No matter how the election turns out, it’s good to remember what we’ve been told so often: that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger (but there was no scientific evidence to support for this idea–until now). A new national multi-year longitudinal study of the effects of adverse life events on mental health has found that these experiences do, in fact, appear to foster subsequent adaptability and resilience, with resulting advantages for mental health and well being.
A recent study examined a national sample of people who reported their lifetime history of traumatic experiences, as well as their current mental health and well being. Psychologist Mark Seery says, "We tested for quadratic relationships between lifetime adversity and a variety of longitudinal measures of mental health and well-being, including global distress, functional impairment, post-traumatic stress symptoms and life satisfaction. Our findings revealed that a history of some lifetime adversity–relative to both no adversity or high adversity–predicted lower global distress, lower functional impairment, lower PTS symptoms and higher life satisfaction."
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