June 6, 2021 • 50 mins
Dr. Elizabeth Dalton is an expert on stress, health behaviors, and how our beliefs impact our use of coping mechanisms. Together with Dr. Tomás Estrada, we explore research on stress and how a research-informed understanding may lead to healthy approaches to peace and social-emotional learning. We close by examining recent research on mindfulness and how mindfulness mediates stress and opens space for the vulnerability, uncertainty, and intellectual stretching needed for creativity and problem-solving.
The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.
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Episode Transcript
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Elizabeth Dalton (00:00):
I think it's really helpful to sort of create
an environment where stress isnot the enemy, right? Or it's
not necessarily even somethingto be avoided, but helping
students to sort of cultivatethose attitudes and beliefs that
they can learn and grow fromthese experiences that they they
have or they can further buildand develop ways to cope, and
(00:23):
that they can feel confident inthat, that that's going to help
them not only in the classroom,but but also just in life.
Because the way that they learnto cope with stress early on can
really kind of set the stage fortheir ability to continue to do
that down the road.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (00:38):
You are listening to the music and
peacebuilding podcast, aprofessional development network
at music peacebuilding calm,exploring intersections of
peacebuilding, sacredness,community, creativity and
imagination. Through researchand story. Dr. Elizabeth Dalton
is a clinical psychologist withresearch interest in stress,
(00:59):
mood and physical healthbehaviors and outcomes. Dr.
Dalton completed her graduatetraining at UCLA, where she
studies how stress anddepression influence health
behaviors like eating, sleeping,exercise and substance use among
young adults. As part of herclinical training, Dr. Dalton
has worked in community mentalhealth centers and hospitals and
(01:22):
completed her clinicalinternship year at New York
Presbyterian Hospital WeillCornell Medical Center. Dr.
Dalton teaches in the psychologydepartment at Elizabethtown
college. Our second guest laterin the program is Dr. Tomas
Estrada, associate professor ofphysics and engineering at
Elizabethtown college. Estradais committed to fostering multi
(01:45):
disciplinary and holisticthinking in his students, and to
exemplify it through his ownscholarly work. His research
interests include systems andcontrols, engineering,
education, technology,entrepreneurship, and
sustainable engineeringapplications. In preparing for
this summer's focus on socialemotional learning, this episode
(02:07):
takes an interdisciplinary lookat research on stress and
mindfulness. Because stress inour health behaviors play a
significant role within socialemotional learning classrooms,
and work toward peace, Thisresearch may shed light on the
complexity of this mental healthconstruct, and ways to build
(02:28):
compassionate and humane spacesfor learning. First, we turn to
how Dr. Dalton came upon thisresearch area,
Elizabeth Dalton (02:37):
I would say that I first started to become
interested in studying stressand trying to understand stress
when I worked as a researchcoordinator at a depression
treatment center, which was atthe Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston. So I workedthere for a couple of years
after I did my undergraduatedegree in psychology. And there
(03:00):
I had the opportunity to tospeak and work with many
different people who had beenstruggling with depression and
depressive disorders for a longtime. So for many of these
individuals who were coming intoour clinic, they'd really been
suffering for years. And formany of them, unfortunately,
they hadn't responded well todifferent treatments that are
(03:21):
usually used to help withdepression. And it kind of
became just clear in in talkingwith these individuals that for
many of them life, stress andlife stressors played a really
big role in their experience.
And so for some of them, thatsort of took the format of
stressors that kind of triggeredtheir depression or or served as
(03:42):
a catalyst for their experienceof depression. But for others,
it also became clear thatdepression became a source of
such significant stress in theirlife, by virtue of some of the
different symptoms andexperiences that accompany
depression, like socialisolation, lack of motivation,
you know, these were things thatthen subsequently caused them to
(04:04):
experience a really heighteneddegree of stress in their lives.
So it was really that kind ofunderstanding that that piqued
my interest in the topicinitially. And so then I had the
good fortune of going to theUniversity of California, Los
Angeles to do my PhD. And I, Ipicked that program specifically
because I knew I would get towork with a researcher by the
(04:27):
name of Constance Hammon, whofocuses on the bi directional
relationships between stress anddepression. So as part of my PhD
training in clinical psychology,I really got to delve into some
of that research and start toexplore that further.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (04:48):
So let's open up maybe an overview of
stress. Eventually, I want toget into your language of
chronic, acute and daily stress.
But before we get there, I wantto get an overview of stress.
You know, I think I sense froman ecological model, there's
often this talk about stressbeing a good thing that stress
can be very healthy. So myquestion is maybe, you know,
(05:08):
what is stress? When is ithelpful? And when does it bring
harm?
Unknown (05:14):
So yeah, one of the things that I think sort of
really fascinates me abouttrying to study and also to
teach about stress is the extentto which it's really such a
difficult thing to kind of pindown, right. So, you know, it's
universally experienced, we alltalk about stress, we all have
stress. And yet, when we usethose terms, were referring to a
(05:38):
whole host of different things.
So sometimes we're using thatterm to refer to external
experiences, or external eventsthat have happened to us. Other
times, we're using it to referto a physical state in our
bodies, as well as our emotionaland cognitive experiences. So I
think one challenge historicallyin the psychological literature
(06:02):
around stress is, how are wedefining this? How are we
measuring it? You know, how arewe trying to pin down something
that is so just so challengingto really quantify? So one kind
of broad way to think aboutstress or that stress has sort
of been defined from apsychological perspective is
(06:22):
some kind of external demandthat necessitates or prompts a
change in the body, you know, sosomething happens that demands
that we respond, we react. Andso based on that sort of
conceptualization, when thisdemand is perceived as really
taxing, or especially exceedingour resources or capabilities,
(06:47):
it's then that we mightexperience that stress is more
negative, or more adversive. Sothere's some demand. And then,
inherent in our understandingand conceptualization of that
stress, is our sort ofrecognition of what that means,
do we have the ability to cope?
Do we have the ability torespond?
(07:17):
To your point, though, I thinkit's so so important to remember
that stress is not the enemy.
So, you know, it's, I think thisis sort of a risk and a fine
line that I know, I try to walkwhen I'm teaching and thinking
about stress, because we'll getinto this momentarily. But there
is, of course, a lot of evidencethat stress can have negative
effects. But there's also anumber of ways in which it is or
(07:40):
it can be positive too. So forone thing, our body's response
to stress, which includes thingslike the activation of the fight
or flight system, and you know,corresponding changes in
cortisol and heart rate, andsweating, and all of those
things that our body does tokind of help us respond to
stress, that's actually veryadaptive. So, so we've evolved
(08:02):
really well, and really nicelyto deal with especially short
term stressors. So sort ofshort, acute things that come
up, our bodies are well equippedto deal with that. And that can
be really helpful, that kind ofreaction on the part of our body
can be really helpful. So weknow then that the experience of
(08:23):
stress, and I think we all atleast can sort of get on board
with the idea that it can bemotivating. So like the stress
of a deadline, for example, youknow, can can help us get things
done. Usually, for all of us, itvaries, but for most of us,
there is some kind of optimallevel of stress that is
associated with bestperformance. So I'm sure as a
musician, you know, you kind ofthink about that, you know, in
(08:47):
the sense of, you're performingin front of an audience, maybe
that does sort of help youactually in a good way to have
have a good performance. And sothat's, you know, those are all
good things that stress can dofor us. And there's actually
some really fascinating researchthat's not not mine, but work by
Kelly McGonigal at StanfordUniversity, and some other
(09:09):
researchers, that is reallyhighlighted that that one thing
that really matters is the waythat we think about our stress.
So, for instance, people whoview stress as a helpful part of
life, so who kind of have thatmindset, we know that that
there's evidence they havebetter physical health, that
(09:29):
they have better, emotional wellbeing, that they're more
productive in work, and thatthose things are true even when
they have high levels of stress.
So even when those demands are,you know, exceeding or really
taxing resources, those mindsetsthose attitudes, can actually be
(09:51):
quite adaptive, and quitehelpful. So to the extent that
we can view our body's responseto stress as helpful, rather
Then debilitating, so tellingourselves things like, Oh, my
body's giving me energy. This issomething that's really helpful
to me. That's, you know, that'san adaptive mindset. If we view
(10:13):
our ability to handle stress, ifwe think like, you know, I can
cope with this, or I can learn,and I can grow from this
experience, those are alsothings that are associated with
better outcomes, betterresponses to stress. And then
there's also evidence that ithelps to keep in mind the
universal nature of stress. So,you know, this is not something
(10:35):
that's unique to me, like thedifficult things that I'm
dealing with are things thatother people experience or even
if they don't experience thisexact set of situations, other
people have dealt with similarthings. So we know that all of
those kind of mindsets or waysof thinking can be really
helpful.
(10:59):
What we know, though, in termsof physical and mental health,
is that when stressors arechronic in nature, so when
they're ongoing when they'rerecurrent, you know, when it's
kind of one thing after another,that is where we start to see
stress, take more of a toll, orat least have that potential to
take more of a negative toll onour minds and bodies. And so
(11:23):
that's, that's something thathas sort of been pretty
consistently identified anddemonstrated in the literature.
