It has been shown that when people are under severe stress, the way they process information changes.
Good to know 💡
Under stress, the prefrontal cortex becomes less active. This is the area of the brain responsible for planning, weighing up options and long-term thinking.
At the same time, the amygdala becomes more active. It reacts more quickly, more emotionally and more strongly to threats.
The result:
- Decisions become more short-term
- Risks are assessed differently
- familiar strategies are repeated, even if they no longer work2
This explains why people often do not act rationally in crises. Not because they do not want to, but because the brain’s processing shifts.
Resilience is not a state that one achieves, but a process.
It means:
- Maintaining a sense of control, even if it is limited.
- Being able to adjust goals without losing sight of oneself.
- Making sense of experiences in a way that allows you to remain capable of acting.
Resilience is therefore not emotional insensitivity.
Rather, it is the ability to reconnect with one’s own capacity for action following a disruption.
Adaptability is often seen as a superpower.
But there’s a catch:
🫠 over-adaptation
The problem: when we adapt too perfectly to a chronic crisis or a stressful environment, we get used to the state of emergency. We may ‘function’, but at a high price.
The consequence: we ignore our body’s warning signals. Those who get used to chaos often no longer realise that their own limits have long since been exceeded.
➡️ Resilience also means recognising when a situation is no longer sustainable.
True resilience is not about sitting calmly in a burning house, but about finding the way out.
Let’s imagine two people who lose their jobs at the same time.
- Person A falls into deep despair, withdraws and doubts their entire worth.
- Person B is also shocked, but after just one day begins to reactivate their network and sees this as an (unintended) opportunity for a fresh start and a career leap.
How can this be?
Same crisis, two worlds: Why we react differently
The psychological equation behind it:
Experience = (Event + individual resilience) × Environment
There are three factors that determine the course for the future:
- Biological predisposition: Some people naturally have a more ‘reactive’ nervous system. Their amygdala fires more quickly. They are more frequently in ‘fight or flight’ mode.
- Past experiences: Those who learnt in childhood that a problem is always followed by a solution have a different “basic trust” in their ability to act.
- The social network: A stable environment acts as a buffer for the brain. Those who receive approval anyway react more calmly to obstacles.
Scientific background: A pioneer in this field is Caspi et al. (2003). In a famous long-term study, it was demonstrated that a specific gene
(the serotonin transporter) determines how sensitively people react to stressful life events.3
If we know that our brain switches to ‘alert mode’ during crises, we’re halfway there. The solution isn’t to suppress the stress, but to actively re-establish the connection to the prefrontal cortex (our logical pilot).
What helps in everyday life:
- Accepting biology: The first step is to tell yourself in a stressful moment: “My brain is switching gears right now. What I’m feeling is a biological reaction, not definitive reality.” That alone often takes the wind out of the amygdala’s sails.
- Micro-breaks: Short interruptions (taking a deep breath, a glass of water) signal safety to the nervous system. This gives the prefrontal cortex the milliseconds it needs to ‘boot up’ again.
- Gaining perspective: Broaden your view – literally. If you want to break out of tunnel vision, you need to shift your focus. This could be a walk or asking yourself: “How will I feel about this situation in a year’s time?”
Conclusion: Crises challenge us because they push our biological hardware to its limits. But resilience does not mean functioning perfectly. It means being kind to yourself when the pilot takes a break – and knowing the ways to gently bring him back into the cockpit.
The work of Prof. Dr Werner Greve also demonstrates that we operate within boundaries without being entirely at their mercy. Greve will be discussing the topic of resilience at the Science Talk on 30 April at the Science Theatre at phaeno.
He is a developmental psychologist at the University of Hildesheim and focuses on the development of identity across the lifespan and on how people cope with stressful life events. Of particular relevance here is the question of how self-determination works under real-world conditions. In other words, not under ideal circumstances, but within limits.
Greve combines classical psychological models with the analysis of specific life trajectories. His work shows that people are neither completely free nor completely predetermined. They act within a framework that they cannot fully control, but which they do not simply have to accept either.
[1] Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(2), 311–328. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076732
[2] Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648
[3] Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W., Harrington, H., McClay, J., Mill, J., Martin, J., Braithwaite, A., & Poulton, R. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301(5631), 386–389. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1083968