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What if stress wasn鈥檛 something to avoid, but something to understand?

In a recent 鈥淚nsights from the Heights鈥� webinar, former Dean of Student Well-Being Anne Kearney returned to share powerful, science-backed tools to help students respond to life鈥檚 challenges with clarity, calm, and confidence.

Resilience isn鈥檛 about powering through, it鈥檚 about resetting.

Kearney, a licensed clinical social worker and resilience coach, breaks resilience into three digestible skills, the 鈥淭hree R鈥檚鈥�:

• Regulate your nervous system
• Reframe how you interpret stress
• Reconnect with others and yourself

Her message is clear: You don鈥檛 have to be calm all the time鈥攜ou just need strategies to get back to calm.

The Science of Stress

Kearney walked students through how the body reacts to stress, from racing hearts to spiraling thoughts, and how those reactions are normal, human, and biologically programmed. The key is learning to 鈥渢ap the brakes鈥� using tools like deep breathing, movement, or even simply paying attention to the feeling of your feet on the ground.

What You Can Do (Right Now)

Try Kearney聽鈥檚 two-minute reset:

• Breathe in for 4 counts
• Exhale for 6 counts
• Repeat for two minutes

This small pause can bring your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that helps you think clearly, back online.

Other simple tools?

• Take a walk.
• Focus on what you can see, hear, smell, or feel.
• Look at something in nature (even a photo helps).

Reframe the Stress

Kearney also emphasized that stress isn鈥檛 the problem: it鈥檚 how we relate to it. By shifting how we interpret stress, from threat to signal, we give ourselves a better shot at managing it. This mindset, backed by research from Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal, actually changes how our bodies process stress.

Final Word

Whether you鈥檙e a current student feeling the mid-semester squeeze, or a prospective family exploring how we care for our students, you belong here. And your well-being matters.