Kristen Lee Featured in News@Northeastern: COVID-19 has been hard on our mental health. Here are some ways to keep practicing mindfulness and resilience.
After a year of disease, death, Zoom meetings, and social distancing, it can feel hard to stay positive, says Kristen Lee, associate teaching professor of behavioral science. News@Northeastern sat down with Lee to chat about her research in resilience and brain science, and how to maintain mindfulness through everyday practices.
Your resilience research shows how human beings are able to adapt in real time to adversity and uncertainty. We’ve had a year to get used to the situation that we’re in; why might it feel exhausting as the end seems to be drawing near?
That’s a great question. One thing that encourages me in my resilience research is how wired we are for that adaptation. To think about the enormity of this past year and all we’ve grappled with, and yet we’ve been creative and innovative and resilient, is a testament to how we’re wired as a species. But having said that, I think especially with this one-year marker coming up, one thing we think a lot about in psychology is how anniversaries can be very provocative and triggering.