A few weeks ago, if someone were to ask me how to define adaptive capacity, I would have said that it is the ability to adapt to situations, new tasks and challenges that come our way in life. Are we accepting of having to change how we do things, accept new relationships, co-workers, new locations, new environments etc.
However, new health challenges have me reading and researching. A new or maybe expanded version of the definition includes our ability to engage with and adapt to stress. Adaptive Capacity is our current state of physical and mental fitness. It’s kind of like the size of your gas tank. How much energy is in the tank?
How do you build your capacity or keep your tank full? Building capacity involves those Wellness habits we seem to be talking about in our Taste of Wellness Series. We can build our adaptive capacity by getting enough sleep, keeping our bodies moving, eating nutritious foods, staying sharp with mental fitness activities, building relationships, and taking time to just relax and empty our minds of the clutter from daily life.
But maybe the definition is all the same…. If you have the ability to engage with and adapt to stress, you will have the ability to adapt to new situations, tasks, ways of doing things, people etc because change can cause stress.
An interesting note is that apparently there is an app for this! Personally, it means more to me, if I use my own brain to track my habits and build my capacity… but to each his own!
How do you build your Adaptive Capacity? Is your tank full? empty? Half full? Half empty? – Tracy Lapreziosa