Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) Program

Course Overview

Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) teaches self-care practices that help participants buffer daily stress, regain a sense of emotional control and enhance quality of life. Throughout the 8-week group program, participants build resilience through a variety of mind body principles and self-care interventions, leading to reduced medical symptoms, and enhanced quality of life.  

This research-proven program helps participants: 

• Understand the connection between stress and physical or emotional problems. 
• Learn a variety of techniques to elicit the relaxation response, the body’s innate stress buffer. 
• Experience the central role social support and connection to something greater than oneself plays in well-being. 
• Practice cognitive skills that will diminish negative thought habits. 
• Appreciate the role of positive thoughts and beliefs. 
• Learn the importance of healthy eating, restorative sleep, and physical activity. 

Successful completion of this course may be applied toward certification in the delivery of the SMART program for those who wish to deliver it to their patients.

Who Should Attend

• Primary Care Physicians
• Pharmacists
• Psychologists
• Physician Assistants
• Nurses
• Nurse Practitioners
• Other
• Specialty Physicians 

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Define the body’s response to stress, known as allostasis and allostatic load, and the role it plays in the development or exacerbation of medical conditions. 
• Recognize how modifiable lifestyle behaviors synchronized to circadian rhythm builds resiliency. 
• Enrich patient-provider relationship to affect patient outcomes. 
• Develop skills in a variety of meditation methods that elicit the relaxation response. 
• Utilize tools to prevent provider burnout and its consequences. 
• Identify the biological effects of the stress response and, in contrast, the relaxation response on brain and body. 
• Develop strategies to lower your risk of provider burnout. 
• Enhance functional expression of empathy to improve clinical performance and personal resiliency. 
• Apply mind-body interventions in the treatment of multiple disease symptomatology. 
• Assess the influence of gut health and diet on emotional and physical health. 
• Improve their ability to motivate patients towards sustainable behavior change. 
• Deliver a more effective, integrative model of care. 
• Use newfound skills and tools to improve patient outcomes. 
• Identify modifiable risk factors for brain health. 
• Explain mind-body science of depression. 
• Acquire skill in state-of-the-art cognitive behavioral therapies applied to patients with a range of stress-related emotional and physical problems. 
• Identify the components of the Benson-Henry Care Model. 
• Support health care change designed to reduce the prevalence of non-communicable diseases. 
• Define the underlying influences of happiness. 
• Formulate a more integrative model of patient care. 
• Experience a variety of healing modalities. 
• Review novel behavioral health interventions designed to influence brain health.