Resilience Factor 8: Brain Fitness

After losing her newlywed husband in the Tsunami, Trisha Broadbridge was able to pick up the pieces and return to Thailand to help rebuild a school (the school had been on her heart prior to the Tsunami). Surely to get to the point where she was able to return to Thailand and continue with philanthropic projects took time. In addition to losing her husband she had to endure her own traumas and had to have 5 surgeries to repair her leg and face after injuries resulting from the tsunami. Prior to this life changing event, Trisha was already involved in the Reach program which helped teens build self-esteem, she returned to helping with this outreach post trauma as a way to honor her late husband. A few years after his passing, her accomplishments and dedication to youth had earned her the award of “Young Australian of the Year

I imagine a lot of this resilience that she has demonstrated did not occur without a lot of refocusing, counseling, and using “brain fitness” skills. I am sure that she has had to be in the moment and in her book she says that she tried to turn her terrible experiences into a positive one. I am sure that to gain focus and trudge ahead, she had to get into her flow and focus on what she was good at (helping others) and also used this mindfully as a distraction from the tragedy in her life.

Broadbridge, T. (2005). Beyond the Wave: A tsunami survivor's story. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Early in the book Owen describes a situation where he chose to cross a newly formed river as the rainfall created road hazards. He realized the moment he started across the water that he made a mistake and while driving went through a multitude of scenarios of worst case, like being trapped on top of his truck waiting for a helicopter rescue or climbing onto the hood and jumping to safety. Despite the fear he felt, he made it across solely by focusing on the task of driving at hand. This use of brain fitness is similar to the example in the chapter of Charles Sullenberger, who focused on the task of a technically challenging landing on the Hudson while mentally panicking about the safety of himself and his passengers.

Later on in the book as Owen is faced with the task of emptying his now destroyed home, he is not alone as his family and friends come to help. He further demonstrates brain fitness by encouraging the positive atmosphere that had permeated the scene even to go as far as crack a joke regarding littering when someone tossed a sandwich wrapper on a pile of trash in his yard. All while he's doing this he is personally in a state of anxiety and mental fatigue at the destruction of his home and community.

Grimenstein, O. (2016). Under water: a natural disaster memoir. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.

Marcus Lutrell has shown brain fitness at every stage of his military career, from going through the absolutely grueling BUDS training to become a Navy SEAL, through the operation that took the lives of so many of his unit, through his recovery, to his return to active duty, and through his post-military life. To become a SEAL you must endure a level of training that has a failure rate of 85%, a staggeringly high number. To be able to cope with what can amount to physical torture in a training process helped prepare Lutrell for the fast changing, traumatizing, and brutal effects of the battlefield. To be able to get his trident, the insignia of the SEAL, he had to prove his mental ability. After the attacks of Operation Red Wings he found his way back to active service through months of counseling, brain fitness and physical fitness exercises. In fact, his twin brother, inspired by Marcus' experiences, as well as his own experiences as a SEAL and war combatant, inspired him to earn a degree and begin research in brain health, mental plasticity, and the effect of grit and brain health on resilience (Tarrant, 2019).

Tarrant, D. (2019, August 27). Navy SEAL-turned-scientist works to solve the puzzle of battlefield brain injuries. Dallas News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/healthy-living/2016/08/10/navy-seal-turned-scientist-works-to-solve-the-puzzle-of-battlefield-brain-injuries/

Luttrell, M., & Robinson, P. (2007). Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (1st ed.). Little, Brown and Company.