And so to your question aboutthose, those terms of sort of
chronic, acute and daily, sobecause stress means so many
different things, you know, toso many different people, one of
the ways that researchers inpsychology and other fields have
(11:46):
tried to kind of pin down moreconcrete ways of conceptualizing
this idea is by understandingsomething about the chronicity,
or duration of stressorsexperienced. So, when we use the
term chronic, as I mentioned,we're referring to more ongoing
recurrent life conditions. Sofor example, a person who has a
(12:09):
chronic illness, right, that'ssomething that's going to
continually affect them for along period of time, in a number
of different ways, there mightbe episodes that are worse or
times when it's a little biteasier to manage. But there's,
it would be expected that that'ssort of a recurrent source of
stress or strain. Something likeexperiencing poverty or low
(12:30):
socio economic status, that'soften you know, conceptualized
as a chronic or recurringstressor. People who are
chronically dealing with racism,for example, or sexism, you
know, or other types ofdiscrimination. Unfortunately,
those can be chronic experiencesas well. And so it's it's often
(12:51):
been identified that those typesof really ongoing life stressors
that can be the most detrimentalto our health, the term acute
stress is used to often identifywhat are more time limited, but
still fairly significant lifeevents. So sort of one time,
things that might come up noteveryday events. But they can
(13:15):
have, you know, more profoundconsequences, potentially. So a
person loses a job, for example,that's a pretty significant life
stressor, having to undergo asurgery. Sometimes even things
that might be positive can be aone time acute life event,
that's a stressor. So gettingmarried or having a child, you
(13:36):
know, for somebody that might bea positive thing that they
wanted in their life. Butthere's also stress around that
event. So that's another sort ofarea of stressors that we can
consider. And then finally, andone thing that I become
increasingly interested in are,the more mundane, the kinds of
(13:56):
stressors, or we sometimes usethe word hassles to refer to
more minor sources of stress orstrain, that kind of just occur
in the course of a normal day.
So, you know, now I'm thinkingabout your internet goes down.
When you're in a meeting, oryou're running late to
something, or you've misplacedyour phone, you know, these
things that they're not majorlife events, but it seems that
(14:18):
there's the potential for themto sort of accumulate and
collect over the course of a dayor days or weeks, in a way that
might impact us. And so those wecould think of as, again, sort
of daily stressors or dailyhassles.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (14:41):
And so in so many of your studies, you use
measures that have been testedfor validity and reliability,
and I want to get into this, Ithink it'll help our master
students as they considerresearch projects. So can you
talk about the UCLA life stressinterview, and how that works
and how you go about Breakingdown such a nebulous idea of
(15:02):
stress into something that canbe measured.
Unknown (15:05):
So the UCLA life stress interview, is a measure that was
designed by my graduate schoolmentor Constance Hammon, as a
way to primarily assess chronicand acute stress. So rather than
being sort of a questionnairethat people can fill out, you
know, pencil and paper on acomputer. Questionnaires have
(15:27):
lots of advantages so I usethose a lot, too. But one
downside is that you don't get alot of context from a
questionnaire. So people mighthave sort of a more
idiosyncratic interpretation ofa given question, they might
want to further explainthemselves, but there's not
really the opportunity to dothat, when you're just being
(15:48):
asked to rate something on a onethrough seven scale, you know,
or something along those lines.
So an interview measure can kindof give you a little bit more
richness in terms of your data,basically, and allow you to ask
some follow up questions aboutpeople's experiences, that might
give you a little more contextand a little bit more of a
nuanced understanding of theirstress. So this is an interview
(16:10):
measure that is what's referredto as semi structured, which
means that there are somespecific questions that you ask
to every single participantabout, you know, so for every
single participant, who doesthis measure, you would ask, How
are things going in your sociallife, or, you know, tell me
about how things are going inyour family life. But then
(16:30):
because it's semi structured,you as the interviewer can sort
of use your knowledge andexpertise and relationship with
that person to add additionalquestions. So basically, you
have some flexibility. And sowhat you do as the interviewer,
well, first, you have to undergoa lot of training. So to your
question about reliability andvalidity. I wish it were as
(16:52):
simple as just, you know, here'sthe interview questions, go
ahead and do it. Before you getto that stage, though, you have
to be trained such that, let'ssay you and I are both
interviewing a givenparticipant, and we want to
understand their social lifestress. Ultimately, what we do
using this interview is providea numerical score that sort of
(17:16):
aligns with the level of stressyou're experiencing in that area
of their life. But we have tomake sure that you and I are
giving about the same rating,right to the same participant
because otherwise, our ourmeasure lacks that reliability
or that kind of consistencybetween different raters. And
that's really, really important.
(17:37):
Because if if you would give aperson a one, you know, saying
that they have no stress, and Iwould give them a five
indicating that they haveextreme stress. Then our measure
becomes kind of useless. So in acouple of the studies that I did
involving this interview, I ranthese when I was a graduate
student, and I trainedundergraduate research
(18:00):
assistants to to run theseinterviews. So they first
underwent training, part of theway we do that is to have them
listen to mock interviews, andpractice giving ratings. And
then once they achieve a certainstandard of reliability amongst
that group, or what's calledinter rater reliability, then we
(18:23):
know you're good to go. You canyou can do this. And then
there's actually checks that wedid after the study to ensure
that we were consistent amongour rating based on the
participant pool that weactually used as well.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (18:38):
Dalton notes, the instrument asked
questions about family, friends,school and work health. With
interviewers listening for acuteor one time stressors within
each domain. Each interviewtakes between 45 minutes to just
over an hour. So if you took thefamily one, just so that
listeners can can get a picture,how would you feel? Would you
phrase a question that isgetting it stressors that a
(19:01):
person is experiencing in theirfamily?
Unknown (19:04):
Yes, you could start out in a fairly open ended kind
of a way. So even just tell meabout how things have been going
with your family and the pastsix months or in the past year?
And, you know, depending on howa person responds, if they say,
Oh, it's been fine. You know,you might sort of say, okay,
it's been fine. Can you tell mea little bit more about what
that means? You know, have Haveyou had contact with folks, have
(19:25):
you seen folks, you know, what'sthat sort of been like? And so
you really do use those sort offollow up questions and, and
then a person might respond bysaying, you know, I'm pretty
close to my family, I can turnto them for help, or I was
dealing with this thing and theywere there for me. And that
might start to indicate sort ofa good quality of communication
(19:47):
and relationships and, and maybemore a family that serving as a
support system rather than astressor. Or conversely, you
know, if they sort of describethat they Things have been
really contentious, or there'sbeen a number of arguments or
disagreements, then you mightsort of follow up a bit more
about about that. Not that youneed every detail necessarily,
(20:11):
but you sort of want tounderstand the the nature and
the quality of that. And thenthat might start to look like a
situation that is, in fact,causing a person stress or
strain.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (20:26):
So let's turn to positive and negative
effect and also the impact ofdepression. In your 2017 study,
I thought it was just reallyfascinating about how
depression, interacted and waysof stress that didn't surprise
me, but also ways in which maybeit's not in lockstep with some
of our ideas of stress. Youknow, there's a complex
(20:49):
relationship there. And I thinkI wanted to read this quote from
you really quick, he said,stressful life events and
circumstances are well knowncauses of depressive symptoms
and disorders, and individualsuffering from symptoms of
depression have elevated ratesof stressful life events and
circumstances, relative to theirnon depressed peers. Tell us
about what your understandingabout this complex relationship
(21:12):
between depression and stress.
Unknown (21:15):
So it is, as you said, you know, it's a very
complicated relationship. And soone thing that can happen is
sort of a causal model, right?
Where life stress can causesomebody to experience
depression, or at least triggeror sort of serve as a catalyst
for the experience ofdepression. But we know that
that's not what always happens.
(21:37):
So some people who experiencedepression, it's not really
linked to, you know, a stressfullife event, like they can't
point to something and say, oh,it started after I lost my job,
or it started after I lost aloved one, you know, where
there's a clear kind ofconnection there. But, but that
can happen. And we do know, theresearch supports the idea that
(21:58):
people who have higher levels ofchronic and acute stress are at
heightened risk for developingdepression. But then this other
thing can happen, where as andas I mentioned, I kind of saw
this clinically, in my work as aresearch coordinator, where once
people are suffering from adepressive disorder, or even,
(22:20):
you know, heightened symptoms ofdepression, they can
subsequently experience morestressors. And, and so that
theory, that idea is somethingthat my PhD advisor, Dr. Hammon,
conceptualized as what's calledstress generation, or the stress
generation hypothesis. So forpeople who who have depression
(22:42):
and some other conditions, theysubsequently experience more
stress than people who do not,you know, are not experiencing
those kinds of things. So, sothat's those are sort of two
things that can happen.
Additionally, though, there'sother ways that stress and
depression can interact. So itmight also be the case that once
(23:03):
a person is is suffering fromdepression, when they experience
stressors, those could have amore negative effect on them
than they would on people whoaren't suffering from
depression. So you know, if youjust think about the fact that
depression can affect motivationand concentration, and a
(23:24):
person's ability to enjoythings, then having extra stress
piled up on top of that might beeven more of a hit, or and kind
of harder to cope with than itwould be if somebody wasn't
dealing with depression. Sothere's kind of all these
different ways that thesefactors can can relate to one
another. And so that sort of waspart of what got me interested
(23:48):
in trying to understand how someof these effects might play out
on a day to day basis. So, youknow, we know that that broadly
speaking, right, depression andstress are connected. But But
what are some of the mechanismsthrough which that happens or
affects us day to day. And inparticular, you know, one thing
I started to get interested into, was this connection between
(24:11):
stress and our physical health.
