Resilience and growth through adversity
Twelve months of wellness is a campaign to promote the wellbeing of the employees and students of the College of Arts and Sciences. Each month, we will introduce a theme related to a specific dimension of wellness. Throughout the month, we will feature research, informational events, highlighted faculty and opportunities to learn and grow in a specific dimension of wellness. The theme for June 2020, which highlights the environmental dimension of wellness, is resilience and growth through adversity.
The Buffalo way
Resilience and growth through adversity
Buffaloes (Bison bison) have shown resilience despite overwhelming adversity. Humans hunted vast populations of buffalo nearly to extinction, but the buffalo survives, even in the rapidly changing world to which it must adapt. Buffaloes, and those who protect them, signify determination and the wherewithal to make clear and wise decisions. When the buffalo thrives, so does its habitat. Healthy populations of buffalo foster a healthy environment.
Honoring the animals who once symbolized the Great Plains, members of the CU Boulder community call themselves Buffaloes. We believe each Buff should adopt behaviors that promote health and wellness. And as we navigate uncertain times, we aim to emulate the buffalo. We aim to persist, to act with purpose, and to pursue wellbeing for ourselves, our herd and our habitat.
Resilience: Research, Application, Impact
Chris Lowry
Chris Lowry is an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology. His research focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying emotional behavior and the stress-induced control of physiology and emotional behavior. He is also a researcher at the Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Laboratory where the focus is the neural mechanisms underlying stress-related physiology and emotional behavior with a focus on the role of serotonergic systems.
Clint Carroll
My research and community work entails the facilitation of spaces (intellectual, physical) that can help perpetuate Cherokee environmental knowledge, practices, and traditions—thus ensuring our collective health and the health of the land. This work presently consists of a community-based research project on natural resource access and land conservation in rural Cherokee communities in Oklahoma, and a land-based education program with Cherokee elders and students (see our project website here). In the course of this work, I have learned that, for Cherokee people, resilience is above all a collective endeavor—one in which we rely on each other (elders, youth, and all in between) to teach, learn, facilitate, and enact practices that will ensure our future as Cherokee people despite past and present attempts to eliminate us.
Lori Peek
Lori Peek is professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center. Peek has conducted field investigations in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, the Christchurch earthquakes, the Joplin tornado, Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Matthew. She is the principal investigator for the NSF-funded CONVERGE facility, which is dedicated to improving research coordination and advancing the ethical conduct and scientific rigor of disaster research.
Sona Dimidjian
Sona Dimidjian is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and directs the Renée Crown Wellness Institute. Her research focuses on cultivating mental health and wellness among women, children and families. She develops and studies programs and practices in education and healthcare settings, with an emphasis on navigating key developmental transitions, such as the perinatal period, early childhood, and adolescence.
Resilience Resources
ITEA Plus
Since 2002, the CAIRR Neuroscience Laboratory in the Psychology and Neuroscience Department has conducted clinical research studies about the efficacy of acupressure for stress, cardiovascular function in stroke survivors, and mild traumatic brain injury in both civilian and veteran populations. From these, an evidence base has emerged, providing the foundation for the ITEA Plus webpage platform.
Professors must support the mental health of trainees during the COVID-19 crisis
June Gruber, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Nueroscience, contends in Science that mental-health trainees need particular attention now. Gruber's research focuses on positive emotion disturbance, or the delineating the ways in which positive emotion can go awry and towards developing an integrated clinical affective science model of positive emotion disturbance.
Virtual campus support resources
During these challenging times, many in the CU Boulder community may be looking to campus resources for assistance. Please know there are many virtual support and advocacy resources available to you.
HeartMath
For over 20 years, the evidence-based HeartMath® program has helped people discover practical ‘in the moment’ self-regulation tools to increase resiliency in stressful or pressured situations. These tools will explain the role emotions play in performance and health and how to utilize the heart/brain connection to regulate your heart rhythms to immediately address your emotional state in challenging situations. Email Erin Cunningham to learn more and schedule workshops.
Mind & Life Dialogues
Mind & Life Dialogues are conversations between leading thinkers and spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama, addressing critical issues of modern life at the intersection of scientific and contemplative understanding. The Dialogues began in 1987 as intimate discussions and have grown to include large public and private events at locations around the world.
Read more about Resilience
Sex Differences in the Heritability of Resilience
by Jason D. Boardman, Casey L. Blalock and Tanya M. M. Button
"Few have examined the possibility that the genetic effects on resilience may be different for men and women. This is particularly relevant to the study of gene–environment interactions because sex may constrain the genetic expression of resiliency among women, and it may enable this potential among men."
Cultivating Resilience
by Abby R. Rosenberg
“Resilience is neither lucky nor passive. It takes deliberate effort. Indeed, while resilience researchers have quibbled over nuanced definitions and requirements for resilience, they agree that it can be strengthened with practice.“