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How to Strengthen Your Emotional Immune System
As you boost your body’s defenses, you can also train your mind to be more resilient
Given recent events, I’ve been paying a little extra attention lately to my immune system: getting good rest, drinking plenty of water, eating my greens. Exercising regularly, or as regularly as one can when stuck inside with multiple small children.
I feel fine, physically, whether or not my efforts are actually making a difference. How I feel emotionally, though, is another story. Like pretty much everyone, I’m on edge right now. I’ve spent my quarantine swinging between sharp anxiety and crushing boredom.
And with all the steps I was taking to bolster my body’s defenses against germs, it felt strange that I wasn’t doing the same for my psyche. I wondered: Is there a way to build up my emotional defenses against the devastation of this time, and what’s still to come?
Yes, says David Palmiter, a clinical psychologist and professor at Marywood University. Each of us has an emotional immune system, a set of psychological mechanisms to keep us resilient in the face of adversity, he told me. And like your physical immune system, it’s something that can be strengthened.