So, as you know, we talked alittle bit about we know that
stress is associated with poorphysical health. And we know
from prior research that thiscan happen for a lot of
different reasons, actually. Soin part, stress directly affects
our bodies. So when weexperience repeated stress that
(24:35):
can affect things likeinflammation in the body, which
can make us more susceptible toillness. There's actually
evidence that stress can changeour gut microbiome, our
cardiovascular reactivity. Andso these are all things that can
put us at risk for for variousnegative health outcomes. But
another way that this can happenand does happen is that stress
(24:57):
can also change and effect ourhealth behaviors. So sometimes
when we experience stress, we dodifferent things to cope or kind
of respond or help us feelbetter. And some of those
involved things like, are thefoods that we choose to eat. So
stress eating, for example, iskind of, I think, a very
(25:19):
relatable example of this where,you know, you've had a crummy
day, right? There's been a lotof daily hassles or daily
stressors, what's going to makeyou feel good? A bowl of ice
cream and a brownie.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (25:29):
It's, it's definitely for me a core
COVID experience right now Ifeel like,
Elizabeth Dalton (25:33):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Exactly. Right. I
think, especially in the time ofCOVID, a lot of us can, can
relate to that idea. Butsometimes, you know, our sleep
gets disrupted because ofstress. We might be more or less
inclined to engage in exerciseor physical activity. In a more
(25:55):
potentially damaging response.
Sometimes people use substancesto cope with stress, and to kind
of alleviate some of the tensionand things like that associated
with stressors. And so that'sanother mechanism through which
stress or even possiblydepression could affect our
physical health.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (26:18):
In Dalton's 2017 study, she and her
colleagues studied behaviorssuch as eating, sleep, exercise,
or substance use, andconnections between daily health
behaviors, and potentialinfluencers, such as stressful
situations or depression.
College students whoparticipated in the study,
completed the UCLA stressinterview at study start, and
(26:40):
then completed a daily surveyabout health practices and
stress that they experienced.
Unknown (26:49):
And what we've found ultimately from that study was
that, indeed, depressivesymptoms were associated with
health behavior practices. Sohaving more symptoms of
depression, was associated withworsened health behavior
practices. Similarly, and notsurprisingly, but consistent
(27:09):
with study hypotheses, chronicstress, so people who came in
with a higher level of chronicstress, they seem to exhibit
unhealthier daily practices. Andthen interestingly, acute
stressful life events were notin our study associated with
health behaviors. So there wasnot a significant relationship
(27:30):
there, it didn't seem likehaving more acute stressful life
events, led to worse healthbehaviors. But those daily
stressors really mattered,actually, in our study. So
having more, you know, again,these are mundane things like
you're late to a meeting or youhad an exam, or you had a
disagreement with a roommate,you know, those were some of the
common types of daily stressorsthat that emerged in our study,
(27:53):
those things affected healthbehavior practices. So on days,
when when people had more dailystressors, they, you know,
tended to not get as good ofsleep, but they maybe didn't
exercise as much their dietsmaybe weren't as good. You know,
we saw changes to substance usefor folks who did use substance
use in the sample. And so thatwas kind of interesting to me
(28:16):
and sort of further reinforcedmy interest in understanding
some of those day to dayeffects. Because maybe that
doesn't matter as much on anyone given day. Right. So you
know, that one bowl of ice creamand brownie in the long run, you
know, not a big deal. And maybea good way to cope every now and
again. But if that's sort ofrepeated over time, right, so if
(28:39):
that's a consistent effect ofdaily hassles or daily
stressors, then we might startto see more problematic
outcomes.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (28:52):
So what are some of the most recognized
coping mechanisms that teachersshould remember? That helps
people to kind of navigate dailystresses and chronic stress? And
yeah,
Unknown (29:06):
yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so coping goes hand in
hand with stress, right? So, youknow, because stress is, is
universal and inescapable, it's,it's just as important to study
and understand the ways that werespond to it or cope with it as
it is to understand stress as a,as a phenomenon in and of
(29:27):
itself. So yeah, in the, in thepsychological literature, I
mean, I think it's similar theway that we think about and
define coping, but, butoftentimes, we're using coping
sort of broadly to refer to anybehavioral or psychological
effort to respond to or tolerateor reduce or minimize a
(29:47):
stressor. So, so that's prettybroad, right? I mean, it's sort
of any response. coping, as Ijust kind of alluded to with
health behaviors can bedeliberate, but it need not be
so You know, sometimes we we arecoping, we are responding even
if we wouldn't specificallylabel it as such. And one thing
(30:08):
I always like to keep in mind isthat, you know, for the most
part, the ways that we cope orrespond to stress aren't
categorically good or bad forus. So sometimes, you know,
distraction might be a reallygood choice. In the moment, that
might be a really healthy andadaptive way to cope. Like if
you have a big meeting, youknow, and you've already done
(30:31):
all you can do to prepare, maybein the half an hour leading up
to it, going for a walk, or, youknow, doing something else is
actually helpful, you know, andyou don't need to be thinking
about the stressor all the time.
But at the same time, taken toofar, of course, distraction
could be problematic orunhelpful. So, you know, if you
use distraction to the exclusionof say, studying for an exam, at
(30:54):
some point, that becomesproblematic. And so I think
that's true for a lot of typesof coping where, you know, in,
in limited amounts, manydifferent types of coping could
potentially be adaptive orhelpful. But similarly taken to
an extreme or used to theexclusion of other types of
coping, they can becomeunhelpful, you know, I do think
(31:15):
there's, there's lots ofdifferent ways to conceptualize
your sort of categorize coping,one sort of broad category that
sometimes used that I'm sureteachers experienced in their in
their day to day in theirclassrooms, would be a tendency
sort of, approach coping versusavoidance coping, you know, so
for some students, for somepeople, they might tend to rely
(31:38):
more on on an approach-orientedmodel. So like, here's the
stressor, let me face it, let mestart doing things to deal with
it. Whereas for other people, orjust in some circumstances, a
given person might be inclinedtowards avoidance. So sometimes
that's procrastination, or angeror distraction, or sort of
refusal to engage in a in acertain activity. Again, I don't
(32:02):
want to universally say thatapproach is always good and
avoidance is always bad, becauseI don't think that's true. But I
think it can be helpful to knowwhich way you tend to go, right,
or which way your students tendto go. And, and maybe kind of be
on the lookout for that a bit.
Elizabeth Dalton (32:25):
But yeah, other other ways that that we
cope, there's a lot of evidencethat turning to others is often
a very helpful and adaptive wayto cope. So seeking out social
support, you know, connection,those opportunities to sort of
talk with other people aboutwhat we're going through, or
even get more tangible support,which is certainly relevant for
(32:47):
a teacher's role that they areoften serving as that source of
support to their students,that's often very protective in
terms of the negative effects ofstress. And so just having
people in your life that you cantrust, and you can turn to, can
really help to buffer againstsome of the negative effects of
stress.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (33:07):
I feel like some of the other things
that I've seen teachers turn tois like the deep breath at the
start of a rehearsal or someform of centering as we as we
move towards mindfulness towardthe end of this interview, but
some of those those techniques,right.
Elizabeth Dalton (33:22):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And so, right, all
those things are coping to soeven the the sort of strategies
that we devise, whether that isbreathing or its mantra, you
know, that people say tothemselves, or something, they
remind themselves of that that'sall coping and often very, very
helpful,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (33:42):
which I think turns us to your next
study, which is about beliefsabout exercise. So what I think
I take from that is that when wehave a belief or an
understanding that this tool forme, helps me cope, then it
increases the use and thesuccess of that coping am I
interpreting that right?
Unknown (34:03):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, so So just as we
talked about the fact that ourbeliefs about stress matter,
right, so the way that weperceive and think about stress
matters, so to do our beliefsabout coping, and and what we
think will will be helpful,really does matter. Yeah, so in
(34:24):
this study that that youreferenced, found support again,
in a sample of college studentsthat students' beliefs about
exercise as a coping mechanism.
So the extent to which theyagreed with statements like
"exercise helps me to reducetension" or "exercise gives me
space to think" those things didin fact, predict their use of
(34:44):
exercise in response tonaturally occurring stressors
that came up for them day to dayor week to week. And so I think
that's promising, I guess in asense, because You know, first
of all it's coping can be good,right? Just as I mentioned,
though, taken to an extreme,even something like exercise
(35:07):
could be problematic. So we wantto keep that in mind. But
there's healthy ways to do thattoo, right? So going for a walk
or you know, taking a quickphysical activity break. Those
can actually be, you know, quitehelpful ways to disrupt the
stressor or sort of giveyourself some space and time to
think. But also, the good newsabout beliefs or sort of
(35:27):
perceptions is that they'remodifiable. And and I think
there there is room foreducators and others to sort of
help shape a person's beliefabout their ability to cope or
respond to a stressor in a waythat can be really adaptive and
hopeful.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (35:48):
Turning to mindfulness, we turn to a
2021 paper and study by doctorstomasa Stratta, and Elizabeth
Dalton. On a mindfulnessintervention within engineering
education, like music andpeacebuilding, good engineers
need to lean into situations ofambiguity, that require
vulnerability and intellectualstretching to solve new and
(36:11):
challenging problems. In thisstudy, Estrada and Dalton
explored a curiosity of whethermindfulness might enhance
academic context.
So Tomas, I'm going to startwith the definition of
mindfulness. And I want to getyour response to how you define
mindfulness. So in your articleI read mindfulness means paying
(36:34):
attention in a particular way,on purpose in the present
moment, and non judgmental, andthere's another quote,
mindfulness shows us what ishappening in our bodies, our
emotions, our minds and in theworld. Through mindfulness, we
avoid harming ourselves andothers. So can you talk about
what your experience ofmindfulness is and how you draw
(36:55):
these boundaries of what ismindfulness and what is not
mindfulness?
