Resiliency is the capacity of a substance “to spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed.” Though devastating circumstances or upsetting world events might leave us feeling flattened for a time, we are designed to bounce back from life’s challenges.

Stressful life events are often portrayed as causing suffering and health problems; but coping skills modify the emotional and physical impacts of challenging experiences. The good news is that the most impactful resiliency resource is a quick and easy mindset shift.

In her TED talk, “How to Make Stress Your Friend,” health psychologist, Dr. Kelly McGonigal, explains that how stress is perceived makes all the difference in how it is experienced. For example, she cites a study showing that those who experienced high levels of stress and believed that stress was harmful to their health had a 43% increased risk of death. What makes this study dramatic is that those with high stress levels who didn’t perceive stress as harmful had the lowest mortality rates of all, even when compared to people with low stress levels. Dr. McGonigal humorously concludes that “believing stress is bad for you [was] the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year, killing more people than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and homicide.”

Fortunately, Dr. McGonigal goes on to explain that we can learn to appreciate stress and its physiological indicators (heart pounding, heavy breathing) as signs that our bodies are preparing to successfully handle the challenge at hand. Amazingly, this shift in mindset changes the physical stress response. One reason that stress is implicated in cardiovascular disease is that usually people’s blood vessels constrict when they are under stress. But when people were taught to think of the arousing effects of stress as the body becoming energized toward constructive action, their blood vessels remained relaxed and open.

A resilient mindset could save your life. It will also help you to rally in the face of life’s hardships by protecting your physical health and enabling you to cope effectively with the challenge before you. With a resilient mentality, you can easily bounce forward.