You possess unique and extraordinary strengths, and it's our job at Campus Health to help you discover and use them. We believe in you and want to help you discover that you're stronger than you believe. Your road to resilience starts here.
How Do I Become Stronger Than?
Start Your Stronger Than Journey Today
We've created Stronger Than based on the core elements of resilience: perspective, authenticity, and connection. Those are big concepts, so let's break them down. Perspective, authenticity, and connection happen when you:
- practice self-compassion
- shift your mindset
- engage in mindfulness
Bring resilience to your daily life with the following Stronger Than tools and activities:
Life Lessons In 60 Seconds
Hearing what others have gone through (and what they've learned) can teach us, offer perspective, and ultimately help us to navigate our own lives. We asked Campus Health staff to share some words of wisdom.
#StrongerThan Challenge
Take our #StrongerThan Challenge and share your journey on Instagram!
1. Take a screenshot of the image here
2. Upload it to your Instagram story
3. Cross off the activities you have completed
4. Tag @UAZCampusHealth and 3 friends
5. Share away!
Experience Our Stronger Than Workshops
Bring Stronger Than to your class or organization with the Stronger Than: The Power of Perspective Workshop.
Request the workshop for your club/organization/class
Build your resilience through our Stronger Than: 4 Steps to Resilience student workshop.
Explore Stronger Than and more CAPS workshops
Stronger Than Articles on Living Wild
- Becoming Stronger Than: The Road to Resilience
- What to Do When You Want to Hide From the World
- Living Wild is your guide for reliable & relevant wellness information, written by top experts in the field.
Stronger Than Inspiration
Tools & Resources
We've pulled together some of the best to help you become #strongerthan.
When you change your perspective, you change your world. Life is full of ups and downs, and no one is immune to that. These videos will help remind you just how strong you are, whether you're up or down.
- 90-second Pieces About Gratitude
- List of TED Talks on Character Strengths
- JK Rowling on Importance of Failure
- Recovery From Tragedy: Veteran Shares Story of Life After Quadruple Amputation (TW: combat violence)
- TED Talk: Brene Brown Listening to Shame
- TedX Talk: How Failure Cultivates Resilience
- TEDx Talk: Recovery From Tragedy
- TEDX Talk: Trauma & Resilience
- UA “Metalhead Scientist” - Finding Your Own Path
College can challenge and change every aspect of your life. This can be hard, but hard doesn't mean you're failing. The process of exploration is the fire that forges a resilient spirit. Think of these articles, books, podcasts, and self-help resources as your roadmap to becoming Stronger Than.
Articles
- Awakening Self-Compassion
- 5 Ways Resilient People Use Failure To Their Advantage
- A 10-Minute Meditation To Work With Difficult Emotions
- Finding Courage By Accepting Vulnerability
- Learning From Failure And Living In Resilience
- Learning Is Optimized When We Fail 15% Of The Time
- How People Learn To Become Resilient
- Millennial Duck Syndrome: The Faked-Success Cycle That Hurts Everyone
- Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
- Reading, Math and Grit
- Shame Resilience Theory
- The Road to Resilience
- The Science and Practice of Staying Present Through Difficult Times
Books
- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
- Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage To Stand Alone
- Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
- Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being
- Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
- Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
- Make Your Bed: Little Things that Can Change Your Life...Maybe the World
- Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking
- Self-Compassion
- The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed To Be and Embrace Who You Are
- Thinking, Fast and Slow
- See more book recommendations.
Podcasts
- Good Life Project
- School of Greatness
- The Hilarious World of Depression
- The Struggle Bus
- We Love You (And So Can You)
See More Self-Help Resources
Practicing things like gratitude, mindfulness, and self-compassion will help you change your perspective, value your authentic self, and reach out when you want to retreat. Looking back, we see how far we've come and how strong we truly are.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of being present with whatever arises, inside and out, with a clear mind and open heart. Try these mindfulness practices:
Gratitude
Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is a way of being present with your own painful emotions and challenging experiences. In essence, it means treating yourself like someone worth caring about, viewing your pain or suffering as part of our shared human experience, and offering yourself a heartfelt wish to feel relief from the suffering.
Exercises for Gaining Perspective and Opening Up:
Find more positive practices at:
The times when we want to isolate ourselves are usually the times when we need the most support. Asking for help is a courageous act and you have the strength to do it.
CAPS Services
Want to talk? We'll listen. CAPS remains open during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet with students remotely through HIPAA-compliant video conferencing. At CAPS, enrolled students can speak with licensed mental health professionals about things like:
- anxiety and depression
- eating and body image
- alcohol and drug concerns
- family, friend, roommate, and relationship problems
- sexual assault and relationship violence
- crises and trauma
- psychiatric medication
- And anything else you need to talk about.
All currently enrolled students are eligible to be seen at CAPS.
Find out more about who we are and what we do, view our services and resources overview, or call (520) 621-3334 now to find out how to get started.
CAPS Online Groups and Workshops
Powerful changes can happen when you meet with a group of peers who get what you're going through. That's why CAPS offers a variety of groups and workshops tailored to the common questions and concerns students have. Find out about CAPS groups and workshops.
Your best self is your authentic self. Embracing your true self and showing that to the world opens us up to a powerful sense of belonging. It feels so much better than trying to fit in! There are so many ways to share your authentic self at the University of Arizona. Here are a few:
At Campus Health, we want you to know that there are lots of ways to get support and so many people who want to help you because you matter. We also want you to know that many people find asking for help hard. If you're scared to get support, remember that feeling scared is okay and take it one step at a time. If you or someone you know is an immediate suicidal crisis or emergency, call 911. Click here to see who to call if you're in crisis.
24-Hour Crisis Hotlines
- The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline toll-free, confidential suicide prevention hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the United States, anytime, about any type of crisis. A live, trained Crisis Counselor receives the text and responds, all from a secure online platform. Find out more about how it works at crisistextline.org.
- More Crisis Resources & Hotlines
Self-Help Resources
More Support at Campus Health
More Campus and Community Resources:
Why Is Resilience Important?
The Stronger Than initiative is Campus Health’s response to the increasing rates of stress, anxiety, and depression among college students across the country.
A crucial part of meeting the mental health needs of our students is helping them cultivate resilience-the ability to flourish in the face of external pressures and challenges. We recognize resilience as the foundation to navigating the demanding and ever-changing landscape of university life. With resilience, students can rise to meet the stressors of college and graduate as tenacious, flexible, and courageous adults.
In keeping with The University of Arizona's core values, the Stronger Than initiative provides students with the tools to be resilient, determined citizens of the world. We envision a campus culture where it is courageous to be compassionate, vulnerable, and authentic with others. These are the qualities of the innovative risk-takers of the world.
The Stronger Than initiative challenges the pervasive myth of perfection often driven by social media. The myth of effortless perfection and the natural tendency to compare oneself to curated images online can isolate students and lead to an intense fear of failure. The Stronger Than initiative seeks to engage students in a new dialogue, one that offers a broader perspective, challenges their conceptualization of struggle, and encourages them to consider the ways in which failure is a valuable opportunity for growth.
Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” The Stronger Than initiative believes that this courage can be developed in every student, and we are here to teach them how.
Want to know more about Stronger Than? Contact Mia Zamora, LCSW at miamcz@email.arizona.edu or (520) 626-3100.