Toms Estrada (36:59):
I'm very fond of the first definition that you
that you read out loud, I thinkit gets at the heart of how I
understand mindfulness. And thisidea that whatever it is that
you're doing, you could be doinganything in particular. So a lot
of times when people think ofmindfulness, they think of
sitting on an on a pillow,perhaps, you know, doing some
(37:20):
very formal meditations, perhapshumming a mantra and inhaling
some incense, and all of thatcan be part of it. But it
doesn't have to be. So you canbe doing just about any everyday
activity in a mindful way. Soyou could be practicing
mindfulness, while foldinglaundry, while doing the dishes.
(37:43):
Or you could be also practicingmindfulness while deliberately
doing a meditation exercise. Sothere's, there's those two
different types. And we refer tothe former as informal
mindfulness, where we'reessentially practicing
mindfulness in everydayactivities, and the latter as
formal mindfulness where we aresetting the time and going to a
(38:04):
particular location to to do aspecific exercise, this idea of
whatever it is that you'redoing, you're doing it on
purpose, and you're doing itfully, you are entirely present
while doing it. And one of thequestions that I always enjoy
when Liz explores this topic, isshe she'll ask- Okay, if you're
(38:28):
in the present moment, where areyou not? And the answers are,
well, of course, you're not inthe future, and you're not in
the past. But if we if we thinkabout how often our minds are
indeed, in the future, in thepast, it can be, it can be kind
of scary. I know that formyself, there are days when I
might be, for example, havinglunch, and maybe I've got a
(38:51):
meeting that I'm preparing forthat's coming up right after
lunch, and maybe I finished themeal. And I didn't even realize
that I ate like the my plate isnow empty. But the whole time I
was looking ahead, my mind wasin the future. And so I was not
eating in a mindful way. I wasnot practicing mindfulness in
that in that regard.
Kevin Shorner-Johns (39:15):
Mindfulness is that sense of presentness an
orientation that simultaneouslyinvites a slowing a
relationship, and an invitationto disrupt the violence of
speed, escalation anddistraction. In Thich Nhat
Hanh's book on peace andmindfulness, he writes, "peace
(39:36):
is present right here and now inourselves and in everything we
do and see. Every breath wetake, every step we take, can be
filled with peace, joy andserenity. The question is
whether or not we are in touchwith it. We need only to be
awake, alive in the presentmoment." Tell us about the
(40:03):
exercises that you did withengineering students. You know
what time of the day you did it?
Was there a progression ofactivities that you did? How
structured or unstructured? Wasit? Can you kind of walk us
through that a little bit? Andwhat that was like?
Toms Estrada (40:16):
Yeah, so we had, for each group of students, we
had four sessions each one hourlong. Typically, they were once
a week, either Wednesdays, orThursdays at 4pm. And so four to
5pm. These were students thatvolunteered to be there, they
(40:38):
were typically in my classes,and I did bribe them with extra
credit in case you know, just togive him a little extra
motivation. But but that wasthat was the setup. And it would
be myself and Liz, leading, Lizwould lead the sessions. But I
thought my presence there, sincethey knew me from class, and I
(40:58):
already had a pretty goodrapport with the students would
make them feel more comfortable.
And for myself, as somebody whopractices meditation in his own
life, it was exciting to be ableto share some of these practices
with my students, I haddefinitely experienced a lot of
the benefits of my own personallife. So yeah, I thought all my
students can certainly benefitfrom from all these, yeah, just
(41:20):
great things in terms of stressreduction, feeling more
centered, more balanced, andhopefully, it'll impact their
personal life, their academiclife, and so on.
We would sit in a circle, andLiz would usually everyday and
(41:40):
we would center on like one ortwo topics or types of
mindfulness. So she would startwith a particular either a
mindfulness check in, or afairly simple exercise, then we
will talk about what were theexperiences the students had
with that, and explore some ofthe theory behind it as to why
(42:05):
you know, why this might bebeneficial, you know, in what
ways they could incorporate thatinto, into their everyday life,
and so on. So, so that was thestructure. And we made, we tried
different things, such as I gavethe example of eating lunch. So
one of the first section as wedid with some mindful eating,
(42:26):
where we had this veryinteresting exercise in which we
brought a pack of raisins. Andeverybody had to essentially eat
a raisin with some guidance fromLiz, essentially as mindfulness
as mindfully as possible. Andthe, for me, it was pretty mind
(42:49):
blowing. And that something assimple as eating a raisin, which
is, I think, most people wouldagree, it's not the most,
perhaps like most attractivefood became a really, really
interesting experience. And anexperience where you're
involving the whole body here inlight, involving all the senses,
you're, you're looking at it,you are bringing it up to your
(43:13):
nose, and like really smellingit, you're you're touching it
from all the different angles,as you you know, pop it in your
mouth, you don't bite it rightaway, but you, you know, feel
its weight in your, in yourmouth, and, and the whole
process becomes, yeah, justfascinating. So that was one
that to me, was veryinteresting. And I could see
(43:35):
then how the students reacted tothat, because this is an
experience where all of us eatall the time. And so often it's
an automatic, yeah, an automatictype of action. Yeah, so so that
was that was one type we, wealso did some of the other ones
that you that you mentioned. Sofor example, sitting and
(43:56):
breathing exercises, we did abody scan, we did a walking
meditation, its the one timethat we actually left the room,
to walk in this slow, deliberatemindful way. And noticing how
each step, like through eachstep, like how the body felt,
(44:17):
what our you know, all our oursenses were perceiving through
the walk. So yeah, and they gotreminders from us mid week,
about the mindfulness practice,they have learned and
encouragement to practice onyour own.
Elizabeth Dalton (44:35):
So when we experience stress, or we're sad
or frustrated or angry, we mightbe inclined to not be that way.
Right? And to kind of push thatout of our experience. But
actually, there's evidence andsort of reason to believe that
our ability to to feel thoseemotions to sort of have an
attitude of acceptance towardsthat and to not have not
(45:00):
necessarily have that immediatereaction to push it away or try
to ignore it, that that mightactually be really helpful. So
that capacity to sort of bemindfully aware or mindfully
nonreactive to those experiencesmight do us good and might sort
of better serve us and how werespond to stress and other
negative or difficult events.
And then that connection to sortof curiosity and exploration
(45:23):
came from, from some evidencethat, that mindfulness might
actually help facilitate certainsort of academic capacities and
outcomes. So for example,there's prior research to
suggest that students who havethat sort of high capacity for
mindful awareness can also bemore innovative, and might also
(45:44):
perform better in sort of highstress or high stakes exams or
evaluations. And so TomasEstrada, and I did a first a
survey study, looking atstudents in the engineering
department and a couple of otheracademic departments to look at
that relationship betweenmindfulness and the ability to
(46:06):
sort of be curious andinterested, right in new
academic ideas, or, or new andchallenging sort of projects,
and an ability to explore newideas as well. The idea being
that those might be especiallyhelpful to an engineer, right,
so your interest in in capacityfor sort of new problem solving
(46:28):
or intellectual stretching andmotivation, those might serve
you well in that particulardomain. And indeed, we did find
that students ability to bemindfully non reactive to to
their environments. So sort ofsit with stress, or sort of sit
with tension or anxiety that waspositively associated with their
(46:51):
preference for gaining newinformation and sort of their
intellectual curiosity, as wellas their ability to kind of
tolerate uncertainty aboutthings. So So that's another
psychological phenomenon that isthought to relate back to sort
of stress anxiety, the betterable we are to accept when we
(47:11):
don't know what's going tohappen, which is a tough thing
to do. You know, as humans, Ithink we're inclined to want to
know exactly what's going tohappen. But our ability to to
not get too hung up on that andto be open to uncertainty is
actually a helpful trait, andmight also sort of affect the
way that we experience stressfulsituations.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (47:37):
In peacebuilding literature, I love
how John Paul Lederachtranslates notions of ambiguity,
intellectual stretching andvulnerability into notions of
space that are infused with thecreative stress of risk.
Lederach writes, to live betweenmemory and potentiality is to
(47:57):
live permanently in a creativespace, pregnant with the
unexpected, but it is also tolive in the permanency of risk,
for the journey between whatlies behind and what lies ahead,
is never fully comprehended, noreven controlled. Such a space,
however, is the womb ofconstructive change, the
(48:20):
continuous birthplace of thepast that lies before us.
Anything I haven't asked youabout this topic that you wish I
would have asked, you
Unknown (48:33):
No, I mean, I think these have been great questions.
I'm always excited to get totalk about this kind of stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, I think, youknow, some of the takeaways then
for for teachers are that, it, Ithink it's really helpful to
sort of create an environmentwhere stress is not the enemy,
(48:55):
right? Or it's not necessarilyeven something to be avoided.
But helping students to sort ofcultivate those attitudes and
beliefs that they can learn andgrow from these experiences that
they they have, or they canfurther build and develop ways
to cope and that they can feelconfident in that, that that's
(49:16):
going to help them not only inthe classroom right to kind of
potentially be comfortableexperiencing uncertainty or you
know, exploring new things thatthey're not as comfortable with,
but but also just in life,because the way that they
learned to cope with stressearly on can really kind of set
the stage for their ability tocontinue to do that down the
road.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (49:38):
Special thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Dalton
and Dr. Tomas Estrada for theirsharing of time and expertise. I
will be taking a longer breakover the summer to center my own
self care and spend time writingafter what has been a very
difficult year. My wishes toeach of you that this time of
summer might be a time of restand renewal. When this podcast
(50:03):
returns, we will have episodescoming on Balinese gamelan, a
refugee youth choir in Lebanon,artistic peacebuilding and
Columbia. Research on divisionand hate and more narratives
exploring the power ofpeacebuilding and teaching. Stay
tuned. This is the music andpeacebuilding podcast hosted by
(50:24):
Kevin Shorner-Johnson. AtElizabethtown college we host a
master of music education withan emphasis on peacebuilding.
thinking deeply we reclaim spacefor connection and care. Join us
at music peace building.com
I think it's really helpful to sort of create
an environment where stress isnot the enemy, right? Or it's
not necessarily even somethingto be avoided, but helping
students to sort of cultivatethose attitudes and beliefs that
they can learn and grow fromthese experiences that they they
have or they can further buildand develop ways to cope, and
(00:23):
that they can feel confident inthat, that that's going to help
them not only in the classroom,but but also just in life.
