The key to combating exhaustion, stress, and even illness is to start practicing the skills of resilience together, as a family. “Resilience” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” People who are resilient handle setbacks or transitions more easily than those who aren’t. Families that are resilient have the flexibility to adapt to new situations and meet new challenges. And while some of “resilience” has been proven to be genetic, most of it is actually up to you. You can practice your “resilience” muscles just like you would exercise any other part of your body. And you can start today! Here are three strategies to start building more resilience into your family life.

Families, just like individuals, have stages, and those stages involve any number of transitions. Courtship and marriage, the arrival of a first child, children’s adolescence—all can be described as life stages, defined by the tasks those stages require. These are all examples of natural, age-related transitions, but there are usually some other transitions along the way as well, like starting a new job, moving to a new house or new location, kids starting school or changing to a new school, and the list goes on.

In her groundbreaking book Stress-Proof: The Scientific Solution to Protect Your Brain and Body—and Be More Resilient Every Day, Dr. Mithu Storoni argues that the brain, just like the rest of the body, requires intentional care to thrive. Stress, as decades of research have now shown, is a significant contributor to illness. To maintain your family’s physical health and optimal functioning, you need to face the problem of stress head-on. Your family needs to care for the mind just as it cares for the body. Below are a few tips for ways to downshift and better stress-proof your family.

Americans like to identify health with “how I look.” Imagine the covers of most fitness or health magazines in the supermarket check-out lane. In these, “health” looks the same: low body weight, toned musculature, bright white teeth, all-over good looks. Health is attractive. But there is much, much more to health than eating right and exercising. In fact, in his research into the longest-lived groups of people around the world, longevity expert Dan Buettner identified 9 common attributes that these groups shared—and only one of them had to do with fitness, and three with food or drink. The rest of the “Power 9,” as Buettner calls them, have to do with having a sense of purpose, deliberate stress management, social connectedness and belonging, and rootedness in family.

How do modern families survive the daily tug-of-war? At FamilyWorks, we’ve carefully researched the daily needs and activities of families, and we’ve created a list of six key areas that we believe encompass what makes for a cohesive, strong family life. Those areas are: relationships, finance, health, community, spiritual, and career. For your family to retain its strength against intrusive outside distractions, these areas need their own focus and their own distinct goals, and they also need to be in balance with each other.