Course The science of stress and resilience

The course C309/06 The science of stress and resilience is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, spring 2026.

Criteria for participation: University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Requirements for participation: Basic knowledge about human psychology, CNS anatomy and physiology is an advantage, but not required.

Aim: To enable a qualified debate about the relevance and applicability of neuroscientific research on stress and resilience in the advancement of health and clinical practice.

Learning outcomes: After the course, participants should be able to:

• Present a neurobiological definition of stress, and make conceptual distinctions between stressors, stress and stress responses.
• Describe the following states:

• Restitution (rest-digest/breed-feed).
• Mobilization (fight-flight).
• Immobilization (freeze).
• Prosocial states (connect).

• Describe the signalling pathways of commonly experienced stress symptoms such as increased heart rate, sweaty palms and “the mind going blank”.
• Place mobilization, immobilization and restitution and socially interactive states in the context of evolutionary theory.
• Describe processing modes in the nervous system that make mobilization “first choice”.
• Relate stress processes to theories of energy-budgeting and survival.
• Describe the impact of predictive coding on stress reactions.
• Describe the theorized role of interoceptive networks in emotions and stress.
• Define “psychological safety” and describe how stressmobilization and immobilization affects psychological safety.
• Describe theorized interactions between neuronal systems underlying restitution and social behaviour (co-regulation).
• Explain how individual life experiences influence individual variation in stress sensitivity and resilience.
• Describe the impact of childhood trauma on life-long stress sensitivity.
• Explain the link between long-term stress and anxiety, depression, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndromes, and chronic pain disorders
• List common denominators of stress triggers, and particular features of modern societies that could be held responsible for producing excessive stress?
• Present arguments on how schools, workplaces and clinical practices could potentially benefit from insights into the science of stress and resilience.

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 32 hours

Content: Stress, defined as a state of physiological and emotional disequilibrium, has a great impact on our everyday experiences, cognitive functions, well-being and health. This course explains the functions and power of stress in terms of subconscious processes of energy budgeting, predictive coding, and emotional impulses anchored in our personal and evolutionary past. We investigate, how stress processes impact human social interactions and interfere with psychological safety. Central mechanisms in the transformation of long-term stress to toxic stress and diseases will be explained and exemplified in detail, raising the question of how we can protect ourselves from stress-related symptoms and diseases in a modern society that generates extraordinarily high levels of stress. We dive into psychophysiological mechanisms of resilience, and how specific types of behaviour and practices may cultivate positive emotions and optimize the balance between autonomic states, hence enhancing our wellbeing and health. We will make some reflections and exercises, and discuss the possibilities and potential benefits of integrating the science of stress and resilience into clinical practice, education, workplaces etc.

Venue: Aarhus University, Aarhus (other)

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 11 May 2026 10:00 - 16:00
• 12 May 2026 10:00 - 16:00
• 13 May 2026 10:00 - 16:00