Because the way that they learnto cope with stress early on can
really kind of set the stage fortheir ability to continue to do
that down the road.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (00:38):
You are listening to the music and
peacebuilding podcast, aprofessional development network
at music peacebuilding calm,exploring intersections of
peacebuilding, sacredness,community, creativity and
imagination. Through researchand story. Dr. Elizabeth Dalton
is a clinical psychologist withresearch interest in stress,
(00:59):
mood and physical healthbehaviors and outcomes. Dr.
Dalton completed her graduatetraining at UCLA, where she
studies how stress anddepression influence health
behaviors like eating, sleeping,exercise and substance use among
young adults. As part of herclinical training, Dr. Dalton
has worked in community mentalhealth centers and hospitals and
(01:22):
completed her clinicalinternship year at New York
Presbyterian Hospital WeillCornell Medical Center. Dr.
Dalton teaches in the psychologydepartment at Elizabethtown
college. Our second guest laterin the program is Dr. Tomas
Estrada, associate professor ofphysics and engineering at
Elizabethtown college. Estradais committed to fostering multi
(01:45):
disciplinary and holisticthinking in his students, and to
exemplify it through his ownscholarly work. His research
interests include systems andcontrols, engineering,
education, technology,entrepreneurship, and
sustainable engineeringapplications. In preparing for
this summer's focus on socialemotional learning, this episode
(02:07):
takes an interdisciplinary lookat research on stress and
mindfulness. Because stress inour health behaviors play a
significant role within socialemotional learning classrooms,
and work toward peace, Thisresearch may shed light on the
complexity of this mental healthconstruct, and ways to build
(02:28):
compassionate and humane spacesfor learning. First, we turn to
how Dr. Dalton came upon thisresearch area,
Elizabeth Dalton (02:37):
I would say that I first started to become
interested in studying stressand trying to understand stress
when I worked as a researchcoordinator at a depression
treatment center, which was atthe Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston. So I workedthere for a couple of years
after I did my undergraduatedegree in psychology. And there
(03:00):
I had the opportunity to tospeak and work with many
different people who had beenstruggling with depression and
depressive disorders for a longtime. So for many of these
individuals who were coming intoour clinic, they'd really been
suffering for years. And formany of them, unfortunately,
they hadn't responded well todifferent treatments that are
(03:21):
usually used to help withdepression. And it kind of
became just clear in in talkingwith these individuals that for
many of them life, stress andlife stressors played a really
big role in their experience.
And so for some of them, thatsort of took the format of
stressors that kind of triggeredtheir depression or or served as
(03:42):
a catalyst for their experienceof depression. But for others,
it also became clear thatdepression became a source of
such significant stress in theirlife, by virtue of some of the
different symptoms andexperiences that accompany
depression, like socialisolation, lack of motivation,
you know, these were things thatthen subsequently caused them to
(04:04):
experience a really heighteneddegree of stress in their lives.
So it was really that kind ofunderstanding that that piqued
my interest in the topicinitially. And so then I had the
good fortune of going to theUniversity of California, Los
Angeles to do my PhD. And I, Ipicked that program specifically
because I knew I would get towork with a researcher by the
(04:27):
name of Constance Hammon, whofocuses on the bi directional
relationships between stress anddepression. So as part of my PhD
training in clinical psychology,I really got to delve into some
of that research and start toexplore that further.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (04:48):
So let's open up maybe an overview of
stress. Eventually, I want toget into your language of
chronic, acute and daily stress.
But before we get there, I wantto get an overview of stress.
You know, I think I sense froman ecological model, there's
often this talk about stressbeing a good thing that stress
can be very healthy. So myquestion is maybe, you know,
(05:08):
what is stress? When is ithelpful? And when does it bring
harm?
Unknown (05:14):
So yeah, one of the things that I think sort of
really fascinates me abouttrying to study and also to
teach about stress is the extentto which it's really such a
difficult thing to kind of pindown, right. So, you know, it's
universally experienced, we alltalk about stress, we all have
stress. And yet, when we usethose terms, were referring to a
(05:38):
whole host of different things.
So sometimes we're using thatterm to refer to external
experiences, or external eventsthat have happened to us. Other
times, we're using it to referto a physical state in our
bodies, as well as our emotionaland cognitive experiences. So I
think one challenge historicallyin the psychological literature
(06:02):
around stress is, how are wedefining this? How are we
measuring it? You know, how arewe trying to pin down something
that is so just so challengingto really quantify? So one kind
of broad way to think aboutstress or that stress has sort
of been defined from apsychological perspective is
(06:22):
some kind of external demandthat necessitates or prompts a
change in the body, you know, sosomething happens that demands
that we respond, we react. Andso based on that sort of
conceptualization, when thisdemand is perceived as really
taxing, or especially exceedingour resources or capabilities,
(06:47):
it's then that we mightexperience that stress is more
negative, or more adversive. Sothere's some demand. And then,
inherent in our understandingand conceptualization of that
stress, is our sort ofrecognition of what that means,
do we have the ability to cope?
Do we have the ability torespond?
(07:17):
To your point, though, I thinkit's so so important to remember
that stress is not the enemy.
So, you know, it's, I think thisis sort of a risk and a fine
line that I know, I try to walkwhen I'm teaching and thinking
about stress, because we'll getinto this momentarily. But there
is, of course, a lot of evidencethat stress can have negative
effects. But there's also anumber of ways in which it is or
(07:40):
it can be positive too. So forone thing, our body's response
to stress, which includes thingslike the activation of the fight
or flight system, and you know,corresponding changes in
cortisol and heart rate, andsweating, and all of those
things that our body does tokind of help us respond to
stress, that's actually veryadaptive. So, so we've evolved
(08:02):
really well, and really nicelyto deal with especially short
term stressors. So sort ofshort, acute things that come
up, our bodies are well equippedto deal with that. And that can
be really helpful, that kind ofreaction on the part of our body
can be really helpful. So weknow then that the experience of
(08:23):
stress, and I think we all atleast can sort of get on board
with the idea that it can bemotivating. So like the stress
of a deadline, for example, youknow, can can help us get things
done. Usually, for all of us, itvaries, but for most of us,
there is some kind of optimallevel of stress that is
associated with bestperformance. So I'm sure as a
musician, you know, you kind ofthink about that, you know, in
(08:47):
the sense of, you're performingin front of an audience, maybe
that does sort of help youactually in a good way to have
have a good performance. And sothat's, you know, those are all
good things that stress can dofor us. And there's actually
some really fascinating researchthat's not not mine, but work by
Kelly McGonigal at StanfordUniversity, and some other
(09:09):
researchers, that is reallyhighlighted that that one thing
that really matters is the waythat we think about our stress.
So, for instance, people whoview stress as a helpful part of
life, so who kind of have thatmindset, we know that that
there's evidence they havebetter physical health, that
(09:29):
they have better, emotional wellbeing, that they're more
productive in work, and thatthose things are true even when
they have high levels of stress.
So even when those demands are,you know, exceeding or really
taxing resources, those mindsetsthose attitudes, can actually be
(09:51):
quite adaptive, and quitehelpful. So to the extent that
we can view our body's responseto stress as helpful, rather
Then debilitating, so tellingourselves things like, Oh, my
body's giving me energy. This issomething that's really helpful
to me. That's, you know, that'san adaptive mindset. If we view
(10:13):
our ability to handle stress, ifwe think like, you know, I can
cope with this, or I can learn,and I can grow from this
experience, those are alsothings that are associated with
better outcomes, betterresponses to stress. And then
there's also evidence that ithelps to keep in mind the
universal nature of stress. So,you know, this is not something
(10:35):
that's unique to me, like thedifficult things that I'm
dealing with are things thatother people experience or even
if they don't experience thisexact set of situations, other
people have dealt with similarthings. So we know that all of
those kind of mindsets or waysof thinking can be really
helpful.
(10:59):
What we know, though, in termsof physical and mental health,
is that when stressors arechronic in nature, so when
they're ongoing when they'rerecurrent, you know, when it's
kind of one thing after another,that is where we start to see
stress, take more of a toll, orat least have that potential to
take more of a negative toll onour minds and bodies. And so
(11:23):
that's, that's something thathas sort of been pretty
consistently identified anddemonstrated in the literature.
