263. From Surviving to Thriving: The Science and Soul of Resilience

May 01, 2026

What does it actually mean to be resilient? Spoiler: it's not about white-knuckling through hard times or being the type of person who just 'endures' everything. In this episode, Dr. Aimee Prasek and Dr. Henry Emmons kick off Joy Lab's month-long exploration of Resilience. They'll share a science-grounded, warmly human look at what resilience really is, where it comes from, what depletes it, and, most importantly how to keep filling it back up.

About: The Joy Lab Podcast blends science and soul to help you cope better with stress, ease anxiety, and uplift mood. Join Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek for practical, mindfulness-based tools and positive psychology strategies to build resilience and create lasting joy.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Important notes:

Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
Subscribe to our Newsletter: Join us over at Joylab.coach for exclusive emails, updates, and additional strategies.

Like and follow Joy Lab on Socials:

Instagram

TikTok

Linkedin

Watch this episode on YouTube

Sources and Notes for our Element of Resilience:

Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
Joy Lab Episodes referenced:
- Learn more about temperaments and genetic influences related to resilience through our series on Self-Connection and our series on Grief.

Key moments:

[00:00:00] — Welcome & Introducing the Element of Joy: Resilience Henry and Aimee open the episode and introduce this month's focus: Resilience. If you're new to Joy Lab, this is a great place to start.

[00:00:30] — Defining Resilience: It's a Process, Not a State Aimee shares Dr. Catherine Panter-Brick's definition of resilience — "a process to harness resources to sustain wellbeing" — and unpacks why the word process is doing heavy lifting here. Spoiler: you can be resilient even when you feel completely unresilient.

[00:01:45] — Henry's Definition: Inborn, Natural, and Not About Being Perfect Henry reframes resilience as a totally natural, inborn quality — one that every human carries — and describes it as the capacity to face whatever's in front of you more or less successfully (his emphasis on "less" is appreciated).

[00:03:30] — Beyond Survival: Why Endurance Alone Isn't Resilience Aimee goes on what she lovingly calls a "monologue" about why our cultural obsession with just getting through it isn't the same as genuine resilience. She shares a moving reflection on her own family — ancestors who survived tremendous hardship but never found sustained wellbeing — to illustrate the difference between surviving and truly thriving.

[00:05:30] — What the Research Says: Resilience Is Universal (and Waxes and Wanes) Aimee reviews the research: resilience is inborn, it fluctuates, and — here's the hopeful part — no single demographic, personality trait, or biological factor reliably predicts its absence. You don't have to be a certain kind of person to be resilient. It's just part of being human.

[00:07:30] — The Resilience Container: Henry's Model for Understanding Your Capacity Henry introduces a metaphor: imagine a container in your brain or body — like an upside-down water cooler jug — filled with a magical elixir of resilience. The size of that container varies person to person, shaped by two largely uncontrollable factors:

Genetics — resilience (and its challenges) runs in families
Early environment — how safe, nurtured, and emotionally supported we felt as children sets a tone for our emotional lives

[00:10:00] — The Good News: You Can Refill It Even if your container runs low from a string of losses, sustained stress, or years of depletion, the system is dynamic. The goal isn't the size of your container (though we can expand it), the really essential piece is how consistently you're refilling it. That's what Joy Lab is all about.

[00:11:45] — Biosphere 2 and the Trees That Needed Wind Aimee reminds us of the experimental closed-ecosystem Biosphere 2 in Arizona, where trees grew fast, looked great, and then just... fell over. The culprit? No wind. Stress causes trees to grow stress wood (also called reaction wood) — dense, concentrated cells that provide structural support. Without wind, the trees never had the chance to build it. (Pauly Shore's "Bio-Dome" also makes a brief and [scientifically dubious?] appearance.)

[00:13:30] — Eustress: The Science of Good Stress Aimee introduces the concept of eustress — from the Greek eu, meaning "good" — the kind of stress that builds us up rather than breaking us down. Like exercise for muscles, some stress is an essential ingredient for growth.

