It is important to understand the science of resilience so we can frame how resilience can be of benefit to you.

yppah is based on the science of resilience.

At times life isn’t easy. It’s impossible to live deeply and not feel pain or go through times of crisis. What’s not obvious is the crucial role that pain, suffering, and crisis play in the process of growth and evolution. While some people fall apart and never make it through difficult times, many others emerge from conflict and turmoil, renewed and transformed and with a new lease on life.

To achieve this feat resilience is crucial. We must learn how to emerge from the challenges of life not weaker and more apathetic, as the perpetual victim does, but stronger and wiser. Or as ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus explained:

“Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths…Dig deeply. You possess strengths you might not realise you have. Find the right one. Use it."

Resilience is the ability to adapt in times of uncertainty, trauma, or stress, whether that be at home, at work, with your relationships, with your finances, with your health, or with your business.

The biopsychosocial model of health underpins resilience.

So what is the biopsychosocial model of health?

Let’s look at the evolution of health models to see how we arrived at the biopsychosocial model.

Prior to 1977, psychiatrists followed the biomedical model of health. This means they classified people who have mental health conditions as being ill in the same way that others can be physically ill. They classified conditions as a result of disturbances in the brain to be treated with drugs, surgery or other physical means. They reasoned that if something was physically wrong with your brain, it needed a physical cure.

In 1977, George Engel challenged this biomedical model because it didn’t take into account the many other factors that can influence a person’s mental health, and their health in general. These factors include those that are social, biological, and psychological, i.e., a person’s upbringing, beliefs, coping skills, trauma, and relationships. The biomedical model of health did not take these factors into account. Engel proposed a new way of thinking about health that encapsulated social and psychological determinants, as well as a person’s biology. This was the biopsychosocial model.

The biopsychosocial model states that health and illness are determined by a dynamic interaction between biological, psychological, and social factors. Engel stated that interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors determine the cause, manifestation, and outcome of wellness and disease. In line with this thinking and management of health, the concept of resilience has been researched and identified as a key skill to improve an individual’s ability to cope with life’s unpredictability (which included a lot of what entrepreneurs deal with).

Whilst we all have a base level of resilience, the challenges we face can affect our wellbeing over time.

So, what does this mean for you?

To start, we want to highlight that resilience isn’t a magical power or something only certain people are born with. It’s a skill that we can develop and improve, but to do that we must know which aspect of our resilience requires development.

This is why we created yppah, your well-being check-in.