And so to your question aboutthose, those terms of sort of
chronic, acute and daily, sobecause stress means so many
different things, you know, toso many different people, one of
the ways that researchers inpsychology and other fields have
(11:46):
tried to kind of pin down moreconcrete ways of conceptualizing
this idea is by understandingsomething about the chronicity,
or duration of stressorsexperienced. So, when we use the
term chronic, as I mentioned,we're referring to more ongoing
recurrent life conditions. Sofor example, a person who has a
(12:09):
chronic illness, right, that'ssomething that's going to
continually affect them for along period of time, in a number
of different ways, there mightbe episodes that are worse or
times when it's a little biteasier to manage. But there's,
it would be expected that that'ssort of a recurrent source of
stress or strain. Something likeexperiencing poverty or low
(12:30):
socio economic status, that'soften you know, conceptualized
as a chronic or recurringstressor. People who are
chronically dealing with racism,for example, or sexism, you
know, or other types ofdiscrimination. Unfortunately,
those can be chronic experiencesas well. And so it's it's often
(12:51):
been identified that those typesof really ongoing life stressors
that can be the most detrimentalto our health, the term acute
stress is used to often identifywhat are more time limited, but
still fairly significant lifeevents. So sort of one time,
things that might come up noteveryday events. But they can
(13:15):
have, you know, more profoundconsequences, potentially. So a
person loses a job, for example,that's a pretty significant life
stressor, having to undergo asurgery. Sometimes even things
that might be positive can be aone time acute life event,
that's a stressor. So gettingmarried or having a child, you
(13:36):
know, for somebody that might bea positive thing that they
wanted in their life. Butthere's also stress around that
event. So that's another sort ofarea of stressors that we can
consider. And then finally, andone thing that I become
increasingly interested in are,the more mundane, the kinds of
(13:56):
stressors, or we sometimes usethe word hassles to refer to
more minor sources of stress orstrain, that kind of just occur
in the course of a normal day.
So, you know, now I'm thinkingabout your internet goes down.
When you're in a meeting, oryou're running late to
something, or you've misplacedyour phone, you know, these
things that they're not majorlife events, but it seems that
(14:18):
there's the potential for themto sort of accumulate and
collect over the course of a dayor days or weeks, in a way that
might impact us. And so those wecould think of as, again, sort
of daily stressors or dailyhassles.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (14:41):
And so in so many of your studies, you use
measures that have been testedfor validity and reliability,
and I want to get into this, Ithink it'll help our master
students as they considerresearch projects. So can you
talk about the UCLA life stressinterview, and how that works
and how you go about Breakingdown such a nebulous idea of
(15:02):
stress into something that canbe measured.
Unknown (15:05):
So the UCLA life stress interview, is a measure that was
designed by my graduate schoolmentor Constance Hammon, as a
way to primarily assess chronicand acute stress. So rather than
being sort of a questionnairethat people can fill out, you
know, pencil and paper on acomputer. Questionnaires have
(15:27):
lots of advantages so I usethose a lot, too. But one
downside is that you don't get alot of context from a
questionnaire. So people mighthave sort of a more
idiosyncratic interpretation ofa given question, they might
want to further explainthemselves, but there's not
really the opportunity to dothat, when you're just being
(15:48):
asked to rate something on a onethrough seven scale, you know,
or something along those lines.
So an interview measure can kindof give you a little bit more
richness in terms of your data,basically, and allow you to ask
some follow up questions aboutpeople's experiences, that might
give you a little more contextand a little bit more of a
nuanced understanding of theirstress. So this is an interview
(16:10):
measure that is what's referredto as semi structured, which
means that there are somespecific questions that you ask
to every single participantabout, you know, so for every
single participant, who doesthis measure, you would ask, How
are things going in your sociallife, or, you know, tell me
about how things are going inyour family life. But then
(16:30):
because it's semi structured,you as the interviewer can sort
of use your knowledge andexpertise and relationship with
that person to add additionalquestions. So basically, you
have some flexibility. And sowhat you do as the interviewer,
well, first, you have to undergoa lot of training. So to your
question about reliability andvalidity. I wish it were as
(16:52):
simple as just, you know, here'sthe interview questions, go
ahead and do it. Before you getto that stage, though, you have
to be trained such that, let'ssay you and I are both
interviewing a givenparticipant, and we want to
understand their social lifestress. Ultimately, what we do
using this interview is providea numerical score that sort of
(17:16):
aligns with the level of stressyou're experiencing in that area
of their life. But we have tomake sure that you and I are
giving about the same rating,right to the same participant
because otherwise, our ourmeasure lacks that reliability
or that kind of consistencybetween different raters. And
that's really, really important.
(17:37):
Because if if you would give aperson a one, you know, saying
that they have no stress, and Iwould give them a five
indicating that they haveextreme stress. Then our measure
becomes kind of useless. So in acouple of the studies that I did
involving this interview, I ranthese when I was a graduate
student, and I trainedundergraduate research
(18:00):
assistants to to run theseinterviews. So they first
underwent training, part of theway we do that is to have them
listen to mock interviews, andpractice giving ratings. And
then once they achieve a certainstandard of reliability amongst
that group, or what's calledinter rater reliability, then we
(18:23):
know you're good to go. You canyou can do this. And then
there's actually checks that wedid after the study to ensure
that we were consistent amongour rating based on the
participant pool that weactually used as well.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (18:38):
Dalton notes, the instrument asked
questions about family, friends,school and work health. With
interviewers listening for acuteor one time stressors within
each domain. Each interviewtakes between 45 minutes to just
over an hour. So if you took thefamily one, just so that
listeners can can get a picture,how would you feel? Would you
phrase a question that isgetting it stressors that a
(19:01):
person is experiencing in theirfamily?
Unknown (19:04):
Yes, you could start out in a fairly open ended kind
of a way. So even just tell meabout how things have been going
with your family and the pastsix months or in the past year?
And, you know, depending on howa person responds, if they say,
Oh, it's been fine. You know,you might sort of say, okay,
it's been fine. Can you tell mea little bit more about what
that means? You know, have Haveyou had contact with folks, have
(19:25):
you seen folks, you know, what'sthat sort of been like? And so
you really do use those sort offollow up questions and, and
then a person might respond bysaying, you know, I'm pretty
close to my family, I can turnto them for help, or I was
dealing with this thing and theywere there for me. And that
might start to indicate sort ofa good quality of communication
(19:47):
and relationships and, and maybemore a family that serving as a
support system rather than astressor. Or conversely, you
know, if they sort of describethat they Things have been
really contentious, or there'sbeen a number of arguments or
disagreements, then you mightsort of follow up a bit more
about about that. Not that youneed every detail necessarily,
(20:11):
but you sort of want tounderstand the the nature and
the quality of that. And thenthat might start to look like a
situation that is, in fact,causing a person stress or
strain.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (20:26):
So let's turn to positive and negative
effect and also the impact ofdepression. In your 2017 study,
I thought it was just reallyfascinating about how
depression, interacted and waysof stress that didn't surprise
me, but also ways in which maybeit's not in lockstep with some
of our ideas of stress. Youknow, there's a complex
(20:49):
relationship there. And I thinkI wanted to read this quote from
you really quick, he said,stressful life events and
circumstances are well knowncauses of depressive symptoms
and disorders, and individualsuffering from symptoms of
depression have elevated ratesof stressful life events and
circumstances, relative to theirnon depressed peers. Tell us
about what your understandingabout this complex relationship
(21:12):
between depression and stress.
Unknown (21:15):
So it is, as you said, you know, it's a very
complicated relationship. And soone thing that can happen is
sort of a causal model, right?
Where life stress can causesomebody to experience
depression, or at least triggeror sort of serve as a catalyst
for the experience ofdepression. But we know that
that's not what always happens.
(21:37):
So some people who experiencedepression, it's not really
linked to, you know, a stressfullife event, like they can't
point to something and say, oh,it started after I lost my job,
or it started after I lost aloved one, you know, where
there's a clear kind ofconnection there. But, but that
can happen. And we do know, theresearch supports the idea that
(21:58):
people who have higher levels ofchronic and acute stress are at
heightened risk for developingdepression. But then this other
thing can happen, where as andas I mentioned, I kind of saw
this clinically, in my work as aresearch coordinator, where once
people are suffering from adepressive disorder, or even,
(22:20):
you know, heightened symptoms ofdepression, they can
subsequently experience morestressors. And, and so that
theory, that idea is somethingthat my PhD advisor, Dr. Hammon,
conceptualized as what's calledstress generation, or the stress
generation hypothesis. So forpeople who who have depression
(22:42):
and some other conditions, theysubsequently experience more
stress than people who do not,you know, are not experiencing
those kinds of things. So, sothat's those are sort of two
things that can happen.
Additionally, though, there'sother ways that stress and
depression can interact. So itmight also be the case that once
(23:03):
a person is is suffering fromdepression, when they experience
stressors, those could have amore negative effect on them
than they would on people whoaren't suffering from
depression. So you know, if youjust think about the fact that
depression can affect motivationand concentration, and a
(23:24):
person's ability to enjoythings, then having extra stress
piled up on top of that might beeven more of a hit, or and kind
of harder to cope with than itwould be if somebody wasn't
dealing with depression. Sothere's kind of all these
different ways that thesefactors can can relate to one
another. And so that sort of waspart of what got me interested
(23:48):
in trying to understand how someof these effects might play out
on a day to day basis. So, youknow, we know that that broadly
speaking, right, depression andstress are connected. But But
what are some of the mechanismsthrough which that happens or
affects us day to day. And inparticular, you know, one thing
I started to get interested into, was this connection between
(24:11):
stress and our physical health.