[00:14:30] — You Are Built for This Aimee's takeaway from the trees: you are not a fragile creature in need of a perfectly controlled environment. You are biologically wired to become more resilient through stress — not despite it, but because of it. Each challenge you face and come through lays down stronger, denser capacity for the next one.

[00:16:00] — The Problem Isn't Stress, It's Too Much of It Henry brings it back to balance: stress itself isn't the enemy. It becomes a problem when it's too intense, goes on too long, or when we don't respond to it in ways that serve us. Our bodies are made to handle stress — just not unlimited amounts of it.

[00:16:45] — Brain Chemistry 101: Norepinephrine and Serotonin Henry breaks down two key players in the resilience story:

Norepinephrine — the brain's version of adrenaline; activates focus and alertness under stress, but can tip into anxiety and agitation for some
Serotonin — Henry's candidate for the "magical elixir" in the resilience container; helps balance overactivation (think: coolant for a car engine), but also needs to stay in balance

[00:18:30] — Collective Depletion: What's Happening Right Now Henry steps back to name what many listeners are likely feeling: years of pandemic stress, political uncertainty, and relentless bad news have depleted resilience on a massive scale. The result? Sluggishness, burnout, and depression. Attending to resilience isn't a once-in-a-while thing — it's a lifelong, ongoing practice.

[00:19:30] — Equanimity, Self-Care, and Joy Lab's Approach Aimee connects brain chemistry back to the equanimity Henry mentioned earlier — we have more influence over these systems than we think, even at a biological level. That's the work of Joy Lab: practical, science-backed tools to keep refilling the container.

[00:20:00] — Joy Lab Program Invitation Aimee invites listeners to join the Joy Lab Program (free through the month of May). She notes what a lot of people are carrying right now: "our tree bark is a little tired" — and calls on the community to boost resilience together.

[00:21:20] — Closing Quote: Alan Watts on Your Nature Aimee closes with a quote from Alan Watts as a reminder of the extraordinary, resilient nature within every listener:

"If you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all."

Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.

Please see our terms for more information.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call the NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. OR text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email NAMI at [email protected]. Visit NAMI for more. You can also call or text SAMHSA at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.

Episode Transcript

263. From Surviving to Thriving: The Science and Soul of Resilience
===

[00:00:05] Henry Emmons, MD: Hello, I am Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.

[00:00:10] Aimee Prasek, PhD: And I am Aimee Prasek, and our Element of Joy for this month is Resilience. Let's start with a definition of resilience. Dr. Catherine Panter-Brick describes resilience as a process to harness resources to sustain wellbeing. That's her definition of resilience.

I really like that because of that word: process. Resilience is a process, not some rigid, universal state that we're trying to replicate. Which means that resilience is an evolving process that looks different for each and every one of us, and it can exist no matter what. It doesn't require the absence of an illness or pathology, or the requirement of a certain mood or feeling.

I would even argue that you can be in this process, you can be resilient, amidst feeling completely unresilient. And that's because resilience isn't just a feeling, or a mind-over-matter kind of thing, or the result of confidence. It's a process that just exists within us, and that we have a big say in, too. We have to be, you know, aware of it and work with it.

[00:01:34] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And to that end, I see resilience as a totally natural, inborn quality that every one of us has. We wouldn't be here, we wouldn't have made it this long, if we didn't. It is natural to each one of us, and we have had it our entire lives, even if we don't always see it, like you said.

Now, of course it waxes and wanes. It goes up and down. And here at Joy Lab, we see it as our job to help build it in every way possible, and find ways to sustain it, at as high a level as we can. Because, you know, even if we're feeling really great right now, life is going well, we are going to need to draw from our resilience again, probably fairly soon.

[00:02:29] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah.

[00:02:30] Henry Emmons, MD: So I like to think of resilience as the capacity to face whatever is happening, whatever's in front of us, with enough skill to deal with it more or less successfully — we don't have to be perfect — and then when you get knocked down by life circumstances, you're going to be able to get back up again, and again.

I also think that you can face those things and still hold onto some degree of equanimity and maybe even a connection to joy in the process.

[00:03:07] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yes.

Yes, yes, yes. I love that you say more or less successfully, too, Henry.

[00:03:12] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes less, hahaha.

