8 Ways to Encourage Resilience Through Optimized and Strategic Stress

Caregivers often think their job is shielding athletes from all stress.

But board-certified family physician and TrueSport Expert, Deborah Gilboa, MD, says stress is a vital tool for building resilience. Instead of avoiding it, help athletes embrace stress strategically to grow mentally, emotionally, and physically. Here, Gilboa is sharing her roadmap to helping your athlete work through stress in a beneficial way.

Stress Doesn't Mean Bad Parenting

A stressed athlete doesn't signal failure on your part. “Your athlete feeling stressed is not evidence that you're a bad parent,” Gilboa says. “We are fed this message as parents that if our child is stressed, we've made some error somewhere: We’ve let them make a bad decision, or we let them be on a team with a mean coach. But people need stress in order to thrive. Success is not congruent with a stress-free life.”

Try to embrace these moments rather than feeling guilty or fixing everything.

Stress Isn't the Enemy

“Stress is not poison,” Gilboa explains. “As a society, we have started to believe that if you're stressed, you must be making bad choices or are in a toxic relationship of some kind. We’ve been taught to believe that stress is always bad for you. But that's just not true.” It's a normal response, like your heart racing from a tough workout.

We know that athletes only improve when they practice and when they push their limits. In fact, we actually expect coaches to stress our kids in smart, intentional ways that will make them stronger, not just for the sake of seeing them stress out, but because we know it leads to growth. The same principle applies to emotional and mental stress: There is an optimal amount that leads to growth.

Find Their Optimal Stress Range

As a caregiver, your goal is to help athletes stay in their "Goldilocks zone" of stress—not too little, not too much. “Think of stress like you think of water: If you have too little water for too long, you can die. But if you have too much water too fast, you can also die,” Gilboa says. “We need water to survive and somewhere between a few drops and a couple of gallons of water is the physiologic range—meaning you can survive with that amount. But in the middle of that range is your optimal range, or the amount of water you need in order to feel and perform at your best.”

Stress is exactly the same: there is an amount that you can survive with, and there’s a smaller range in the middle of that where you thrive. “Too much stress, stress from too many directions, or stress that’s too prolonged, can actually be fatal,” says Gilboa. “But too little stress can also be fatal: You need just enough stress to keep you alive. For example, a kid who isn't stressed enough about house fires may not blow out the candles they lit before they go to bed. A kid who isn’t stressed about staying safe while driving may be texting at the wheel. You need a tiny bit of stress to keep you alive.”

Ideally, your stressors keep you focused on the things that matter most to you. And everyone’s range for stress will be different: a child who is highly reactive or feels more easily oppressed by change may have a narrower range, while your other athlete can handle much more stress and is less bothered by small changes. Your goal as a caregiver is to help your athlete understand when they’re in their optimal range, and when they’ve become overly stressed and need to dial it down.

Spot Early Stress Signs

Watch for "yellow flags" like irritability, sleep issues, or distraction, which signal that your athlete is exiting their optimal range. “This is especially true for athletes who gets pushed out of their optimal range pretty quickly or easily or often, and you’ll want to help them become an expert at recognizing their own early warning signs that they're getting outside of their optimal range,” Gilboa says. “We’re looking for the early warning signs, not the red flags like yelling at a teacher or walking out of practice. Yellow flags can be things like constantly scrolling on social media, continually running late to class or practice, forgetting to pack important things like lunch, or even forgetting where they put keys or earbuds. More emotional signals could be a lack of motivation or procrastinating on homework.”

Gilboa adds that early warning signs look different for everyone, so your goal is to help your athlete build a list of early warning signs that are true for them, not a generic list.