So, as you know, we talked alittle bit about we know that
stress is associated with poorphysical health. And we know
from prior research that thiscan happen for a lot of
different reasons, actually. Soin part, stress directly affects
our bodies. So when weexperience repeated stress that
(24:35):
can affect things likeinflammation in the body, which
can make us more susceptible toillness. There's actually
evidence that stress can changeour gut microbiome, our
cardiovascular reactivity. Andso these are all things that can
put us at risk for for variousnegative health outcomes. But
another way that this can happenand does happen is that stress
(24:57):
can also change and effect ourhealth behaviors. So sometimes
when we experience stress, we dodifferent things to cope or kind
of respond or help us feelbetter. And some of those
involved things like, are thefoods that we choose to eat. So
stress eating, for example, iskind of, I think, a very
(25:19):
relatable example of this where,you know, you've had a crummy
day, right? There's been a lotof daily hassles or daily
stressors, what's going to makeyou feel good? A bowl of ice
cream and a brownie.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (25:29):
It's, it's definitely for me a core
COVID experience right now Ifeel like,
Elizabeth Dalton (25:33):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Exactly. Right. I
think, especially in the time ofCOVID, a lot of us can, can
relate to that idea. Butsometimes, you know, our sleep
gets disrupted because ofstress. We might be more or less
inclined to engage in exerciseor physical activity. In a more
(25:55):
potentially damaging response.
Sometimes people use substancesto cope with stress, and to kind
of alleviate some of the tensionand things like that associated
with stressors. And so that'sanother mechanism through which
stress or even possiblydepression could affect our
physical health.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (26:18):
In Dalton's 2017 study, she and her
colleagues studied behaviorssuch as eating, sleep, exercise,
or substance use, andconnections between daily health
behaviors, and potentialinfluencers, such as stressful
situations or depression.
College students whoparticipated in the study,
completed the UCLA stressinterview at study start, and
(26:40):
then completed a daily surveyabout health practices and
stress that they experienced.
Unknown (26:49):
And what we've found ultimately from that study was
that, indeed, depressivesymptoms were associated with
health behavior practices. Sohaving more symptoms of
depression, was associated withworsened health behavior
practices. Similarly, and notsurprisingly, but consistent
(27:09):
with study hypotheses, chronicstress, so people who came in
with a higher level of chronicstress, they seem to exhibit
unhealthier daily practices. Andthen interestingly, acute
stressful life events were notin our study associated with
health behaviors. So there wasnot a significant relationship
(27:30):
there, it didn't seem likehaving more acute stressful life
events, led to worse healthbehaviors. But those daily
stressors really mattered,actually, in our study. So
having more, you know, again,these are mundane things like
you're late to a meeting or youhad an exam, or you had a
disagreement with a roommate,you know, those were some of the
common types of daily stressorsthat that emerged in our study,
(27:53):
those things affected healthbehavior practices. So on days,
when when people had more dailystressors, they, you know,
tended to not get as good ofsleep, but they maybe didn't
exercise as much their dietsmaybe weren't as good. You know,
we saw changes to substance usefor folks who did use substance
use in the sample. And so thatwas kind of interesting to me
(28:16):
and sort of further reinforcedmy interest in understanding
some of those day to dayeffects. Because maybe that
doesn't matter as much on anyone given day. Right. So you
know, that one bowl of ice creamand brownie in the long run, you
know, not a big deal. And maybea good way to cope every now and
again. But if that's sort ofrepeated over time, right, so if
(28:39):
that's a consistent effect ofdaily hassles or daily
stressors, then we might startto see more problematic
outcomes.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (28:52):
So what are some of the most recognized
coping mechanisms that teachersshould remember? That helps
people to kind of navigate dailystresses and chronic stress? And
yeah,
Unknown (29:06):
yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so coping goes hand in
hand with stress, right? So, youknow, because stress is, is
universal and inescapable, it's,it's just as important to study
and understand the ways that werespond to it or cope with it as
it is to understand stress as a,as a phenomenon in and of
(29:27):
itself. So yeah, in the, in thepsychological literature, I
mean, I think it's similar theway that we think about and
define coping, but, butoftentimes, we're using coping
sort of broadly to refer to anybehavioral or psychological
effort to respond to or tolerateor reduce or minimize a
(29:47):
stressor. So, so that's prettybroad, right? I mean, it's sort
of any response. coping, as Ijust kind of alluded to with
health behaviors can bedeliberate, but it need not be
so You know, sometimes we we arecoping, we are responding even
if we wouldn't specificallylabel it as such. And one thing
(30:08):
I always like to keep in mind isthat, you know, for the most
part, the ways that we cope orrespond to stress aren't
categorically good or bad forus. So sometimes, you know,
distraction might be a reallygood choice. In the moment, that
might be a really healthy andadaptive way to cope. Like if
you have a big meeting, youknow, and you've already done
(30:31):
all you can do to prepare, maybein the half an hour leading up
to it, going for a walk, or, youknow, doing something else is
actually helpful, you know, andyou don't need to be thinking
about the stressor all the time.
But at the same time, taken toofar, of course, distraction
could be problematic orunhelpful. So, you know, if you
use distraction to the exclusionof say, studying for an exam, at
(30:54):
some point, that becomesproblematic. And so I think
that's true for a lot of typesof coping where, you know, in,
in limited amounts, manydifferent types of coping could
potentially be adaptive orhelpful. But similarly taken to
an extreme or used to theexclusion of other types of
coping, they can becomeunhelpful, you know, I do think
(31:15):
there's, there's lots ofdifferent ways to conceptualize
your sort of categorize coping,one sort of broad category that
sometimes used that I'm sureteachers experienced in their in
their day to day in theirclassrooms, would be a tendency
sort of, approach coping versusavoidance coping, you know, so
for some students, for somepeople, they might tend to rely
(31:38):
more on on an approach-orientedmodel. So like, here's the
stressor, let me face it, let mestart doing things to deal with
it. Whereas for other people, orjust in some circumstances, a
given person might be inclinedtowards avoidance. So sometimes
that's procrastination, or angeror distraction, or sort of
refusal to engage in a in acertain activity. Again, I don't
(32:02):
want to universally say thatapproach is always good and
avoidance is always bad, becauseI don't think that's true. But I
think it can be helpful to knowwhich way you tend to go, right,
or which way your students tendto go. And, and maybe kind of be
on the lookout for that a bit.
Elizabeth Dalton (32:25):
But yeah, other other ways that that we
cope, there's a lot of evidencethat turning to others is often
a very helpful and adaptive wayto cope. So seeking out social
support, you know, connection,those opportunities to sort of
talk with other people aboutwhat we're going through, or
even get more tangible support,which is certainly relevant for
(32:47):
a teacher's role that they areoften serving as that source of
support to their students,that's often very protective in
terms of the negative effects ofstress. And so just having
people in your life that you cantrust, and you can turn to, can
really help to buffer againstsome of the negative effects of
stress.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (33:07):
I feel like some of the other things
that I've seen teachers turn tois like the deep breath at the
start of a rehearsal or someform of centering as we as we
move towards mindfulness towardthe end of this interview, but
some of those those techniques,right.
Elizabeth Dalton (33:22):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And so, right, all
those things are coping to soeven the the sort of strategies
that we devise, whether that isbreathing or its mantra, you
know, that people say tothemselves, or something, they
remind themselves of that that'sall coping and often very, very
helpful,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (33:42):
which I think turns us to your next
study, which is about beliefsabout exercise. So what I think
I take from that is that when wehave a belief or an
understanding that this tool forme, helps me cope, then it
increases the use and thesuccess of that coping am I
interpreting that right?
Unknown (34:03):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, so So just as we
talked about the fact that ourbeliefs about stress matter,
right, so the way that weperceive and think about stress
matters, so to do our beliefsabout coping, and and what we
think will will be helpful,really does matter. Yeah, so in
(34:24):
this study that that youreferenced, found support again,
in a sample of college studentsthat students' beliefs about
exercise as a coping mechanism.
So the extent to which theyagreed with statements like
"exercise helps me to reducetension" or "exercise gives me
space to think" those things didin fact, predict their use of
(34:44):
exercise in response tonaturally occurring stressors
that came up for them day to dayor week to week. And so I think
that's promising, I guess in asense, because You know, first
of all it's coping can be good,right? Just as I mentioned,
though, taken to an extreme,even something like exercise
(35:07):
could be problematic. So we wantto keep that in mind. But
there's healthy ways to do thattoo, right? So going for a walk
or you know, taking a quickphysical activity break. Those
can actually be, you know, quitehelpful ways to disrupt the
stressor or sort of giveyourself some space and time to
think. But also, the good newsabout beliefs or sort of
(35:27):
perceptions is that they'remodifiable. And and I think
there there is room foreducators and others to sort of
help shape a person's beliefabout their ability to cope or
respond to a stressor in a waythat can be really adaptive and
hopeful.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (35:48):
Turning to mindfulness, we turn to a
2021 paper and study by doctorstomasa Stratta, and Elizabeth
Dalton. On a mindfulnessintervention within engineering
education, like music andpeacebuilding, good engineers
need to lean into situations ofambiguity, that require
vulnerability and intellectualstretching to solve new and
(36:11):
challenging problems. In thisstudy, Estrada and Dalton
explored a curiosity of whethermindfulness might enhance
academic context.
So Tomas, I'm going to startwith the definition of
mindfulness. And I want to getyour response to how you define
mindfulness. So in your articleI read mindfulness means paying
(36:34):
attention in a particular way,on purpose in the present
moment, and non judgmental, andthere's another quote,
mindfulness shows us what ishappening in our bodies, our
emotions, our minds and in theworld. Through mindfulness, we
avoid harming ourselves andothers. So can you talk about
what your experience ofmindfulness is and how you draw
(36:55):
these boundaries of what ismindfulness and what is not
mindfulness?
Toms Estrada (36:59):
I'm very fond of the first definition that you
that you read out loud, I thinkit gets at the heart of how I
understand mindfulness. And thisidea that whatever it is that
you're doing, you could be doinganything in particular. So a lot
of times when people think ofmindfulness, they think of
sitting on an on a pillow,perhaps, you know, doing some
(37:20):
very formal meditations, perhapshumming a mantra and inhaling
some incense, and all of thatcan be part of it. But it
doesn't have to be. So you canbe doing just about any everyday
activity in a mindful way. Soyou could be practicing
mindfulness, while foldinglaundry, while doing the dishes.
