Imagine you were to experience back pain and disability after an acute back injury.
Turns out you will likely fall into one of two distinct groups.
“Researchers have known for years that some people who experience acute back pain recover successfully and lead full lives, while others experience ongoing pain that eventually leads to disability,” Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.
What determines which group someone falls into?
“Surprisingly, it’s not the type or severity of back injury, or the degree of pain initially experienced,” Jane notes, “that best predicts who will recover and who will continue to suffer.”
What is it then?
“It’s the psychological flexibility of the patients at the time of their injury,” she shares.
Psychological flexibility is the courage to face what is hard for us.
People who have this capability “have been shown to cope better and recover faster from all kinds of injuries, illnesses, griefs, economic difficulties, career setbacks, and personal losses,” Jane writes.
With back pain, “the more psychologically flexible a patient is, the faster they return to work, the more they exercise, and the fewer pain symptoms they report over time.”
Those who are less psychologically flexible are less likely to return to full employment. In these cases, it is more likely that back pain will persist for months or even years, disrupting their ability to lead full lives.
“Two decades’ worth of pain and psychology studies help explain this phenomenon,” she explains. “It turns out that a fear of pain, discomfort, or failure can cause people who are ill or injured to enter a downward spiral of withdrawal from ordinary activity.”
To avoid discomfort or disappointment, they withdraw from activity, travel, and work.
While this makes sense at first, “these self-imposed limits are not challenged and tested often, they become artificial barriers to full living,” she notes.
“To compound the potential downward spiral, restricting daily activity gives individuals more time and attention to pay to their physical symptoms,” Jane observes. “This can lead them, quite understandably, to become even more convinced that their injury or illness is so severe as to require further restricting activity.”
And it’s not just back pain where this is true. Other potentially chronic conditions include migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and chronic anxiety.
The bottom line: “In all these cases, avoiding pain and failure leads to more suffering and disability, not less,” she notes.
Clinical psychologists have shown that the only way to avoid this type of downward spiral “is to stay fully engaged with your goals and your life,” Jane writes, “even when you’re facing extremely negative thoughts, feelings, or experiences.”
2: Yesterday [hyperlink], we explored how “bad guys” shape us—both in the games we play, but also in our real lives.
“Although bad guys,” Jane writes, “can seem like nothing but trouble, you benefit enormously from confronting them.
“Every time you battle a bad guy,” she says, “you increase your awareness of what’s really standing in your way, and you broaden your repertoire of potential strategies.”
There are specific components of psychological flexibility. “Developing courage is a two-part process,” Jane states. She labels them: “Spot the bad guys” and “Battle the bad guys.”
First, spotting the bad guys means becoming aware of what blocks your progress or causes pain or distress.
Rather than denying, avoiding, or suppressing negative thoughts, feelings, and experiences, you pay close attention to them.
“Paying attention to the negative helps you deal with it more effectively,” she explains. “After all, you can’t solve a problem or change a behavior if you pretend it doesn’t exist.”
In time, you realize setbacks and failures are part of overcoming tough challenges and achieving meaningful goals.
“Studies show,” Jane shares, “that transformative personal growth is much more common among individuals who are both mindful and accepting of the negative as a part of their daily life.”
Which leads you to take step two: Battling the bad guys.
One key? Develop multiple strategies to overcome them. “Psychologists call this having a flexible response,” she writes. “Instead of relying on a single dominant strategy, you develop many ways to respond effectively.”
Doing so makes you more resilient.
“Spotting a bad guy is being mindful; battling one develops a flexible response,” Jane notes.
Why are these two mental strengths important?
Because “studies have shown that people with greater psychological flexibility experience fewer psychological problems, more positive emotions, greater career success, closer relationships, and an overall higher quality of life.”
3: There are five different strategies you can utilize to battle and defeat the bad guys in your life: Avoid, Resist, Adapt, Challenge, or Convert.
Strategy #1: Avoid
“This is the most straightforward strategy,” Jane writes. “If it’s a bad habit, you try not to do it. If it’s a symptom of pain or illness, you try not to feel it. If it’s an unpleasant or counterproductive thought, you try not to think it.”
Boom. There you go.
Here’s an example of the “Avoid it” strategy in action.
Bad guy: The first bite.
Avoid it strategy: Don’t take the first bite!
“I’m trying to lose weight. I tell myself I’ll have just one bite of something I’m not supposed to eat. Before I know it, I’ve eaten a ton. But if I don’t start, I don’t have to stop!” —Michelle, forty-five.
Jane notes that the Avoid it strategy, while easy to understand and utilize, is also the least useful.
“That’s because it’s impossible to always avoid negative thoughts, feelings, or experiences,” she notes. “And no one has perfect willpower.”
Jane’s advice: “If it’s in your control to avoid something, and there are no personal costs to avoiding it, by all means try this strategy. But you will absolutely want and need to develop additional strategies so you can make progress and have a good day even when you slip up, or when you’re simply unable to avoid the inevitable pains and difficulties of a full and meaningful life.”
