Resilience is the the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and is a very important part of maintaining wellbeing and helping individuals stay in a place where they can be productive. Psychologists have identified some of the factors that affect resilience, among them a positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. Some people are blessed with a natural sense of how to maintain resilience but for others those same skills can be learned. This experiential workshop will give you the opportunity to learn about stress and its effects as well as a range of techniques for maintaining your personal resilience, including where to find help when it is needed.
Some definitions of resilience:
- ‘the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity’
- ‘the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity’
- ‘the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched’
NB: this workshop deals with coping mechanisms for the usual stresses and issues faced by PhD students. If you are struggling with more personal concerns about mental ill-health, please speak to your GP or contact your institutional wellbeing service for individual support.
Course content
MORNING
- What is Stress and what factors affect me as a Researcher?
- Understanding Procrastination, Perfectionism and Isolation
- Mindfulness
- Distress Tolerance
AFTERNOON
- Peer Coaching
- Self Care
- Assertiveness
- Acceptance of Emotions and Self Compassion