Resilience #4 – The Bounce-back Virtue: Game It

27 May 2020

This series of blogs began with a goal.  Via books, my inbox, and social media, three lists appeared.  Each list claimed to have the critical steps for building or practicing resilience.  The goal: synthesize those steps into (seven) sometimes repeating exercises, to make resilience more accessible for those wanting to increase the presence of this virtue.

Both Eric Barker’s and Laurence Gonzales’ lists include the notion of making trouble into a game.  Gonzales was more explicit stating that “…work that becomes like play activates the seeking pathway.”  As a psychology major, I wanted to know if this was true. 

I didn’t have far to look.  McGill University has a website, The Brain from Top to Bottom which confirms Gonzales’ claim.  Evidence indicates that a part of the brain, the reward circuit (in the medial forebrain bundle), when activated, provides neural information to us.  That information says, “Rewards available”!  Barker illustrated this well describing a Navy SEAL trapped underwater, in chains, with an explosive device in his hands. 

The moderated attitude that allowed the SEAL to free himself, defuse the explosive, and return to safety, involved turning each quest for bodily freedom into a game.  “Okay, that’s two fingers free.  Bet I can do a third.”  In recovery, the parallel is trying not to view days of sobriety with white-knuckled earnestness.  Game it: “Bet if I can get past 5:00 p.m., I can get to 9:00 without using.”

Two cool results arise from this: 1) Game-playing, like last week’s “maybe,” enables relaxation, humour, and cumulative success; and, 2) Self-talk changes from negative to speculatively positive.  Is the opposite also true?  Turns out it is.  McGill’s site describes evidence for the fight-or-flight response within a part of the brain, the punishment circuit (nope, not making it up!) in the periventricular system.  So, the choice is clear: game it, turn positive, relax, or panic, beat yourself up, and increase the stress load.  Resilience depends upon and incites positivity.