SMART Program

Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) teaches self-care practices that help participants buffer daily stress, regain a sense of emotional control and enhance quality of life. Throughout the 8-week online program, participants build resilience through a variety of mind-body principles and self-care interventions, leading to reduced medical symptoms and enhanced quality of life.

This research-proven program helps participants:

• Learn a variety of techniques to elicit the relaxation response, the body’s innate stress buffer.
• Become aware of how stress affects us mentally, emotionally, physically, behaviourally, relationally and spiritually. .
• Practice cognitive skills that will reduce negative thought habits allowing for adaptive reappraisal.
• Learn how to use positive psychological interventions to create a healthy mindset.
• Understand how social support and connection play a crucial role in our overall well-being.
• Learn the importance of healthy eating, restorative sleep, and physical activity.

SMART is a participatory, self-care intervention built upon interpersonal discourse, discussion and reflective activities. Recordings are available, SMART is not designed for passive viewing. It is important to commit to the program and view each session sequentially. The program is not developed to be like a video game in which levels are conquered to move forward, but an exploration of many different concepts to reduce stress and enhance growth. The goal is not to give you more work to add to your daily routines, but to lessen your daily stress by practicing a variety of techniques to help you build resilience and change your relationship to stress.

• Define the body’s response to stress and learn the role it plays in the development or exacerbation of medical conditions.
• Identify the physiological effects of the stress response and, in contrast, the relaxation response on the brain and body.
• Learn how to metabolize stress more effectively with improved mental and emotional regulation.
• Utilize tools to prevent workplace burnout and its consequences.
• Think more clearly through mindful awareness and perspective shift.
• Foster resilience and enhance personal growth.
• Understand the relationship between empathy and compassion and how mindfulness can reduce the prevalence of empathy fatigue for healthcare professionals.
• Enrich personal and professional relationships with compassion cultivation initiatives.
• Understand how cultivating an appreciation practice can build witnessing to the goodness in our lives creating sustainable positive emotions.
• Learn to let go of that which does not serve you and live from a place of inner freedom, happiness, and fulfillment.