(37:43):
Or you could be also practicingmindfulness while deliberately
doing a meditation exercise. Sothere's, there's those two
different types. And we refer tothe former as informal
mindfulness, where we'reessentially practicing
mindfulness in everydayactivities, and the latter as
formal mindfulness where we aresetting the time and going to a
(38:04):
particular location to to do aspecific exercise, this idea of
whatever it is that you'redoing, you're doing it on
purpose, and you're doing itfully, you are entirely present
while doing it. And one of thequestions that I always enjoy
when Liz explores this topic, isshe she'll ask- Okay, if you're
(38:28):
in the present moment, where areyou not? And the answers are,
well, of course, you're not inthe future, and you're not in
the past. But if we if we thinkabout how often our minds are
indeed, in the future, in thepast, it can be, it can be kind
of scary. I know that formyself, there are days when I
might be, for example, havinglunch, and maybe I've got a
(38:51):
meeting that I'm preparing forthat's coming up right after
lunch, and maybe I finished themeal. And I didn't even realize
that I ate like the my plate isnow empty. But the whole time I
was looking ahead, my mind wasin the future. And so I was not
eating in a mindful way. I wasnot practicing mindfulness in
that in that regard.
Kevin Shorner-Johns (39:15):
Mindfulness is that sense of presentness an
orientation that simultaneouslyinvites a slowing a
relationship, and an invitationto disrupt the violence of
speed, escalation anddistraction. In Thich Nhat
Hanh's book on peace andmindfulness, he writes, "peace
(39:36):
is present right here and now inourselves and in everything we
do and see. Every breath wetake, every step we take, can be
filled with peace, joy andserenity. The question is
whether or not we are in touchwith it. We need only to be
awake, alive in the presentmoment." Tell us about the
(40:03):
exercises that you did withengineering students. You know
what time of the day you did it?
Was there a progression ofactivities that you did? How
structured or unstructured? Wasit? Can you kind of walk us
through that a little bit? Andwhat that was like?
Toms Estrada (40:16):
Yeah, so we had, for each group of students, we
had four sessions each one hourlong. Typically, they were once
a week, either Wednesdays, orThursdays at 4pm. And so four to
5pm. These were students thatvolunteered to be there, they
(40:38):
were typically in my classes,and I did bribe them with extra
credit in case you know, just togive him a little extra
motivation. But but that wasthat was the setup. And it would
be myself and Liz, leading, Lizwould lead the sessions. But I
thought my presence there, sincethey knew me from class, and I
(40:58):
already had a pretty goodrapport with the students would
make them feel more comfortable.
And for myself, as somebody whopractices meditation in his own
life, it was exciting to be ableto share some of these practices
with my students, I haddefinitely experienced a lot of
the benefits of my own personallife. So yeah, I thought all my
students can certainly benefitfrom from all these, yeah, just
(41:20):
great things in terms of stressreduction, feeling more
centered, more balanced, andhopefully, it'll impact their
personal life, their academiclife, and so on.
We would sit in a circle, andLiz would usually everyday and
(41:40):
we would center on like one ortwo topics or types of
mindfulness. So she would startwith a particular either a
mindfulness check in, or afairly simple exercise, then we
will talk about what were theexperiences the students had
with that, and explore some ofthe theory behind it as to why
(42:05):
you know, why this might bebeneficial, you know, in what
ways they could incorporate thatinto, into their everyday life,
and so on. So, so that was thestructure. And we made, we tried
different things, such as I gavethe example of eating lunch. So
one of the first section as wedid with some mindful eating,
(42:26):
where we had this veryinteresting exercise in which we
brought a pack of raisins. Andeverybody had to essentially eat
a raisin with some guidance fromLiz, essentially as mindfulness
as mindfully as possible. Andthe, for me, it was pretty mind
(42:49):
blowing. And that something assimple as eating a raisin, which
is, I think, most people wouldagree, it's not the most,
perhaps like most attractivefood became a really, really
interesting experience. And anexperience where you're
involving the whole body here inlight, involving all the senses,
you're, you're looking at it,you are bringing it up to your
(43:13):
nose, and like really smellingit, you're you're touching it
from all the different angles,as you you know, pop it in your
mouth, you don't bite it rightaway, but you, you know, feel
its weight in your, in yourmouth, and, and the whole
process becomes, yeah, justfascinating. So that was one
that to me, was veryinteresting. And I could see
(43:35):
then how the students reacted tothat, because this is an
experience where all of us eatall the time. And so often it's
an automatic, yeah, an automatictype of action. Yeah, so so that
was that was one type we, wealso did some of the other ones
that you that you mentioned. Sofor example, sitting and
(43:56):
breathing exercises, we did abody scan, we did a walking
meditation, its the one timethat we actually left the room,
to walk in this slow, deliberatemindful way. And noticing how
each step, like through eachstep, like how the body felt,
(44:17):
what our you know, all our oursenses were perceiving through
the walk. So yeah, and they gotreminders from us mid week,
about the mindfulness practice,they have learned and
encouragement to practice onyour own.
Elizabeth Dalton (44:35):
So when we experience stress, or we're sad
or frustrated or angry, we mightbe inclined to not be that way.
Right? And to kind of push thatout of our experience. But
actually, there's evidence andsort of reason to believe that
our ability to to feel thoseemotions to sort of have an
attitude of acceptance towardsthat and to not have not
(45:00):
necessarily have that immediatereaction to push it away or try
to ignore it, that that mightactually be really helpful. So
that capacity to sort of bemindfully aware or mindfully
nonreactive to those experiencesmight do us good and might sort
of better serve us and how werespond to stress and other
negative or difficult events.
And then that connection to sortof curiosity and exploration
(45:23):
came from, from some evidencethat, that mindfulness might
actually help facilitate certainsort of academic capacities and
outcomes. So for example,there's prior research to
suggest that students who havethat sort of high capacity for
mindful awareness can also bemore innovative, and might also
(45:44):
perform better in sort of highstress or high stakes exams or
evaluations. And so TomasEstrada, and I did a first a
survey study, looking atstudents in the engineering
department and a couple of otheracademic departments to look at
that relationship betweenmindfulness and the ability to
(46:06):
sort of be curious andinterested, right in new
academic ideas, or, or new andchallenging sort of projects,
and an ability to explore newideas as well. The idea being
that those might be especiallyhelpful to an engineer, right,
so your interest in in capacityfor sort of new problem solving
(46:28):
or intellectual stretching andmotivation, those might serve
you well in that particulardomain. And indeed, we did find
that students ability to bemindfully non reactive to to
their environments. So sort ofsit with stress, or sort of sit
with tension or anxiety that waspositively associated with their
(46:51):
preference for gaining newinformation and sort of their
intellectual curiosity, as wellas their ability to kind of
tolerate uncertainty aboutthings. So So that's another
psychological phenomenon that isthought to relate back to sort
of stress anxiety, the betterable we are to accept when we
(47:11):
don't know what's going tohappen, which is a tough thing
to do. You know, as humans, Ithink we're inclined to want to
know exactly what's going tohappen. But our ability to to
not get too hung up on that andto be open to uncertainty is
actually a helpful trait, andmight also sort of affect the
way that we experience stressfulsituations.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (47:37):
In peacebuilding literature, I love
how John Paul Lederachtranslates notions of ambiguity,
intellectual stretching andvulnerability into notions of
space that are infused with thecreative stress of risk.
Lederach writes, to live betweenmemory and potentiality is to
(47:57):
live permanently in a creativespace, pregnant with the
unexpected, but it is also tolive in the permanency of risk,
for the journey between whatlies behind and what lies ahead,
is never fully comprehended, noreven controlled. Such a space,
however, is the womb ofconstructive change, the
(48:20):
continuous birthplace of thepast that lies before us.
Anything I haven't asked youabout this topic that you wish I
would have asked, you
Unknown (48:33):
No, I mean, I think these have been great questions.
I'm always excited to get totalk about this kind of stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, I think, youknow, some of the takeaways then
for for teachers are that, it, Ithink it's really helpful to
sort of create an environmentwhere stress is not the enemy,
(48:55):
right? Or it's not necessarilyeven something to be avoided.
But helping students to sort ofcultivate those attitudes and
beliefs that they can learn andgrow from these experiences that
they they have, or they canfurther build and develop ways
to cope and that they can feelconfident in that, that that's
(49:16):
going to help them not only inthe classroom right to kind of
potentially be comfortableexperiencing uncertainty or you
know, exploring new things thatthey're not as comfortable with,
but but also just in life,because the way that they
learned to cope with stressearly on can really kind of set
the stage for their ability tocontinue to do that down the
road.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (49:38):
Special thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Dalton
and Dr. Tomas Estrada for theirsharing of time and expertise. I
will be taking a longer breakover the summer to center my own
self care and spend time writingafter what has been a very
difficult year. My wishes toeach of you that this time of
summer might be a time of restand renewal. When this podcast
(50:03):
returns, we will have episodescoming on Balinese gamelan, a
refugee youth choir in Lebanon,artistic peacebuilding and
Columbia. Research on divisionand hate and more narratives
exploring the power ofpeacebuilding and teaching. Stay
tuned. This is the music andpeacebuilding podcast hosted by
(50:24):
Kevin Shorner-Johnson. AtElizabethtown college we host a
master of music education withan emphasis on peacebuilding.
thinking deeply we reclaim spacefor connection and care. Join us
at music peace building.com
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