Strategy #2: Resist
“Resisting is a way to actively wrestle with the bad guy and try to stop it in its tracks,” Jane writes.
“If you have an unhelpful thought, you try to change it,” she observes. “If you’re in pain, you try to alleviate it. If you’re isolating yourself from others, you try to connect. If you’re procrastinating, you leap into action.”
Bad guy: Thinking constantly about little things that go wrong, instead of moving on.
Resist it strategy: Spend thirty seconds doing something productive to interrupt the thought cycle.
“When something goes wrong, I just can’t let it go. I’ve been trying this strategy, and it’s working for me. I tell myself I only have to spend thirty seconds being productive. Usually that’s enough to get me out of the stew. But even if I go right back to sitting around feeling sorry for myself, at least I’ve done one thing.” —Jason, twenty-five.
“The resist strategy is much more powerful than simply trying to avoid a bad guy,” Jane notes. “When you resist a bad guy, you use your unique skills and strengths to prevent the bad guy from having too much of a negative impact.”
Resisting works even when you are not in control of what happens.
“It’s important to resist bad guys without judging yourself negatively,” Jane writes. “It’s not your fault that a bad guy appeared; bad guys appear to everyone, every day. Instead, congratulate yourself for having the mindfulness to spot the bad guy at work and the courage to confront it directly.”
Strategy #3: Adapt
“Adapting,” Jane says, “means making a significant change or long-term solution.”
“You might not be able to avoid or resist the bad guy when it gets you, but you may be able to come up with a clever or creative workaround that massively limits its ability to affect you.
Bad guy: Forgetting to take my medication.
Adapt to it strategy: Set three daily reminder alerts on my phone for 7, 8, and 9 p.m.
“I have a new prescription for my depression. I keep ‘forgetting’ to take it, which I think is just me avoiding making a commitment to seeing whether this drug will actually help me or not. This strategy gives me three chances to take my pill. If I decide not to, at least I’ve consciously made the decision not to take it and not just halfheartedly ‘forgotten’ about it. This strategy was suggested to me by one of my allies. With three alarms, there is basically no way that I will just ‘forget’ to take my pill anymore, so I have definitely vanquished this bad guy.” —Cliff, thirty-three.
One effective “Adapt it” strategy? Ask your friends for suggestions: “If you had this problem, what would you do to solve it?”
Strategy #4: Challenge
“Challenging a bad guy means asking yourself: Is this actually bad for me?” Jane writes. “Is it possible that I don’t have to make this feeling or thought or habit go away before I can lead a happy, healthy, meaningful life?”
Bad guy: No self-confidence.
Challenge it strategy: Ask yourself, “So what if I lack self-confidence? Does it really matter?”
“My biggest fear in life right now is that I won’t be able to complete my college education and get a good job. I have full-on panic attacks about it. I’m full of self-doubt, and I lack the confidence to believe that I can actually do it. But my allies are helping me think about it differently. Maybe I worry so much because I really care. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It shows how motivated I am. Also, I do want to be more confident in life. But having doubts or fears doesn’t have to stop me. I can still show up to class. I can keep applying for internships. I think that taking steps toward my goal is more important right now than fixing how I feel.” —Julian, twenty.
“This is a strategy you should adopt early and often,” Jane suggests. “Be open to the possibility that your bad guys have less power or influence over you than you than you thought. Something that made you feel nervous or unwell in the past may be perfectly fine today.”
What if, when you feel stressed, anxious, or exhausted, you were simply to acknowledge those feelings and accept them?
“Do you really need to feel calm, or rested, or pain-free to pursue your goals?” she asks.
“This is the single most powerful kind of psychological flexibility you can achieve,” Jane observes. “It’s the freedom to keep important commitments and pursue your daily dreams, regardless of whether you can lessen pain, discomfort, and distress or eliminate them from your life.”
Strategy #5: Convert
“Converting means finding a way to turn your bad guy into a power-up [hyperlink].
Example one: You are feeling pain. What if the pain you are experiencing could help you be more compassionate toward others who are in pain?
Example two: You are angry. What if you use your anger as a source of energy? Or to channel it into something productive?
“Can you imagine any situation in which having your bad guy around would help you instead of hurting you?” she suggests you ask.
Bad guy: Addiction to drama.
Convert it strategy: Be inspired by other people’s drama to do better myself.
“I keep getting into friendships and relationships with people who bring all kinds of drama into my life. This distracts me from putting my time and energy into my own plans. Eventually, I want to bring more positive people into my life. But some people are in my life for good, no matter what. They’re family. I can’t change them, but I can get inspired by them to do better and be better. They are an inspiration to develop my own drama-free qualities, like patience and forgiveness”—Therese, thirty-six.
Jane’s takeaway: “Converting a bad guy into a power-up isn’t always easy, but it’s worth the extra effort. It’s the most profound stretch you can make in your psychological flexibility.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Which “bad guy” strategy do I rely on most—avoid, resist, adapt, challenge, or convert?
Action: Identify one recurring “bad guy” and experiment with a different strategy for handling it this week.
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