In this session, we talked about the program’s goal to help strengthen skills for well-being. Each week we will share practices and tools that can help us:
- Reduce stress
- Manage emotions
- Navigate challenging situations
- Build connections and compassion
The basis for these skills is learning to tune into ourselves, including our feelings, reactions, and experiences. We also reviewed key concepts including resilience, mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion. Finally, we talked about the stress response as being a normal, physiological system that can send us into hyperarousal (i.e. fight or flight mode) or hypoarousal (i.e. freeze mode). You can review these in our 7-minute Stress Physiology Video.
Our stress response is our body’s way of alerting us to danger. But sometimes our body might be on high alert, keeping us in one of those states when it’s not helpful. In Be REAL, we focus on learning skills to respond instead of react automatically. Watch this 3-minute video for highlights on how mindfulness can help us learn to respond.
