Chapter Two Skills for a Healthy Life

Building Life Skills Life skills are the tools needed to build a healthy life. They help you improve the six components of health

Some life skills can affect all components of health. Learning to use life skills will boost your wellness throughout your life.

10 Life Skills 1. Assessing your health Enables you to find out what you need to do to improve your health “How healthy are You”?

2. Communicating Effectively Allows you to communicate with others and improves your relationships with others.

3. Practicing Wellness Shows how to practice healthy behaviors so that you can have life long health. Sleep, eat right, exercise

4. Coping Being able to deal with troubles or problems effectively. Allows you to handle difficult times and situations.

5. Being a Wise consumer Allows you to make good decisions when buying health products and services. What is appropriate for you?

6. Evaluating Media Messages The media plays a significant role in your decisions about the world. Gives you the tools to analyze media messages and make better decisions.

7. Using Community Resources Every community has a wealth of services that provide help for the components of health.

8. Making GREAT decisions Provides you with the steps to make the right decisions for yourself.

9. Using Refusal Skills Provides you with different ways to say “NO”.

10. Setting Goals Provides you with tips to help reach your goals and to set them realistically.

Making Great Decisions Decisions often happen at the spur of the moment. You may also make them and not realize that you have made a decision regarding something.

Making a decision with realizing it is alright for easy things, but you can run into negative consequences.

Consequences The results of your actions and decisions. Maybe STD’s, pregnancy, addictions, overdoses, and car accidents.

Making decisions is important because you are responsible for the consequences of you decisions (actions or inactions).

Have you ever made a decision that you have regretted later? Try the GREAT model

GREAT G- Give thought to the problem R- Review your choices E- Evaluate the consequences A- Assess and choose the best T- Think it over afterward

Give thought to the problem Stop and think about the decision. Will you regret it Will you get hurt or in trouble Will it hurt someone else ???????????????????????????????

Review your choices Look at all of your options for the situation. Is there something that you forgot?

Evaluate the consequences Weigh the pros and cons of the decisions. What are the short-term consequences What are the long-term consequences

Assess and Choose Make a choice that best reflects your values. Values are a strong belief or ideal and have a big effect on your decisions.

If you make a decision that goes against your values, you will probably feel bad about the decision later. Respecting your values is respecting Yourself.

Think it over After your decision look back on it and see if it was the right one. Reflect on what you did

Make Decisions Together When you have difficult decisions to make, sometimes it helps to seek advice from others. It can be friends, teachers, and parents.

They might see something that you didn’t. They can also support you when the decision you make is not popular.

Many decisions need the help of others. When you work with someone to reach a decision, you are collaborating with them.

An example of a situation where collaboration is needed is Suicide. You need to work with your parents or theirs to help the person who is thinking of suicide.

Mistakes Even with using good decision making skills, you can make mistakes. Everyone makes them Some more serious than others

Mistakes The best thing to do is to admit your mistake and correct it.

Stop Think GO Stop- Stop and admit that you made a bad decision.

Think- Think about who you need to talk to about your mistake. Discuss how to correct it

Go- Go and do your best to correct the mistake/situation.

Remember that everyone makes mistakes and you can learn from every mistake that you make.

Resisting Pressure from others Chapter 2 Section 3

Who Influences You? Peers can influence you a lot

Peer Pressure What clothes you wear Your hairstyle Your behaviors and decisions

It is the feeling that you should do something because that is what your friends want.

Your family can also influence your behavior and decisions The media also influences you

The pressure that others can put on you can be positive or negative.

Positive Influences Having positive role models and being influenced to improve yourself can be good.

Negative Influences Being influenced to do something that you don’t want to do. Or something that is unhealthy or dangerous. The consequences of your actions can be serious and life threatening.

Types of Pressure Direct Pressure Indirect Pressure

Direct Pressure It is the pressure that results from someone who tries to convince you to do something that you normally wouldn’t do.

