Life Skills, Health Assessment, and Practicing Wellness

What are the 9 life skills? 1. Assessing your health 2. Making good decisions 3. Being a wise consumer 4. Communicating effectively 5. Practicing wellness 6. Setting goals 7. Using refusal skills 8. Coping 9. Evaluating media messages

What is Health? Health is a condition of your physical, emotional, mental and social well-being. All of these parts of your health must be balanced in order for you to be healthy.

Physical Part of Health Describes the condition of the body. Most people focus the most on this part. Ways to maintain physical health: Get 8 hours of sleep each night. Eat nutritious food and a balanced diet. Get plenty of physical activity. Practice good hygiene (hygiene is the practice of keeping clean which helps prevent disease). Avoid drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

Emotional Part of Health The way you recognize and deal with your feelings. Effects the way you see yourself and respond to others. Ways to maintain emotional health: Express your emotions in words rather than acting them out. Show self-control and think before you act. Accept your strengths and weaknesses and respect yourself. Deal with sadness appropriately and in a timely manner. You will go through a lot of different emotions during the next few years of your life, but know that this is normal and you can get through it. We will talk more on this in another lesson.

Mental Part of Health Mental has to do with your mind. When you are mentally healthy you: Recognize and deal with stress in a positive way. Accept new ideas. Effectively solve problems.

Social Part of Health Describes the way you interact with other people. It starts with your family and throughout life you interact with more and more people. Your relationships with family, friends and groups are very important because they help you have a sense of belonging and feel good about yourself. Ways to improve your social skills are: Being considerate of other people and their needs. Showing respect to others. Being dependable. Supporting people you care about when they make the right choices. Expressing your true feelings. Imaging how you would feel if you were in another person’s place. Asking for help when you need it.

Wellness Wellness is the state of good health achieved by balancing all four parts of health. You function best when you maintain this balance in your life.

Health Assessment A health assessment is a set of questions that allows you to evaluate each of the four parts of your health.

Practicing Wellness Practicing wellness means to practice good health habits in all four parts of your health. Eat healthy, exercise, get plenty of sleep, respect others, etc… There are many things that influence our health and wellness Heredity Environment Relationships Others

Heredity Heredity is the passing down of traits from a parent to a child. A trait is a characteristic that a person has. Can be physical (hair or eye color) Can be personality (sense of humor) Can have an impact on your health. Some examples: Vision problems Obesity Heart disease Cystic Fibrosis

Environmental Influences Your environment is everything around you, including the things you cannot see. Air, germs, smells, noises Examples: The air may contain particles that make you cough or initiate an allergic reaction. Microscopic organism can make you sick when they invade your body. Second-hand smoke can make you cough and cause long-term respiratory problems. You could help make your environment safer by: Recycling Disposing of trash properly to prevent pollution Use public transportation, walk or carpool

Relationships Family: Peers/Friends: Your family has been responsible for teaching you how to take care of your health. Peers/Friends: Someone the same age or in the same grade with similar interests as you. They influence things that you do now. Their influence can be positive or negative. True friends would never ask you to do something that would be harmful to your health.

Other Influences Some other things that can influence your health would be the media (TV, movies, radio, internet, etc…) and advertisements. Both of these can have a HUGE impact on your health decisions. We will go into both of these in more detail in a later lesson.

Making Choices About Your Health You have control of some of the things that influence your health. Your lifestyle is one of those things. Your lifestyle is a set of behaviors by which you live. Anytime you make a choice that affects your health you are making a choice about your lifestyle. Could have only short-term consequences, but could also have long-term or life-long consequences. Your attitude is the way you act, think or feel that causes you to make one choice over another. A healthy attitude can: Help you say no to negative peer pressure Give you confidence to ignore what others may think about your choices Give you the confidence you make the right decisions for you.

Making Choices About Your Health Preventive healthcare is taking the steps necessary to prevent illness or accidents. Wear seatbelts or helmets Refuse to smoke or drink Eating nutritious foods Exercising regularly Getting physicals and regular check ups A proactive approach means that you purposefully take action to improve your health before a problem arises.