In the News: APU Professor Discusses Mindfulness During Quarantine

A recent Los Angeles Times article, A side effect of quarantine: We’re learning more about ourselves, and each other, featured Regina Chow Trammel, Ph.D., LCSW, associate professor of social work at Azusa Pacific University. Trammel, a mindfulness researcher, shared her thoughts on using this time as an opportunity for self discovery and to create a new framework for what success looks like.

In the article, Trammel said that the quarantine has prompted her teaching mantra to change from pushing her students to work harder and achieve more to compassion and acceptance for where everyone is right now. Conducting classes over Zoom has created a chance to see inside the daily home lives of her students, many of whom she said are first- or second-generation Latinx immigrants who are balancing family and financial responsibilities along with school.

“Thriving is going to look different. I think we can flourish in new ways,” she said in the article. She offered a metaphor: We just have to treat ourselves like plants.“We need some sun, we need to breathe fresh air, we need a nap. That’s the best we can do. Be like plants. Grow where you’re planted. Drink lots of water. Bend towards the light.”

Trammel is passionate about mentoring students so they can improve the lives of others as social workers. Her background is in clinical social work practice, which includes more than a decade in private practice and behavioral health hospital settings. Trammel’s research and training focus on the effects of a Christian-informed mindfulness intervention on stress management. She has a popular TEDx talk called “Stressing Less: Using Mindfulness to Deal with Everyday Pressures.” Trammel is co-authoring a book for Zondervan with Dr. John Trent entitled, Wherever You Go There God Is: A Counselor’s Guide to Christian Mindfulness.