Stress Management

Self-Care through Meditation, Yoga, and Therapeutic Massage

To help sustain a palpable culture of wellness while, positioning our students to derive maximum benefit from the wellness initiatives provided in the other components of the program, we encourage students to partake in personal health and self-care services at the medical school and beyond.

Benefits of meditation include increased sense of relations, improved quality of sleep, a clearer and quieter mind, greater emotional well-being, enhanced cognitive ability, and more.

Got meditation? Visit the McGovern Center.

Coping Skills Sessions

Sessions on coping with stress and maintaining mental health are offered to students throughout their curriculum. These sessions offer insight into early indicators of increasing stress levels to encourage a preventive approach to well-being.

Pet Therapy

Therapy animal programs are becoming more and more popular as the human-animal bond continues to prove physically, physiologically and psychologically beneficial to overall health and wellness of people who participate.  While some universities bring dogs in at particularly stressful times for students, such as finals or orientation, others provide animal therapy as a regular part of their service.

We bring registered and insured therapy dogs, provided by one of the Houston area Pet Therapy Service Providers, and accompanied by trained owners, into McGovern Medical School for two hour sessions preceding exams.

The goal of the Pet Therapy program is to help students relax and relieve stress while studying for finals, and to promote health and wellness for students at MMS. This program has been suspended due to social distancing recommendations but we look forward to its return.

Minimalism

Clutter has been shown to increase stress, anxiety, and depression. Consider minimalism as another tool for decreasing both clutter and stress.

Time Management

Managing your time allows you to regain a sense of control that can be lost when overwhelmed by stress.  Need tips to manage your time and prevent stress, click here.

Find the Good

At the end of each day, spend a few minutes identifying three good things that happened. This daily activity can cause a change in perspective, growing your general appreciation of life’s happenings and minimizing temptations to focus on the negative.  With an optimistic outlook, we are empowered to face and manage existing stress elements with a greater fortitude. #AttitudeOfGratitude