Indirect Pressure The pressure that results from being swayed to do something because people you look up to are doing it. Indirect pressure is more subtle that direct. You are not being told or asked to do something. You still feel pushed to do it.

Pressure/Decisions When making a decision, make a conscious effort to determine why you are making the decision. Are you being pressured? Does it support your values?

Setting Healthy Goals A goal is something that you work towards and hope to achieve. Goals are directions for your life

Your goals are like a map of where you want to go during your life

Short-Term Goals Goals that can be achieved quickly Days or Weeks Buy a CD, DVD or do well on a test

Long-Term Goals Goals that take longer than a couple of weeks. Months or years to achieve “What you want to be when an adult”

Achieving long-term goals takes a lot of work and determination. You can’t reach them overnight

Six Suggestions for Setting Goals 1. Safe- Can the goal harm you?

2. Satisfying Will you feel good about yourself when you reach your goals.

3. Sensible Are they sensible and realistic Important especially for short-term goals. Can it be achieved?

4. Similar The goals should be similar to goals that you have set in the past.

5. Specific The goals need to be specific What do you want to attain?

6. Supported Will your goals be supported by those around you? You need all the support you can get to attain your goals.

Action Plan It is the next step in setting goals after going over the six steps. It is a step-by-step process you can take as you work towards your goal.

It states the date you plan to meet the goal. Make sure to record your action plan in a notebook.

Rewards Your action plan should contain suggestions that will make reaching your goal easier. Make a list of rewards that you can get as you strive for your goal.

Influences What influences can help or hurt you reach your goal? Risk factors Drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, injurious behaviors, diet, tobacco, and sedentary lifestyles.

You can have positive influences too.

Refusal Skills There are many different ways to refuse to do something that you don’t want to do. A refusal skill is a strategy to avoid doing something you don’t want to do.

Some refusal skills are familiar, you might even have use some. Some are better than others for certain situations. Sometimes you have to use several types of refusals before people accept your answer.

Twelve Refusal Skills 1. Blame someone else My dad would kill me if I didn’t help him

2. Give a reason “No, my dad said he’d pay me $20 if I helped out”

3. Ignore the request or the pressure Pretend that you don’t hear them asking you. Refuse to talk about it.

4. Leave the situation “I’ve got to get going. I’m running late”

5. Say “ No Thanks” “No thanks, I’m not interested”

6. Say No and mean it “NO, I don’t want to do it”

7. Keeping saying NO “How many times do I have to say NO? Stop bugging me”

8. Make a joke out of it “You probably couldn’t keep up with me on a bike ride anyway”

9. Make an Excuse “No, I’m not feeling well”

10. Suggest something else to do “Let’s go on a bike ride on Sunday instead”

11. Change the subject “I heard Nick and Mary are dating”

12. Team up with someone “Hey David, didn’t dad say we had to do the garage or we’d be grounded?” Ask one or more people who share your values to help you in the refusal. Many voices are better than one.

Practicing Refusal Skills Practicing refusal skills can help you know what to do when you are in a “real life” situation. If you are experienced in using refusal skills, you may make better decisions?

That is because the decision will be yours, and you won’t be pressured by others.

Peer Pressure Usually when we think about peer pressure, we think about teens. It can happen no matter how old you are. Being able to say no will help you regardless of your age.

Say No with Respect There are two important things to remember with refusal skills. 1. Always respect others 2. Don’t put others down

One reason that people feel pressure to do something is that they don’t want to seem disrespectful. You can say No without being disrespectful.

You don’t have to insult someone when you refuse to give in.

Disagreeing with others or saying No does not mean that people will stop liking you. It may seem that way, but you don’t have to feel that you have to go along with them

Persistent Pressure Sometimes people won’t stop bothering you. When that happens, no matter how many times you have refused. Walk Away from the situation

If someone doesn’t respect your NO, remember that your values and rights are important.

Key Terms Risk Factor- Anything that increases the likelihood of injury, disease, or other health problems.

Key Terms Sedentary- Not taking part in physical activity on a regular basis.