Definition, Health Effects, and How to Get Better at It

Strengthening the skills associated with mental toughness can improve your life in several ways, from making you more successful at the things you chose to do, to boosting your physical and mental health.

Mental Toughness Can Help You Succeed

A big benefit of mental toughness is improved performance and greater levels of success in what you’re setting out to achieve.

An older review looked at existing studies on the relationship between grit (another term for mental toughness) and success among various different populations, including Ivy League undergraduates, West Point cadets, and children participating in the National Spelling Bee.

The authors found that while grit wasn’t associated with IQ, it was positively associated with overall success (measured by GPA for the undergrads, retention among the West Point cadets, and rankings among spelling bee participants). For example, Ivy League undergrads with high levels of grit had higher GPAs in college than those with less, even if the grittier individuals had lower SAT scores. And among the West Point cadets, grit was a better predictor of staying in the program than the initial assessment of each cadet done by the admissions committee.

Although the studies included in the review each looked at different populations with different measures of success, the results clearly showed that higher levels of mental toughness helped individuals get further towards the various goals they were trying to achieve. “The benefits of mental toughness include maximizing your potential, an enhanced growth mindset, and greater likelihood of reaching or exceeding your goals,” O’Reilly says.

Mental Toughness Is Linked to Less Anxiety and Depression

Mental toughness can also benefit your mental health. One review of existing research found that higher levels of mental toughness are associated with lower levels of depression (particularly during stressful times) and anxiety.

Frank says that mental toughness helps with other aspects of mental health as well. “Being mentally tough increases a person’s confidence, promotes greater insight about themselves, develops healthy coping strategies for dealing with adverse circumstances, and increases open-mindedness and flexibility when situations do not go as planned,” he says.

Mental Toughness Can Help You Cope With Stressors

Because mental toughness makes you more equipped to deal with difficult things, it can lower stress levels, or lessen the impact that stress might have on you, Dr. Galasso says.

One study in elite teenage athletes found that while about 1 in 10 reported burnout or depressive symptoms related to stress, those who reported higher levels of mental toughness (measured by a validated questionnaire) also reported being able to better cope with psychological consequences of stress.

RELATED: How Stress Affects Your Body

Mental Toughness May Help You Maintain Health Behaviors, Like Exercise

And although the connection between mental toughness and physical health is a bit weaker, it’s probably not nil. “Any physical benefits of mental toughness would be a side effect, in that mental toughness can keep us disciplined,” Galasso says, giving the example of exercising consistently even if we don’t always feel like it. Research backs this up, too — one study of college students and adults in China found that a high level of mental toughness was correlated with a high level of physical activity while less mental toughness was correlated with less physical activity, and that mental toughness helped bridge the gap between intention (to be active) and action.