[00:03:14] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. I love that. Also, I just wanna highlight that you noted this piece of equanimity and joy. That's like, not part of the common definitions of resilience.

[00:03:27] Henry Emmons, MD: True enough.

[00:03:28] Aimee Prasek, PhD: I think it is really essential, or at least it can be, like you noted.

And that's — I think it's so important because we often direct folks or teach them at a young age to just endure stuff. That's what gets congratulated, just getting over it or getting past it, which doesn't give any attention to our relationship to the stress, to the experience that we've had. And it just becomes about survival, and survival matters, but I just don't think it's quite resilience.

As I'm kind of going — I want to go like, a little bit more on this tangent. So there's celebration in survival, absolutely, but we humans, I think, want more.

[00:04:14] Henry Emmons, MD: We do.

[00:04:15] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Right? We want meaning around a struggle. We want something that kind of fuels us forward in a more nourishing and deeper way, which is why I love what we do here at Joy Lab. And it makes me think about my family on my dad's side, like they endured a lot, survived a lot. You noted, Henry, that we wouldn't be here if we weren't resilient. So all of us have stories of our ancestors, that they have survived a lot. But the same people I'm thinking of right now in my family, they were also some of the most aching people I have known, like deep depressions, deep grief, that was never tended. So they survived a lot, but they did not sustain wellbeing, necessarily, right? Wellbeing is more than just survival. Did they tap into their equanimity and joy? I don't think so. The point is, we don't just have to endure. I think there's more, and so I just love that you're raising that up. So that's my monologue on the power of real resilience. Um...

So it's natural to us, as you've said, and the research here is pretty clear that resilience is inborn and it waxes and wanes as you noted. However, factors like chronic stress, lack of resources or protective factors in childhood, can kind of dent or delay the blooming of our resilience. We'll talk more about that. And we've talked a lot about that in the last couple months. I'll link to some episodes on those protective factors. But even in those circumstances, it's just not a direct link to a significant lack of resilience. Like, they don't — those factors do not break our resilience. Related, I think it's really interesting that across these longitudinal studies on resilience, there's been no clear individual, demographic, personality trait, or biological factor that can predict resilience by more than a small amount. So that means that there's not just one thing that always takes resilience away. There aren't certain people with certain conditions who are born resilient and others aren't. It's just really part of being human, and there are lots of opportunities to build it up. And that's what we're talking about with this work on resilience — tapping into the factors that can boost our resilience in meaningful ways, in joyful ways.

So across these episodes, we'll cover key aspects of Resilience, a lot of it influenced by what you wrote in your book, Henry, "Chemistry of Calm." So if folks — if you've read that, you may recognize some of this. But let's start by focusing on how our resilience can be negatively impacted by things outside of our control. Not taken away. We always have resilience in us. But the factors that might make it a little harder to tap into, or might slowly deplete, our natural store of resilience if we don't address it. And these factors are small, as I noted a bit earlier, but they do have some impact, so it can be helpful to understand them. Henry, do you wanna lay out a few of these key ones?

[00:07:40] Henry Emmons, MD: Sure, let me start with an image of how I understand this variation of resilience between person to person. 'Cause we we're not all exactly the same in this, you know, some of us just have more of it than others. So here's the image.

Think about a small container, kinda like the water cooler with the upside down jug, you know, that you see in an office. And imagine that this container, it's in your brain or in your body, and it holds a sort of magical elixir that keeps us afloat and gives us resilience. Okay, so the size of that container differs between person to person, and there are some reasons that are really outside of our control. One of those is genetics.

You can see this, you know, if you work with clients — certainly in my field of work — you'll see that resilience, or the lack of it, runs in families. So depression, for example, similar kind of challenges, and undoubtedly a good chunk of that is genetic.

The second thing that is largely outside of our control, at this point in our lives, is the environment that we grew up in, you know, it's — that's done. And so how safe did we feel as young children? Were we well nurtured? You know, were we — were our emotions respected and cared for? Now these are things that we can do something about later in life, you know, it's not that we're powerless, but still, the impact of that does tend to stick with us to some degree. It sets a tone, if you will, kind of a tone for our emotional life, and it has an influence on our capacity for resilience.I really think that what we're trying to do through Joy Lab, Aimee, is to change this, you know, to help alter this set point, if you will. We've talked about this, you know, the emotional set point. It is not static. It's something that can change and that's really what we're about: trying to change it.

