AME Center and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences built a website focused on how to manage stress during difficult times.

By Elena Fromer and Bresh Merino on October 26, 2020

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the UCSF AME Center has launched a unique site featuring emotional well-being resources.

AME Center Director Elissa Epel, PhD, and Lab Director Elena Fromer have worked with colleagues across the UCSF Department of Psychiatry to create a webpage of mental health resources. Rather than just listing resources or bullet points, it offers advice from deep experts in the range of mental health issues, from maintaining good sleep and exercise to global issues such as climate change. 

The site is divided into eleven sections, with a focus on everyday tips on how to remain resilient during challenging times. The site also offers resources on a range of issues such as supporting your health during wildfires, dealing with traumatic stress, and seeking help when you are struggling with mental health issues. See some highlights and links to the website below. 

Coping With Wildfires and Climate Change Crises

In the Bay Area and elsewhere, we are living in an unprecedented period of extreme unpredictability with climate change, resulting in wildfires and smoke, poor air quality, and extreme temperature changes. These require a new mindset—one where we are prepared for these events as much as we can be. Read more in this section on how to prepare and protect yourself from environmental challenges. 

View Here 

 

Trauma, Moral Injury, and Grief

Loss can occur in many different ways. You may experience the death of a loved one, family member, or friend. Perhaps you lost a relationship, friendship, or career. In global crises where you experience sudden change (such as the COVID-19 pandemic), you may experience a communal sense of grief at the loss of how things were, and anticipatory grief at the threat of loss of life. Know you are not alone. Below are resources to help you when you are experiencing loss.   

VIEW HERE

 

Resilience and Emotional Well-Being Video Series

To help you navigate the unique mental health and wellness challenges, the UCSF Department of Psychiatry has put together a collection of short videos focused on ways we can protect and enhance our own emotional well-being. The videos, which are available for free on YouTube, feature strategies and techniques shared by mental health experts at UCSF, as well as some of our colleagues from around the nation. 

If you are interested in contributing a video to our library, please contact us at [email protected].

View Here 

 

 

About the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center 

The UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions (AME) Center, based at the UCSF Center for Health and Community, conducts research on how people can thrive in both mind and body, especially when under severe adversity such as poverty, caregiving, work stress, and depression. We focus on understanding optimal health, through interrelationships between biological aging, metabolism, and emotion regulation.

About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics, and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.

UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay and Laurel Heights, UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.

About UCSF

UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise.

It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals – UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland – as well as Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics, UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians, and the UCSF Faculty Practice. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF faculty also provide all physician care at the public Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. The UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program is a major branch of the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.