The couch was Janice Simon’s refuge. Overwhelmed and exhausted, the comforting cushions and a healthy dose of HGTV temporarily kept the personal catastrophes at bay.

Within a few months, Simon lost her father, a tropical storm caused major damage to her home and she found out she had an autoimmune disease.

“I really thought I was going to lose my mind,” says Simon, a project director at MD Anderson.

But she had resiliency...