chronic stress and irregular menstrual cycle. Journal Of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 35(2), 42-50.