1. Healthy Habits to Promote Academic Success
Healthy Habits to Promote Academic Success
Denise Giarrusso, Florida State College at Jacksonville
Kathleen Becht, University of Central Florida
2019 Hartwick Symposium Series

2. Learning Objectives
Look at your lifestyle and identify the barriers that keep you from being healthy
Learn strategies to improve your physical and emotional well-being.
Identify common stressors and stress management strategies.
Develop personal healthy habit goals and steps to begin.

3. Time as a Resource - Benjamin Franklin
“Lost time is never found again”
- Benjamin Franklin

4. Healthy Habit Assessment
Take 5 minutes to complete the
Heathy Habit Assessment
What did you learn about yourself?
Are you happy with your score?
Do you have any areas you want to change?
Administer Healthy Assessment-give 5 minutes to complete and then 3 minutes to talk about the three questions.

5. What makes being healthy so difficult?
A Reality Check
What barriers do you see?

6. Common Barriers Toward Meeting Goals
Procrastination
Failure
Prioritizing
Level of Difficulty
Level of Commitment
Self Sabotage
Giving up

7. Common Stressors that can get in the way of your goals
Family arguments
Losing a friend or family member
Losing a job
Getting poor grades
Troubles with friends or relationships
Being sick
Feeling like you are not in control of your life

8. Techniques to Improve Physical and Emotional Well-being
Find physical activities you enjoy and do them daily
(cycling, walking, yoga, swimming, playing a sport, etc.)
Choose cardiovascular activities to 3 hours weekly.
Reduces Stress – you FEEL better
Helps keep you at a healthy weight
Improves muscle strength and endurance
Increases flexibility
Talk about finding things that you enjoy is critical to successful change because if you don’t like the activity the likelihood of persisting will greatly diminish. It take 3 weeks to establish new routines into habits and finding a friend to workout with doubles likelihood of success.

9. Finding Balance in Self Care
Set Simple Goals
Drink 8 glasses of Water, EVERY day
Eat balanced / healthy diet
Exercise, 3 times a week, one hour each time
Sleep 7-8 hours daily
Mindfulness Activity
Stop and do a quick relaxation technique. Ask students to close their eyes for 10 seconds and ask what they hear? If there is no background noise in the room, clear your throat, drag nails across a desk softly, or make some other subtle, faint noise.
Have students share what they heard? Did anyone hear other sounds? Then ask the students how they feel? Just taking 10 seconds to shut down their brain releases stress.

10. Self Care for Academic Success
Work, school, life balance
Organize yourself for success
Time Management
Map out your course work for the semester
Use phone reminders/ticklers
Stay current or work ahead on assignments
Make time for breaks
Pace and reward yourself
Can discuss use of binders or folders, some may like individual binder or folder for each class or other may prefer use of large binder for the term where they keep all semester of work together. Color coding by class or activity, highlighting, hand written versus typing notes, or writing notes and later typing them so you are handling the information more than once to move information into long term memory.

11. Develop a Support System
Reflection Activity:
How can you develop a healthy support system?
Identify 3 people who support you in your life.
What do they do that supports you?
Name 2-3 ways that you can support your friends
This is a Reflection Activity…give 3 minutes and have class individually reflect on these three questions. Discuss how you can develop a support system for school (connecting with one or two students in each class, sharing contact information for emergencies, forming study groups, sharing of notes if you or someone in class is absent, connecting with professor), for personal life consider transportation and child care and have a back up plan in place.

12. Finding Balance is Energy Management
Make some time weekly to do things that restore and relax you.
What rejuvenates you?
Do you take time to do what
rejuvenates you?
Know your breaking point
Know your options
Make your choices
Everyone has a different idea
of balance.
Allow students to share at each bullet. Some may relax by reading where others may relax by exercise. You can talk about choices of working and going to school, full-time versus PT enrollment, options could be online, campus based classes or hybrid, and choices can be related to making time to study, complete class readings and assignments.

13. Strategies/Techniques to Improve Emotional Wellbeing
Deep breathing is a strategy of taking deep, slow breaths.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation slowly tenses and relaxes each muscle group.
Meditation can result in greater relaxation and mental calmness.
Imagery is seeing peaceful and calming pictures in your mind.
Mindfulness is a strategy of listening to our body’s messages.
Depending upon time remaining, you could do three deep, cleansing breaths, imagery or PMR.

14. Keep Learning Learning improves overall well-being.
Self-confidence self-esteem
sense of purpose
Connection to others
Be a Life-Long Learner (even after school ends)
Learn to cook a new recipe
Visit a museum or art gallery
Learn a new skill
Rediscover an old hobby
Take on a new responsibility
This involves learning outside of class. Could talk about the benefits of “lifelong learning”.

15. “A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
What is your vision?
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
-Karen Lamb

16. Goal Setting Activity SMART goals for Health Habits
Complete the Smart Goals worksheet-5 minutes. If time allows it is optional if anyone want to discuss and share.

17. Closing Thoughts…
It takes work to be happier, but it’s gratifying work; the real challenge is to decide purposely what to do-and then to do it.
-Gretchen Rubin

18.
Questions?