The transition into postsecondary education and young adulthood can bring enormous change. New expectations, relationships, environments, responsibilities, and decisions about the future can all add to a person’s stress load. At the same time, there is growing concern about the mental health and well-being of postsecondary students and young adults.
Shanker Self-Reg® offers a way to explore how stress, brain-body state, energy, learning, relationships, mental health, and well-being are interconnected. For postsecondary students and young adults, it can open up a different way of understanding their own stress, capacity, and changing needs. For faculty, educators, and postsecondary institutions, Self-Reg offers another lens for thinking about the conditions that support learning, development, belonging, and student well-being.
This work also has important connections to research. Stuart Shanker’s interdisciplinary work draws across neuroscience, neurobiology, developmental psychology, physiology, philosophy, education, and other fields, opening questions and possibilities for researchers interested in stress, self-regulation, development, learning, behaviour, relationships, and human flourishing.
These aren’t separate conversations. Research deepens our understanding of stress and human development. That understanding can shape how we support postsecondary students and young adults through learning and transition. And what we learn from people and practice continues to raise new questions worth exploring.
Explore Self-Reg as a postsecondary student or young adult, educator, researcher, or member of a postsecondary
