THE STRESS FACTOR
ABOUT
Hi, and welcome to The Stress Factor! This Honors Thesis project was born out of the idea that those in fashion tend to experience disproportionate amounts of chronic stress due to a high-pressure work environment and a lack of mental-health resources. Marist Honors Senior Lea Sciancalepore teamed up with Associate Professor of Psychology, Dr. Kristin Jay, to explore resources available for those experiencing chronic stress (more specifically, those in fashion experiencing chronic stress). The ultimate goal of this project is to promote a fashion industry that is more focused on mental health and overall well-being through the education of young professionals. Long-term chronic stress can have very serious health implications for those who experience it. It can be dangerous to leave symptoms of chronic stress unchecked, however many people may not know what they are experiencing when chronic stress symptoms occur. This project aims to identify those symptoms of chronic stress within individuals, and connect them with the resources they need. If more fashion professionals can learn the dangers of chronic stress, then hopefully a more positive, exciting, and creative industry can be built as a result.
Lea is an Honors, Fashion Merchandising major with a minor in business at Marist College. She was first drawn to the topic of chronic stress in the fashion industry based on her own experiences with stress and stress related illness. Her hope is that this project finds others who are dealing with chronic stress so that they may be connected with resources to help them manage it. During her time at Marist, Lea studied abroad twice, spending one semester in Paris and a second semester on the Asia Study Abroad Program. She has a love of traveling and photography and hopes to work in visual merchandising post-grad. She is so excited for you to see this project and would love any feedback you could provide!
Lea Sciancalepore
Dr. Kristin Jay has a PhD in psychology from UCLA, specifically in cognitive neuroscience, which is the Western scientific study of the biological basis of sensory-perceptual experience and mental processes such as attention, memory and language. Within this framework, as a member of the psychology department at Marist College, she has studied and taught about mind-body relationships for more than 10 years. To balance this rational-analytic approach to understanding the mind, as well as the demands of a professional career, Kristin cultivated a personal yoga/meditation practice, a deep interest in helping people one-on-one (much of which came from her experience mentoring students), and a strong desire to understand consciousness experientially rather than abstractly. To this end, Kristin also became a licensed massage therapist and a yoga teacher, and maintains a small private practice specializing in subtle techniques including myofascial release, yoga nidra, and yin yoga. She is grateful to be able to synthesize, or perhaps embody, a variety of perspectives, all of which are intended to help empower people through allowing them space to develop honest, gentle “self-consciousness”—the recognition of self as awareness—the remembering of the guidance and support that comes from inner connection.