13 Wellness is Challenging

Link to book chapter

Recommended reading time

Chapter overview

Wellness is not a status; you don’t reach wellness and stay there forever. Instead, wellness, is something you work on every day. Complicating matters, wellness has many dimensions, and a person can be doing well in one area and not in another. For students, wellness has a huge effect on every aspect of their lives, including academics.

This chapter introduces the dimensions of wellness and gives students a chance to reflect on why wellness is not easy for them. By breaking down the different types of wellness, students should be able to be more precise when they say they are doing well (or not well) and understand how they can approach each area of their lives. It’s important that students realize that it’s okay to be at different levels of wellness, as long as they are making careful decisions to improve their lives today and for the future. Once students read about the dimension of wellness, they will look at elf-regulation and habits and how those influence their current state. They will learn about self-care (which is not an indulgence, but rather taking steps to do what is best for you, not just feel good). They then read about stress and things that can affect their ability to be well, including resource instability (did you know we have a basic needs center on campus), and resources they can seek on campus.

When I’ve talked about wellness with students, they quickly bring up mental health, stress, and anxiety. As I’m not a licensed therapist or social worker, this is a topic where I immediately share our campus services, including our own student success specialists who are licensed social workers. That said, I do not shy away and try to give students a space to talk about the challenges they have being well- and try to shift the discussion away from symptoms related to mental health, which are better addressed by a professional. Stress and anxiety make for interesting class discussions, especially if you use an article or part of the chapter to ground the discussion.

Linked Lesson/Activity:

Student learning outcomes

By the end of this chapter, you will:

• Consider your wellness in multiple dimensions
• Identify challenges to your wellness and health and changes you might want to make

Questions to use for discussions, assignments, and reflections

What is your overall wellness status? In each dimension?

Consider each dimension

• Which dimensions do you have good habits in?
• Which could use improvement?
• Which dimensions do you feel
• What are the barriers to wellness in each dimension?

What is your experience with stress? With anxiety?

Do you have behaviors, like procrastination, that limit your wellness?

How does sleep, nutrition, or exercise affect all areas of wellness?

Possible assignments and activities

• Have students journal about their activities/thoughts/experiences/feelings in specific dimensions
• Ask students to analyze their wellness and habits that increase or decrease it
• Present a scenario and ask students to create a wellness plan for a financial student

Notes

Wellness is a challenge for students- and they likely are aware of the challenges they face. Some may be their own habits, but others may be related to lifestyle, resources, and needs. Be sure to introduce the basic needs center on campus and other areas (like the counseling center). This is a good chapter to do closer to week 5.