We live in stressful times, with daily news reports on the dangers around us—international conflicts, street violence, political chaos, environmental threats—and finally COVID-19, which still restricts us from many social interactions that enrich our lives. In this four-week course, we will explore how we might better cope with the unavoidable stressors of daily life. The first two classes will deal with the cognitive aspects and how we can change or reshape the “ways we think” in order to avoid triggering the stress response. In the last two classes, we will practice a few exercises that help with the physiological aspects of stress such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, etc.

Moderator: Don Maloney, In addition to his university teaching, mainly in psychology and philosophy,  has worked as psychiatric social worker at a community counseling center in Nevada, and has taught hypnosis and other "centering" techniques for the Univ. of Maryland at U.S. military bases in Europe and Asia.