C03. Resilience: Overcoming Adversity

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　Resilience is the ability to be happy or successful again after something difficult or bad happens. It is also known as "recovering from adversity" or "being strong against adversity." It is said that the factors that determine the strength of resilience are individual factors and social network factors , and strengthening each of them will lead to increasing resilience (Sainton A, et al. 2018).

The individual factors are said to be " tenacity " to see things through no matter what, and " bounce back " - the belief that one can handle and recover from difficult situations. This bounce back is said to be self-efficacy, self-esteem , optimism and positive feedback that tries to see things in a positive light , and the ability to control emotions . These are exactly the things that athletes have experienced, and are also cited as important factors in " increasing motivation."

Social network factors are mainly relationships with people around the person, such as family, teammates, staff, friends, people at school, and people in the community . It is said that these people need to maintain a good relationship with the person, worry about the person, and support the person in a positive way, such as believing in his or her success, and also listen to his or her worries and share his or her distractions. From the perspective of stress management, when under high stress, it is important to have people to talk to in order to solve stressors, people who can help correct cognition such as ways of thinking, people who can share distractions with the person, people to whom you can confide your honest feelings, and people who can sympathize with and support you in difficult situations. Recently, positive support from partners (lovers and spouses) has also been said to be important (dyadic coping) (Jowett S & Cramer D. 2009; Norris LA, et al. 2017).

Incidentally, it is said that the experience of being exposed to stress is also important in increasing resilience. It is said that such experience has an effect similar to that of a vaccination. Experiencing situations that are challenging for a person but not so stressful that they have to go all out strengthens resilience. This is because the strategies and coping techniques used to deal with stress that were useful at that time can be used when facing future risks or adversity. This is sometimes called the "immunity" or "training" effect .

Our survey found that high school athletes who compete at the national tournament level have high resilience and the percentage of those who suffered from strong anxiety and depression caused by stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly lower than that of general students (Yano, F, et al. 2024). We believe that this suggests that the high resilience of athletes, which is cultivated by forming good relationships with family, school, club members, and local people through sports and by experiencing tough training and winning and losing in games, may also be useful for stress outside of sports situations .

Despite an injury to her left forearm, Hayata Hina, a member of the women's table tennis team at the Paris Olympics, won a bronze medal in singles and a silver medal in the women's team competition. On Instagram, she said that in the midst of the adversity of injuring her dominant arm during the tournament, she recalled the faces of the people who supported her for the three years since she was an alternate at the Tokyo Olympics, and said, "I can't give up." She also reported, "I've always felt that I've been blessed with people, and I think that without everyone's support and encouragement, I wouldn't have been able to leave this stage. That's why I was able to keep working hard with the sole desire to show everyone my bronze medal! Thank you so much." I think the support of the people around her is the source of her high resilience.