What does it mean to be resilient?

It is tempting to think of resilience as the ability to withstand stress, keep going, or push through when things get difficult. But resilience is also about something more fundamental: our ability to respond, recover, and adapt.

A paper by Julian Thayer and Esther Sternberg, Beyond Heart Rate Variability: Vagal Regulation of Allostatic Systems, offers an interesting way to think about this. Heart rate variability (HRV) - the natural variation in time between heartbeats - is considered a useful marker of how well the body is adapting to and recovering from stress, with greater variability generally associated with better autonomic flexibility and overall health. Published in 2006, the paper looks beyond HRV to the broader systems that help regulate the body and maintain balance.

HRV provides one window into how the autonomic nervous system is functioning. But the bigger story is the connection between the brain and the body. The nervous system, cardiovascular system, metabolic processes, and immune and inflammatory systems are not working independently. They are constantly communicating and adjusting in response to what is happening around us and within us.

The body is designed to respond to demands. The challenge comes when demands accumulate, and the system has too little opportunity or capacity to recover. This concept of allostatic load helps explain why sustained stress, an illness, and other challenges can affect multiple systems over time.

This way of thinking is particularly relevant for people in high-stress environments as well as when considering people living with complex, long-term conditions, including post-infection conditions and metabolic, inflammatory or autoimmune conditions. These conditions are different and have different causes, but they all can involve interconnected changes in energy, sleep, cognition, movement, metabolism, inflammation and exercise tolerance.

The question, then, is not “How can we push harder?” but “How can we build the capacity to respond, recover and adapt?” This second question is about increasing resilience and ability so we are able to do the things we want to do without pushing beyond our limits.   

This is where the ThriveNinety approach connects with these ideas. Our PEDAL™ approach considers the different inputs that can support the brain and body as a connected system: Pacing to match demands to capacity; Exercise to build physical and neurological capacity; Diet to support metabolic foundations; Alignment to support nervous-system regulation; and Loosen to support physiological pathways, structure, and relaxation.

No single element is the answer. The aim is to create the right combination of inputs to support better regulation, recovery, and function.

Ultimately, the value of Thayer and Sternberg's work is not simply what it tells us about HRV. It is the broader picture it offers: the brain and body are deeply connected, and our ability to recover, adapt, and perform depends on how well those systems work together.

At ThriveNinety, that is central to how we think about resilience. The goal isn't simply to reduce symptoms or do more. It is to support stronger brain-body connections, enhanced function, and greater capacity over time. And to do so with a set of evidence-backed, simple elements that fit into everyone’s real life.  

Resilience is about taking steps to build a system that can respond, recover, and adapt to what comes next.

Warmly,
Katie & Andrea

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