[00:10:04] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Absolutely.

[00:10:05] Henry Emmons, MD: Still, you know, in a manner of speaking our — the size of our resilience container is set, to a degree, early in life. And if you have a huge capacity, if you're a naturally resilient person, great. Count your blessings. But I know from my years of work that you can have tons of inherent resilience and still be brought to your knees by a string of losses, or a whole bunch of intense stresses in a short period of time, or a nagging amount of stress that goes on for too long. This can happen to any of us. Nobody is immune to this, but that is not the end of the story.

You know, what I like to tell my patients is this: the most important thing about resilience is not the size of your capacity for it, but how well are you able to keep filling up this container with just enough of that magical elixir to keep you afloat. We use it up to some extent by dealing with whatever challenges life sends our way. So if at all possible, we want to find ways to reduce that — the drain of this, stop the bleeding, so to speak. But it is a dynamic system so we can also refill it, you know, we're doing that constantly day to day with these little actions that we take.

And so we're gonna spend these next few episodes talking about how can we keep refilling this container.

[00:11:49] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, yeah. We can refill it, no matter what. And I think what's kind of wild too about resilience is that, um, we have to test it to kind of build it.

So I'll give an example of trees, specifically trees that were given everything. So, imagine: perfect temperature, perfect light, perfect water, seemingly perfect soil, no harsh conditions, no wind, no stress. So a tree in a perfect little bubble. Maybe you 90s folks know what I'm hinting toward — Biosphere 2, the experimental closed-ecosystem in Arizona, or some of you may have been thinking of "Bio-Dome," that movie with Pauly Shore, which covered the same scientific principles of Biosphere 2 — joking.

But what was surprising about this, at least in Biosphere 2 and the trees, was that in the biosphere, the trees grew really fast. They looked great, and then they just collapsed. The trees just kind of broke, and scientists couldn't figure it out at first. Everything was perfect. Why are the trees breaking? Until they realized that the trees needed wind.

So the stress of being pushed around by the wind causes trees to grow these specialized cells, formingsomething called stress wood or reaction wood.It's this kind of concentrated, dense wood, and the cells are sort of patterned in different directions to kind of buffer the tree and support it, strengthen it. This wasn't a new scientific finding at all, this understanding of the stress wood, but I think the scientists thought that since this was a perfect, stressless bubble, that you wouldn't even need the stress wood. Like everything would just thrive. But it was in fact that perfect bubble that killed those trees, and us humans need wind too, I think, metaphorically. Although literally, I would guess, as well.

There's a concept in stress research called eustress, which — "eu," the Greek word for "good," + stress = "good stress" — so it refers to that kind of stress that actually helps us, like it builds us up rather than depleting us. Like exercise. Our muscles don't get stronger from resting, they get stronger from being challenged and then recovering. [The] cardiovascular system doesn't improve unless you kind of push it a little.

So stress, ironically, is an essential ingredient for growth. Our nervous system, our emotional resilience, our capacity to handle the hard stuff in life follows that same pattern. Our resilience really grows through stress. Like, not too much stress, but the eustress — just enough.

So, point being, you are not a fragile thing in need of a perfectly controlled environment; that would actually be bad. You are built with the resilience to not just navigate stress or get through stressful stuff, to just endure it, but to actually become more resilient through it. We are wired for that, just like those trees. When we navigate challenges, when we face something hard and come through the other side, we are biologically laying down stronger, denser capacity for when the next stress hits, and that is essential because we need to weather those bigger storms when they come too.

[00:15:38] Henry Emmons, MD: I love that image, Aimee. I hadn't really thought about Biosphere 2, and I haven't seen "Biodome," by the way. Should I put it on my list?

[00:15:47] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Probably not. Hahaha.

[00:15:48] Henry Emmons, MD: No? Okay. Hahaha.

