Resilience vs Antifragility

Antifragility is a superpower, and one that you can cultivate.

By Stefan Chmelik

Resiliency and Antifragility are different things. Whilst the idea of being super-resilient is a term used often amongst psychologists, trainers, coaches and performance specialists, you may not have come across the term Antifragility, made popular by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, as there was no word for this quality in English. The difference is important, because only one applies to humans and systems. So what’s the difference?

“Antifragility is like resilience’s cooler, more ambitious cousin. While resilience helps you bounce back from stress, antifragility actually thrives on it. Imagine a mythical creature that not only survives being thrown into the fire but emerges stronger, faster, and more fabulous than ever before. That’s antifragility in a nutshell.” (NeuroLaunch, Sep 2024).

Antifragility only applies to biological species and is vitally important for humans. We can make a massively strong and resilient machine, but eventually it will break down. With Antifragility, in the same way that evolution responds to fragile elements adapting or learning, our bodies become stronger by fragile structures breaking and becoming stronger, anti-fragility is the process of becoming adapted and stronger by learning from adversity. No adversity = no adaptation. Even macho websites are describing resilience as ‘sissy’ (their term not mine) and suggesting that Antifragility is what we need.

The answer is not to further eliminate risk, but to allow it to occur. Risk cannot be eliminated entirely, and it would be counterproductive were we able to. Taleb believes human children are very Antifragile, meaning that they actually get more resilient and robust when allowed to explore normal risk and difficulty. The antithesis of antifragile is not fragile. A fragile thing is not improved by stress. Therefore only biological things or systems (such as the economy) can be anti-fragile.

Nothing is made more anti-fragile by being more comfortable. Exposure to heat or cold, to fasting, to exercise, sitting still in ‘discomfort’, being outside, all of these and more require our bodymind to become more Antifragile. This is evolutionary biology at work and the ultimate way to live longer and more contentedly. This is not the perpetuation of the continuously misunderstood and misguided idea of ‘survival of the fittest’, which is a misquote of what Darwin observed. When Darwin wrote Descent of Man, he mentioned ‘survival of the fittest’ twice and he mentioned ‘love’ 95 times. The concept of Post Traumatic Growth is an aspect of Antifragility but only a part of it. The idea ‘that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ is only an aspect of the story.

“The body is robust, tolerant, and antifragile,” explains Kelly Starrett, a doctor of physical therapy.

Here’s my favourite example. In 1987 the Arizona Biosphere was set up to study how life on another planet would play out within the confines of a closed, Earth-like environment. Problem was, the trees kept falling over and had to be tethered to wires. This was because the absence of wind in the Biosphere meant the trees had nothing to resist and so became weak. As a biological organism, they become fragile when not challenged. Now consider the tree leaning into the wind on the edge of a cliff. This phenomenon actually has a name, Organisational Stresswood, where the wood on one side of the tree has a different structure to the other side. A living example of how a little adversity is required to become Antifragile.

Living in the world of today, feeling unbalanced and off centre, more fragile, keeps us unable to make the changes that would lead to a deeper understanding of what matters most. All the research tells us that we can increase Antifragility through deceptively simple practices that support our Nervous System and increase Vagal Nerve Tone (see below).

“You are not fragile. You are fluid, like water—able to move around obstacles, reshape under pressure, and still nourish everything you touch” says Aware Wolf.

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What is the opposite of fragile?:
Resolute, tenacious, hardy, unyielding, steadfast.

Compared to the opposite of resilience:

Self-pity, defeatism, despair, pessimism, cynicism, dejection, indifference.

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Stoicism, a stiff upper lip, toughing it out, grinning through the pain may have been useful during Empire, but are counterproductive in the world of today. Being bulletproof is for Navy Seals, not conscious humans.You don’t need to be more resilient, but you will benefit from being more Antifragile. But stress doesn’t automatically make you stronger, suffering doesn’t always lead to more Antifragility, these can just wear you down. So what’s the secret?

Learning to bend not break, to flow around rather than through, to adapt and not be rigid, says Dr. Tasha Eurich, an organisational psychologist, researcher and the author of Shatterproof. But why do we need to be ‘shatterproof’. Can we perhaps bend instead of break?

What if understanding and accepting innate human vulnerability and fragility is essential to growth and development; what if we can only embrace the world when we learn to adapt, which means being OK with being uncomfortable in certain situations.

“Why would any sane person not choose the greatest comfort possible?”.

This is a completely reasonable and understandable question for any human, and more so in this age of convenience and comfort. But what if we have tipped from avoiding back-breaking work to too much ease; perhaps too much comfort is making us less happy, less purposeful and is actually shortening our lives.

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places”.

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

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Discomfort

noun

slight pain.

a state of unease, worry, or embarrassment.

something that makes a person feel physically uncomfortable.

verb

make (someone) feel uneasy, anxious, or embarrassed.

make (someone) physically uncomfortable; cause slight pain to.

i.e. no one ever died from discomfort, they either adapted or didn’t and continued to suffer.

