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Welcome to our 5th newsletter! DynaMORE is an international research project that aims to promote stress resilience and improve mental health and well-being in the face of adversity. It is spearheaded by Prof. Dr. Raffael Kalisch from the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR) and the University Medical Center Mainz (UMC-Mainz) and funded by the European HORIZON 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. If you are receiving this newsletter as a forwarded message but would like to actively subscribe enter your email address here. You can unsubscribe at any time.
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Subscribe to Resilience Research Email-List
If you want to continue or to start receiving relevant information on events in resilience research, including this newsletter, our yearly International Symposium on Resilience Research, specific workshops, and updates on major resilience research projects, subscribe here to our mailing list.
New feature: The resilience job market. Send us your openings and we will pass them on to the resilience research community!
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The DynaM-OBS study just kicked off!
After a lot of preparation, many tests, and a delay caused by the corona pandemic, we can finally announce that we’ve started our originally planned observational DynaMORE study (abbreviation: DynaM-OBS), including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), questionnaires, and biological samples. Five facilities from four different countries and dozens of scientists working together to learn about resilience and stress - that’s what defines DynaMORE. The organizing institutions are the Charité in Berlin, the University Medical Center in Mainz (UMC-Mainz), the Tel Aviv University (TAU) in Israel, the University of Warsaw of Poland (UNIWARSAW), and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (SKU) in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. We have a long way to go now, but we are spending all our energy on making sure that everything goes according to plan!
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New website feature & video
The DynaMORE website contains a new subpage with a video mini-series (each clip about 6-10 min long) to make our research more transparent and convey the project's key goals and research approach better to the general public. The videos are based on individual interviews of the DynaMORE work package leaders and the early-career scientists performing the actual studies. Two videos are ready for you to watch! Over the coming months, 4 more will be produced and shared on this page. We'll announce them individually on Twitter as soon as they are online.
The 2nd video was just released on 16 November 2020:
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In this video, Prof. Dr. Jens Timmer and Prof. Dr. Harald Binder, both experts on mathematical modelling and applying such models to real-world scenarios, explain the idea and methodology behind modelling stressor load and stress resilience for the DynaMORE project:
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6th Steering Committee Meeting
Due to the Corona crisis, the 6th DynaMORE Steering Committee (SC) Meeting took place remotely from home offices and living rooms on 26-27 October 2020. Same people, same smiles though. We hope for an in-person GA Meeting next year!
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New team members & Announcements
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Hi everybody! I'm Zala, the new PhD student joining the DynaMORE team at the Charité in Berlin, Germany. I recently obtained my M.Sc. in cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute in Nijmegen. As a former member of Erno Hermans's group, I had the chance to follow the development of DynaMORE for a while now, and I am very excited to spend the next few years being involved myself. I hope that I will get to meet all of you in person soon, but until then feel virtually hand-shaken and smiled at!
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Planned workshop on analysis of longitudinal resilience data
An online expert workshop on longitudinal resilience data analysis is planned for Spring 2020. We will announce the workshop on the website and inform the resilience community in due time about the exact date and content!
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Successful International Symposium on Resilience Research
Due to the corona pandemic, the 6th International Symposium on Resilience Research (#resilience2020) was held entirely remotely this year from 23 - 25 September 2020. Thanks to very attractive speakers and talks, the event attracted 220 online participants. We are very grateful to all attendees and participants, as well as the organizing committee.
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New publications
Six new manuscripts that were funded by the DynaMORE project have been published this year, and more are already in preparation. Feel free to click on the titles below to access the original publications. Congrats to the authors!
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Fig. 1 in Veer et al. (2020b) displays associations of hypothesized resilience factors with outcome-based resilience (RES) and mediation effects. Click on the figure to access the original publication. Abbreviations: resilience to all stressors combined (RESC), resilience to general stressors (RESG), resilience to corona-specific factors (RESS), positive appraisal style (PAS), perceived social support (PSS), perceived increase in social support during the Corona crisis (CSS), optimism (OPT), perceived general self-efficacy (GSE), perceived good stress recovery (REC), neuroticism (NEU), behavioral coping style (BCS), positive appraisal specifically of the Corona crisis (PAC).
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Save the date
4th DynaMORE General Assembly (GA) Meeting
14 - 16 April 2020
Warsaw, Poland
Depending on the COVID-19 situation at the time, the meeting will take place either as a face-to-face meeting in Warsaw or as a remote online meeting.
Contact: Jessica Jones
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DynaMORE in the press & on social media
Lots of online and print articles, podcasts, TV coverage, blog posts, and social media activity have accompanied the DynaMORE project lately. For a collective list of all press coverage since the start of the project, please visit the subpage "Press coverage" on our website.
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The DynaMORE team at the University of Warsaw in Poland (UNIWARSAW) has a new reference to increase public engagement. It is an interview featuring Marta Marciniak, a PhD student who collaborates on work package 7 (WP7) with the University of Zurich, Switerzland (UZH), to develop appropriate ecological momentary interventions (EMIs) following ecological momentary assessments (EMAs). Amrta talks about psychological mobile apps and also advertises for DynaMORE's positive reappraisal-training program "ReApp".
Other media coverage and social media presence:
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ReApp - mobile app based on scientific findings, designed to increase reappraisal skills. With ReApp, you learn how to regulate your emotions, manage stress and, as a result, improve your mood and feel better. Just send an email to reappstudy@gmail.com and let us know about your language preference!
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Wie gehen Menschen mit der Corona-Pandemie um, wie meistern sie diese Krise und welche Lehren können wir daraus ziehen? Darüber sprechen wir mit dem Resilienzforscher Prof. Dr. Raffael Kalisch von der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
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COVID-19 mental health advice
The Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research ( LIR) in Mainz, Germany, kindly reminds you of the 10 key recommendations it assembled for strengthening one's mental health during the current coronavirus pandemic.
- Handle information with care. Search specifically at trustworthy sources like the Robert Koch Institute or the WHO for information. Remember that the situation is dynamic and information evolves and changes. Take regular information breaks to switch off.
- Maintain your routines or develop new ones. Make sure to have a varied daily structure. Set fixed times for eating and getting up. Call your friends, go for a walk or read a book.
- Maintain social contacts. Communication with and trust in others are essential in times of crisis and are particularly important. Use networking opportunities such as email, video telephony or chat programs and keep in touch.
- Accept the complexity of the situation. Develop an accepting attitude for the current situation, to release energy for other areas on which you have influence over. In this way, you can gradually free yourself from stressful thoughts.
- Take care of yourself. Get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, and exercise sufficiently. Avoid harmful strategies, such as the consumption of alcohol or other substances to regulate your emotions.
- Take responsibility. You have a significant influence on your fellow human beings in times of crisis. Take care of your friends, family, and especially old people. Offer support and help each other.
- Reduce stress regularly. Use sports or relaxation techniques (mindfulness, progressive muscle relaxation, …) to reduce stress and recover.
- Be open with your children. Talk to your children, reassure them that you are there and are taking care of them. Discuss your plans for the next weeks. Keep calm and clarify open questions.
- Prepare for isolation. Think of this as a time out where you can shape your day in a self-determined way. Use the time to reflect on yourself. Ensure entertainment through books, games or by learning new things. Talk to your partner or family about what happens if you should argue.
- Seek professional help with acute stress. If, for example, panic or depression becomes unendurable, contact a local patient counseling center. If you have acute suicidal thoughts, please contact the emergency service of your local psychiatric hospital or emergency services immediately.
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For updates on resilience research in general, follow @ResilienceRes on Twitter! |
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