Having resilience, or the ability to bounce back or recover from difficulties, is important for anyone.
But being resilient can be tough when you have multiple sclerosis, the incurable autoimmune condition that damages nerves and can lead to physical, cognitive and emotional disability. “The unpredictable nature of this disease and varying levels of disability cause a lot of emotional upheaval,” says psychologist Amy Sullivan, director of behavioral medicine, research and training at the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis at Cleveland Clinic.
An Unpredictable Journey
MS affects each person differently, but the underlying cause of problems is the spontaneous attack on nerves carried out by T cells, which are part of the body’s immune system. For reasons that aren’t quite understood, these cells mistakenly see the coating of nerves in the spinal cord, brain and optic nerves as a threat. Most commonly, T cell attacks come in waves that go into remission (called relapsing-remitting MS).
But MS patients have no way to tell when relapses will occur and what kind of damage they’ll cause. This can include problems with vision, cognition, muscles and coordination, walking, using arms and legs, bladder or bowel dysfunction and sexual dysfunction.
In addition, almost all MS patients experience fatigue so extreme that it limits their ability to function each day. And many MS patients develop depression or anxiety.
[See: 7 Ways to Build Resilience for Crises and Everyday Life Challenges.]
MS Barriers to Resilience
Coping with MS-related physical issues might seem like enough to keep anyone down. But a 2017 study of focus groups conducted by researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine suggests there may be more that makes resilience difficult for MS patients, including:
— Social limitations. “People mentioned losing friends who didn’t understand their MS, or feeling left out by friends and having fewer social interactions because they were in wheelchairs,” says psychologist Kevin Alschuler, a co-author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the UW School of Medicine.
— Negative thoughts and feelings. Study participants noted a low sense of self worth, depressed mood and a focus on things they could no longer do.
— The stigma of MS. Some study participants said they hid their MS from others.
Alschuler says these barriers to resilience can accumulate and further challenge an MS patient’s ability to cope with adversity.
Can You Become Resilient?
The encouraging news is that experts say resilience is a skill that can be honed. “It’s not a trait you either have or don’t have,” Sullivan says. “It involves the way you overcome a situation with thoughts and behaviors, and the way you learn to become resilient over time.”
Sullivan recommends recognizing the need for help to become more resilient, and reaching out to a mental health professional who’s trained to work with people who have chronic disease, like MS.
You can also take a class designed to help develop your resilience. These are often offered at large hospitals. A class might include stress reduction, exercise and lectures that provide strategies to look at life in a more positive way.
Alschuler and his colleagues recently studied the effects of a positive psychology course called Everyday Matters from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society that includes a resilience component. They just presented the findings last week during a large international conference for multiple sclerosis experts in Paris. Researchers found that MS patients who took part in the positive psychology curriculum — which included weekly telephone-based group meetings and assigned videos and readings over a course of six weeks — experienced about a 20 percent improvement in resilience. By comparison, people who didn’t take part in the program experienced no change in resilience.
[See: Am I Just Sad — or Actually Depressed?]
How to Become More Resilient
Alschuler and his colleagues observed from the MS focus groups that several factors can contribute to resilience and quality of life, and Sullivan echoed similar ideas when asked how she helps her patients become more resilient. Here are some tips they recommend:
— Be flexible. “Be open to thinking about solutions to a problem or ways to cope with a challenge that might be new or different,” Alschuler suggests.
— Maintain social connections with family and friends. “People with stronger support networks develop stronger resilience,” Sullivan points out. “You have to work on having stronger relationships and being able to accept help from others.”
— Understand the ideals that make your life meaningful. “It’s more than bouncing back from adversity. It’s bouncing back to doing the things that are meaningful to you, whether it’s being a supportive spouse or a good sister — those types of things,” Alschuler explains. “When you have those targets and you bounce back, you can get refocused and regain your drive.”
— Have a game plan. Be prepared for a situation so that you’re ready to face a challenge when it arises.
— Take good care of yourself. Focus on well-being, energy conservation and stress reduction. “Our minds and bodies need to be strong to tackle different situations. Then we have a better and easier time becoming resilient,” Sullivan says.
It’s important to recognize that being resilient doesn’t mean you won’t experience emotional distress. But it does mean you’ll be able to adapt more readily to it. “We have to accept there will be ups and downs in life,” Sullivan notes. “The road we thought we were traveling may not be the road we’re going down. But you need to be able to take another road and have joy in the life you’re experiencing.”
Building resilience, say the experts, is the way to find that joy. And it appears to work. “We do see that it relates to positive outcomes. The more resilient people bounce back quicker from adversity and get back into life,” Alschuler says.
[See: 11 Simple, Proven Ways to Optimize Your Mental Health.]
But it will likely take effort on your part, and you’ll have to figure out which strategies work best for you. “It’s not a one size fits all. Your way of developing and maintaining resilience will be different from someone else’s,” Sullivan says. “It may take a bit of learning from the past, and recognizing the need for help in the face of adversity. But you can find joy again.”
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How Resilience Training Can Help People With MS originally appeared on usnews.com