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How to be more Antifragile

Increased ‘tone’ (adaptability) in your Vagus Nerve (the longest nerve in the body) is consistent with higher Antifragility, and anything that improves Vagal Nerev Tone (VNT) will make you less fragile. Here is an overview of well research and validated methods:

• Be connected - get past the idea that humans are separate from nature;

• Become more comfortable with less comfort - change happens outside the comfort zone;

• Foster the ability to ‘do nothing’ - radical boredom is essential to the nervous system;

• Be a human-being - not a human-doing;

• Step into stillness and silence - change needs space to grow into;

• Be courageous - this is the antidote to fear;

• Cultivate acceptance - as the much quoted Serenity Prayer says, ‘give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other’.

Nature is Antifragile

Humans have a deeply wired and ancient relationship with the natural world, one that goes back hundreds of millions of years. The term Biophilia, coined by sociobiology founder E.O.Wilson, refers to this love of the natural world. Not so very long ago, we lived in harmony with the natural world, not taking from Nature more than she could give back. We developed a reciprocal, symbiotic relationship with flora and fauna and understood the seasons and the elements. Humans developed rituals and ceremonies that were sympathetic to living things and helped us stay connected.

Because this reciprocal relationship is so deeply wired into our cells, even today there are profound effects on our nervous system from nature connection, which is the basis for my Nature Awaken retreats. Nature is the main source of awe and wonderment – which we know has a massive impact on the nervous system and the Vagus nerve (see Dacher Keltner’s works); we know instinctively from the sound a bird makes whether it is relaxed or alarmed, so certain bird calls help us to relax and sleep. Because we lived with Nature, the sounds of waves and water, wind and rain, trees and air are reassuring to our nervous system, even when we don’t know why.

The Sensate Soundscapes are inspired by meditating in Nature and observing the emotions that arise and the influences that appear. These sensations are then translated into carefully orchestrated and synchronised infrasound and biophilic sound – that is, felt tactile sound and natural sounds, with voice and instrumentation to increase the effects. It's the combination of sensation and sound that speaks so powerfully and directly to our nervous system and how we feel.

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There seems to be a common notion that most people are concerned only with their own needs, that people are essentially selfish, greedy and self-serving.

I believe this is a nasty myth.

Most of us may be feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and often disempowered, but what I constantly see is that humans are generous, loving and caring, when given half a chance.

For most of us, generosity is our natural state, one that we can find our way back to, and this is actually what Darwin found.

Jimmy Carr (yes, the comedian) made a point I liked, that modern society has inverted Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (OK, so Maslow never actually used that term but let’s park that for now).

Because we are so comfortable, it’s hard to be grateful for what comes so easily. We have the basics (the base of the usual pyramid) so sorted that we don’t notice them - you can’t see a hot shower, more people suffer from too many calories than too few and we are statistically safer now than at any time in history. But here’s the inversion - compared to a few generations ago many people don’t really know who they are and don’t have a sense of purpose or life’s true meaning. We know things could be different but are unsure how to get there, and fear of uncertainty holds us back.

Fear is not the same thing as selfishness. It’s essential to look into our fear; the challenge is to do so and not become selfish or narcissistic.

Fuelled by guilt and shame, those twin evil demons that make our better angels weep, there is a mounting concern about ‘the state of the world’ and in particular, the impact on young people, maybe especially males (although that very emphasis may be part of the issue).

Self-doubt, insecurity and low self-esteem are significant factors here, and we can seconder other buzz-words like narcissism, egotist, toxicity, loneliness, isolation, misogynist, but perhaps let’s keep it simple and appreciate that the underlaying driver is fear. Really, when you look clearly enough, we can see that there are only two emotions – love and fear. And guess which one makes you happy and which one makes you sad (hate, anger, jealousy, intolerance and most of the rest of the cast of the Disney Pixar Inside Out movies are all just shades of fear. Psychopathy is a separate issue, but true psycho’s are massively outnumbered by the non-psychopathic and will always be as long as we can reduce the pull towards sociopathy).

Being shunned, being cast out and isolated basically meant death not so long ago (and the phrase ‘not so long ago’ itself deserves unpacking, as a lack of appreciation for history underlies much of what ails us). Now, ironically, the internet provides a place where the shunned and disaffected can feel like they are part of a community, even if it is a community of low somatic and emotional intelligence all chanting from the same phrase book into the largest echo chamber the human mind has ever imagined. It’s not their fault and they are not to blame. They all just want to be loved.

The emotionally literate response? Well, love, obvs. Because that is the only thing that trumps fear.

With great responsibility comes great power. You just have to work on your fear….

If you don’t feel like you are on or could start your journey, that’s OK, you’re just not ready yet and there is nothing to be gained by punishing yourself. Lean into the ‘do hard things’ idea, sure, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer.

I’d like you to know that your thoughts and actions do actually matter. You may feel that all is hopeless, that there is nothing you can do, that your tiny actions are meaningless and empty in a sea of despair. Well, they are not. There are millions of people the world over, the majority actually, thinking and feeling just like you, we just don’t shout about it as much, because empathy and connection are harder than hate and demand more than fear.

Tiny thoughts and actions create islands of cohesion and these lead to a tipping point (which doesn’t require a majority by the way).

Many blessings to you and those that you love.

About Stefan & online appts

Stefan Chmelik is co-founder of and inventor of the Sensate stress reduction system. Founder of New Medicine Group in Harley Street and founder of immersive retreat provider Nature Awaken

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder (2012) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Photo: Peter Law