Connect Your Feelings to Resources for Mental Well-Being

How to use this Stress Continuum tool:

Using the boxes with adjectives in the top row, take a moment to determine which of the stress zones corresponds best to how you've been feeling.
Click on the white resource boxes in the corresponding color-coded column to get more information and to access the resources.

This tool is not intended for emergency situations. Please view instructions in the box on the right-hand side of this page.

* Resource available only to UVA or UPG Health Plan members

Important - Emergency Situations:

This guide to available resources is not a substitute for licensed mental health services. If you are experiencing panic attacks, anxiety, depression, little interest or pleasure in doing things, feeling down, depressed, or hopeless, thoughts of harm to self or others, or other symptoms that would be best treated by a licensed counselor or clinician, please contact the Faculty and Employee Assistance Program by calling (434)-243-2643. After hours, your call will be answered by a mental health professional and, if needed, they will page the FEAP on-call counselor. In case of emergency, call 911 or go straight to the emergency room.

Background Information on this Self-Help Navigation Tool

Based on the evidence-backed premise that mental well-being spans a continuum from flourishing (the presence of mental health) to languishing (the absence of mental health), the graphic above maps HR-managed benefits and resources to color-coded “stress zones” derived from the Stress Continuum model, which was developed by the Department of the Navy and is used throughout UVA Health as a visual tool to:

Promote understanding that there is a range of stress responses
Shift policies and training away from mental disorders to psychological health, and
Develop interventions that support those with a stress injury who may not meet diagnostic criteria for a mental illness.

The use of this Stress Continuum model (and the Stress First Aid peer support model in UVA Health), shifts help seeking from red zone stress illness services towards the orange and yellow zones, where short-term stress and coping interventions are most effective.

Other UVA Resources for Mental Well-Being

Faculty and Employee Assistance Program (FEAP) UVA Health's Wisdom and Well-Being Program UVA Mindfulness Center Compassionate Care Initiative (UVA School of Nursing) UVA Contemplative Sciences Center UVA Health's Population Health Department

In case of emergency, call 911 or go straight to the emergency room.