[00:15:49] Aimee Prasek, PhD: I don't know. Maybe. If you need a scientific lesson. God, I can't remember it, but I would guess it hit on some of the principles of Biosphere 2. Comment below, folks, on the scientific credibility of "Biodome."

[00:16:03] Henry Emmons, MD: Well, it's funny to think about this, but in a sense, I think we all have this notion that we should create our own little Biosphere 2, and have a stress-free life. Isn't that kind of the goal?

[00:16:19] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. When all this goes away, when my stress is gone, then all will be good.

[00:16:24] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:25] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah? Nope.

[00:16:26] Henry Emmons, MD: But as you were saying, stress itself is not the problem.

[00:16:32] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah.

[00:16:32] Henry Emmons, MD: Really, it becomes a problem if it's too strong, or goes on too long, or if we don't respond to it in ways that we — that would really be good for us. So our bodies are absolutely made to handle stress, but not too much of it.

So we all know about adrenaline, you know, that stress hormone — adrenaline, which is also called epinephrine — well, there's a brain chemical called norepinephrine, which is essentially the brain's version of adrenaline, and it is in there because it's a good thing. It's a good thing for us to have this. When we are stressed, norepinephrine makes us focused and alert, so we're able to respond better to whatever the crisis or perceived risk is. It activates our brain.

Now, because we all have different wiring, some of us don't do well with this brain activation, you know, it makes us anxious, nervous, restless, maybe a little agitated. That's not helpful. But there's another brain chemical called serotonin which, if you step back and think about it, I believe, is a pretty good candidate for that magic elixir in resilience container, and it helps to balance out this state of overactivation.

You can kind of think of it like coolant for a car engine, if you want. But some people are wired so that too much serotonin makes them agitated, or rigid, or compulsive. So again, it's keeping these things in balance, and when stress goes on too long, if these brain chemicals get depleted or out of balance, we don't feel good.

Right now, I think we are seeing imbalance on a very large scale.

After years of the pandemic, which, you know, it almost seems like ancient history, but it's not that long ago — and all the uncertainties that brought, and then this constant churn of bad news, and political turmoil, and everything else that's happened since — I think people, in large numbers, are feeling depleted.

And even if initially this is all kind of activating, over time, with depletion you can start feeling sluggish, run down, maybe even get depressed. So we need to attend to our resilience levels throughout our whole lifetimes, not just here and there when things are tough. So it's something we need to be mindful of all the time.

And I think right now we need to look at our collective resilience and think about how can we replenish that. But for individuals, you know, brain chemistry is an important piece.

[00:19:42] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, actually I think it's super helpful to note brain chemistry because it also emphasizes that piece of resilience that you were noting, Henry, equanimity. We're all here listening to this episode. We are resilient, we are here, but there's also this delicate dance that you're talking about with these chemicals, right?

And that we can... we have something, — we have influence there. And I love that, that we can see that, even at this biological level. So this is self-care 101. We have to give it attention and we will this month. We do it all the time here at Joy Lab and we really put it into practice in our Experiments with our Joy Lab Program. So those of you in the Program, your Experiment is waiting for you. Head to your Joy Lab app to get started.

And if you're not a member yet, I think you should join us, especially now. It is free to join through the month of May . We are doing this because of all the things Henry just noted. We are stressed as communities. There's a lot of depletion of our resilience collectively; individually.

A lot of us are tired. There's been some hurricane winds that have been blowing for quite a while, and our tree bark is a little tired. So join us. Tell your friends. Spread the word. Let's boost our resilience together.

To close, I want to share some wisdom from Alan Watts. Just a reminder of your inborn, resilient nature that goes beyond just the strength you have. Like, you are that strength, but you are so much more. Here's what he said.

" If you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all."

[00:22:00] Thanks for joining us!: Thank you for listening to the Joy Lab podcast. If you enjoy today's show, visit JoyLab.coach to learn more about the full Joy Lab program. Be sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Please see our terms for more information.

263. From Surviving to Thriving: The Science and Soul of Resilience

JOY LAB PROGRAM

Ready to tap into your joy?

Join Our Free Trial