Psychologist Matthew Condie, Ph.D., led exercises for stress reduction and strategies for rethinking the nature of mental distress.
The second annual University of Western States Seminar Series was held on April 30, 2024. Visiting professor Matthew Condie, Ph.D., presented “Soothing the Stress: Advancing in Ambiguity Through Resilience, Belonging, and Post-Traumatic Growth.” Through his interactions with athletes and patients, Dr. Condie understands the symptoms of stress and is committed to finding strategies for coping.
Dr. Condie experienced his greatest levels of stress as mental health expert providing the Australian government with clinical recommendations regarding asylum seekers and refugee children. His 72-hour work weeks contributed to his stress. Even more stressful was Dr. Condie’s constant concern for the refugees whose fates were up in the air.
“Stress impacts our functioning, and our body responds by sending neurochemical reinforcements to our brains,” Dr. Condie said during the webinar.
As a clinician who deals with the interaction between physiological and neurological responses, Dr. Condie delved extensively into these realms during the webinar, including an exercise in which he bit into a raw lemon, peel and all.
“Notice what emotions came up for you,” he told the audience during this demonstration. “Disgust releases serotonin, shock releases cortisol, and empathy release oxytocin.” The message of the exercise is that humans have the power to influence each other’s physiology. Thus, we’re resposible for affecting others’ already stressed systems.
One key to stress reduction that Dr. Condie advances is to “foster a sense of belonging across the five selves,” i.e., self-care, self-compassion, self-regulation, self-reflection, and self-awareness.
“When we encourage and promote the five selves, our ability to tolerate distress increases, so our window of tolerance can support us in the future as we navigate stress,” Dr. Condie said.
According to Dr. Condie, this individual resilience and system resilience is a two-way street. In other words, we can’t expect an individual to adapt to changes in society’s systems if our culture and organizational systems can’t or won’t adapt to individuals.
“A sense of organizational belonging can make individuals more willing to support others, and, therefore indirectly, the organization,” Dr. Condie said. “They have a collective sense to share the vulnerability around times of stress and change and have higher levels of well-being. This in turn leads to greater productivity.”