Lab mission
The Stress and Health Lab is a health psychology research training lab for graduate and undergraduate students in psychology. Our mission is to conduct stress-related research that strengthens lab members’ research and professional skills and contributes to the field and society in a meaningful way.
We attempt to address several questions:
How can we help people prevent/reduce detrimental stress effects?
To answer this question, we examine mindfulness-based and mindfulness-integrated programs, including their feasibility, efficacy and adaptations to better meet participant needs.
Examples:
- Developing adaptions for mindfulness-based programs to address cultural relevance and accessibility for young adults from under-represented racial/ethnic groups.
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for people with epilepsy with depressive symptoms: Adapting Project UPLIFT to also address anxiety and testing its efficacy
- Mindfulness in diabetes care: Interest, preferences, and relationship to mental health.
- Needs, interests, and preferences for trauma-sensitive yoga program among adults with post-traumatic stress symptoms.
- College students’ needs, interests, and preferences for a trauma-sensitive yoga program on campus.
- Feasibility of a universal prevention mindfulness-based program with university students.
- Feasibility of a virtual mindfulness-based program with students with mental and/or physical conditions.
- Pilot of a brief self-compassion intervention for women who are overweight and have internalized weight stigma.
How does stress affect well-being?
To answer this question, we study emotional, cognitive, and behavioral pathways through which stressor exposure leads to mental and physical health outcomes.
Examples:
- Physical activity as a mediator of the relationship between stress and physical and mental health.
- Emotion dysregulation as a mediator of the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and adult psychopathology.
- Interoceptive awareness as a mediator of the relationship between cumulative life stress and somatic symptomatology.
What circumstances make individuals more or less susceptible to experiencing stress?
To answer this question, we investigate stressors inherent to specific situations, conditions, and events.
Examples:
- Types of stressors experienced across different phases of the pandemic.
- Differences in appraisals, stress and coping between students with and without disabilities during the pandemic.
- Stress associated with having an infant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit related to PTSD.
Why do some people experience detrimental effects from stress and others do not?
To answer this question, we investigate factors that increase risk for and protect against detrimental stress effects.
Examples:
- Dispositional mindfulness as a protective factor between cumulative life stress and physical and mental health.
- Mindfulness practice as a protective factor between cumulative life stress and physical and mental health.
- Mindfulness as a protective factor in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and adult anxiety.
- Pandemic-specific PTSD risk and protective factors.
- Coping flexibility in relation to stress and mental health symptoms.