Maintain a Healthy State of Mind

Everyone has their own ways of dealing with stressful situations. Resilience—the ability to adapt well to life's ups and downs—can help manage stress and feelings of anxiety. Everyone can develop resilience. It involves thoughts and actions that can be learned and practiced over time.

Anyone who experiences a disaster is affected by it, whether directly or indirectly through location, family or friends, or exposure to media coverage of the event.

Even if a disaster, such as a terrorist act, produces little physical damage, it can bring fear, confusion, and uncertainty into daily life. Strong and varied emotional reactions to such an event are natural. People are resilient and able to recover from difficult experiences.

Given the uncontrollable nature of disasters, some people question whether they can take steps to plan for catastrophic events. Actually, we know that the more people prepare for the unexpected, the better they manage these situations.

The following sections explore common reactions to disasters and how people in different age groups can prepare for, respond to, and recover from their experiences.