Resiliency requires being able to bounce back, " to adapt," to go with the flow, and cope with challenging times or adversity, all the while sustaining calmness, being focused and grounded. What can we do to become more resilient in times like these? Here are ten researched and recognized tools to strengthen your resiliency button. Its in times like these, that we need this admirable quality most.

Building resiliency is like building a muscle that can be strengthened at every opportunity. Children and adults alike can strengthen this muscle by working with stress. Healthy stress actually builds our capacity for resiliency.

During times of stress, the body goes through a number of changes utilizing the sympathetic nervous response to make us faster, stronger and more alert. Our heart rate and blood pressure increase, our adrenaline and cortisol surge. Over a shorter period of time, this works; however, in the long run, too much stress leaves cortisol running rampant, emotions riding high, impulses unregulated, and inflammation ongoing.

When the sympathetic nervous system is left on, our immune system weakens, our energy levels plummet, and feelings of anxiety and depression rise. Science has now proven that 80% of illnesses are caused by stress. What can we do to prevent this?

Our executive functions are controlled by the pre-frontal cortex. They involve attention, problem solving, impulse control, and the regulation of emotions. Resilience is related to the capacity to activate the pre-frontal cortex and to calm the amygdala (the part of the brain that initiates the stress in the first place.) When the amygdala is calmed, through mindfulness, the physiological changes reverse, expanding the capacity to recover from and adapt to, or find a solution for, the present challenge or adversity.

Here are 10 ways to strengthen your resiliency:

1. Build loving and respectful relationships. People really just want to be loved and feel loved. People build resiliency when there are a number of strong and caring role models to encourage us, which includes mentors, teachers, coaches and friends.

2. Practice optimism. There is no better way to strengthen a sense of resiliency than to practice being positive. Cultivate a strong witness to notice negativity and exchange this attitude for something more optimistic.

3. Studies show that people who are capable of accepting their reality and who can take responsibility for their situation are far more likely to overcome their difficulties, and succeed than those who cannot. This includes a capacity to make realistic plans and carry them out.

4. Develop tools to take decisive actions during times of stress to help us through them.

5. Understand our strengths and abilities. Develop skills in communication and problem solving, and learn to manage strong feelings and impulses as they arise.

6. Reframe our perceptions to bring positive changes out of adversity. Avoid blowing things out of proportion to better ride the waves of difficulty.

7. Practice self-care, with mindfulness training, daily movement, optimal nutrition and forms of relaxation, meditation and play time.

8. Creative play. Learn to improvise. Improvisation has been shown to support strong resiliency muscles during times of adversity.

9. Studies amongst a group of military commanders show that those who demonstrate high levels of gratitude thrive.

10. Cultivating a deeper sense of resiliency requires having strongly held values, ones that confirm that our lives are meaningful, that we have a purpose in life.

Matzu-kazi is a kata (a set of self-defense techniques against an imaginary opponent) that I continuously practiced while in preparation for my black belt test. It means "wind in the pines." I also look to the support of trees when I seek resiliency. Healthy trees are both rooted and flexible, capable of bouncing back during all kinds of conditions. Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a medical botanist passionate about trees. In her film The Call of the Forest ~A Forgotten Wisdom of Trees, she tells us that trees emit chemical aerosols, like pinenes and limonene's, that trigger our relaxation response. Hug a tree today to support your deepest sense of resiliency. Hug yourself.  Hug others.  Hug humanity. OM.