Students Rising Above: Offsetting the Health and Mental Health Costs of Resilience

Students who 'strive' to rise above significant stressors to achieve academic success are considered 'resilient'. However, youths' resilience in one domain (i.e. academic) can come at a cost in other domains including physical and mental health morbidities that are under-identified and under-treated. Previous research suggests that individuals from populations experiencing documented health disparities who exhibit a "striving persistent behavioral style" in the face of stress evince later health morbidities. Ironically, the same self-regulatory skills that promote academic achievement amid chronic stress can also result in physiological dysregulation that harms health and mental health. Self-regulatory processes that involve emotion suppression, experiential avoidance, and unmodulated perseverance can culminate in allostatic load which fuels health disparities and internalizing symptoms of depression and anxiety. The proposed mechanistic trial will utilize mindfulness training to permit examination of questions about the causal role of emotion regulation strategies linked to the striving persistent behavioral style in driving mental health and health morbidities among individuals from populations experiencing documented health disparities. The proposed Project STRIVE (STudents RIsing aboVE) will identify students who are academically resilient in the face of stress and will offer a tailored mindfulness intervention targeting self-regulation processes as a putative mechanism …

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Anna S Lau, PhD  ·  (310) 206-5363  ·  alau@psych.ucla.edu

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