The fourth episode of Mount Sinai’s monthly podcast series Road To Resilience details how drawing on faith, spirituality, and mindfulness during times of stress and trauma can help you better cope with challenges and ultimately lead to a better quality of life. You can learn how a core belief system, even if it isn’t tied to religion, can help you build inner strength and mental toughness.
“People are looking for meaning and for inner resources for helping them deal with everything from burnout to not feeling well,” says Deborah B. Marin, MD, the George and Marion Sokolik Blumenthal Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Center for Spirituality at Mount Sinai. “Those who have faith tend to be more resilient. When somebody is spiritual, they tend to feel connected to something bigger than themselves, so they’re also able to draw on resources that give them meaning. ‘Meaning making’ is important for people to tolerate the vicissitudes of life, and those that are resilient have a sense of ‘meaning making.’”
In this episode, “Faith, Spirituality and Mindfulness,” Dr. Marin details how this works and how she applied this resilience factor to cope with the death of her parents when she was young. She also discusses how her parents, who were Holocaust survivors, relied on their own faith to recover from this traumatic past.
Deborah B. Marin, MD, the George and Marion Sokolik Blumenthal Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Center for Spirituality at Mount Sinai discusses how her parents, who were Holocaust survivors, relied on their own faith to recover from this traumatic past.
You can also learn about a unique program within the Mount Sinai Health System called “Chi Time.” Every week, chaplains visit different floors of the hospital and offer tea and snacks for doctors and nurses in a quiet area. This provides them a welcome break and a place where they can decompress after difficult and emotional cases. By taking their mind off stress, they can build resilience and stay more focused.
The podcast, created by the Mount Sinai Health System, is based on the well-received book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges, co-authored by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Steven Southwick, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University. Their research in resilience spans 25 years, and their book has been so well received it is now in its second edition.
In the book they present 10 resilience factors to help anyone become stronger when facing life’s greatest challenges, and they explain how these can be learned at any stage of life. Each podcast episode focuses on different factors including facing your fears and having realistic optimism, a moral compass, and a support system, along with physical and brain fitness. The monthly series features insight from Mount Sinai experts who explain the science behind resilience while sharing their personal stories and experiences.
Road to Resilience is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play (link works best in Chrome). New episodes of the series are released on the last Wednesday of each month. You can find more information on the Icahn School of Medicine website or on the Road to Resilience website.