Presentation session 2: HDRs Health & Wellbeing

Optimising wellbeing as an HDR student

This workshop covers general mental health strategies and mindfulness and aims to assist HDR students to manage stress, to open conversations about wellbeing and to access UQ support services and resources.

Speaker bio

Letitia Norton

Letitia joined UQ in 2017 and enjoys working with students to help them navigate life difficulties and optimise their mental health and wellbeing. Letitia offers a person-centred, neuroscience-based approach to counselling and the preferred practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Her professional areas of interest include anxiety, depression, relationships, grief and loss, existential crisis and social justice. Outside work, she’s into bushwalking, kayaking and strumming a guitar on her veranda.

Sleeping for success: An essential pillar of wellbeing during the HDR journey

• Why HDR students need enough, good quality sleep – sleeping for success
• Barriers to sleep health during HDR candidature
• Common sleep problems
• Sleep tips/advice/where to go if needing additional support.

Speaker bio

Dr Dan Sullivan

Dr Dan Sullivan is a Research Fellow at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. As part of the MRFF/NHMRC-funded Let’s Yarn about Sleep project team, Dan’s current program of research aims to improve the sleep health of First Nations Australians, through community co-designed sleep programs which are culturally responsive. Dan trained in Clinical Psychology at Griffith University, and maintains a part-time appointment as a Senior Psychologist in the sleep service at The Prince Charles Hospital. Dan’s research and clinical practice focuses on clinical and health psychology, with specific interests in sleep health/disorders, headaches/persistent pain, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).