1. Building Health Skills
Wellness 9
Building Health Skills

2. Instant Activity
List the skills and qualities necessary for effective communication.
Explain how having strong communication skills can impact your health in positive ways.

3. Objective
Students will identify the specific tools and strategies that help maintain, protect, and improve all aspects of your health.

4. Health Skills/Life Skills
Specific tools and strategies that help you maintain, protect, and improve all aspects of your health.
Physical, Mental/Emotional, Social

5. The Six Health Skills Health Skills/Life Skills
1. Interpersonal Communication
- Communication Skills
- Refusal Skills
- Conflict Resolution
2. Self Management
- Practicing healthful behaviors
- Stress Management
3. Analyzing Influences
4. Accessing Information
5. Decision Making/Goal Setting
6. Advocacy

6. Interpersonal Communication
The exchange of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs between two or more people
Effective communication skills:
Clearly say what you mean. Use “I” messages to state your position
Pay attention to how you say something (respectful tone, facial expressions, gestures)
Be a good listener. Avoid interrupting and show you are listening (nod, asking questions)
Refusal skills: communication strategies that can help you say no
Conflict resolution: the process of ending a conflict through cooperation and problem solving
Steps when dealing with a conflict:
Take time to calm down and think through the situation
When discussing the conflict, speak calmly, listen, and ask questions
Use polite tone and brainstorm solutions to resolve the conflict peacefully

7. Five effective refusal strategies
What are refusal skills?
Communication strategies that can help you say no when you are urged to take part in behavior that are unsafe or unhealthful, or that go against your personal beliefs.
Say no in a clear and firm voice: expressions such as “I’d rather not.”
Explain why: state that the suggested activity goes against your personal values.
Suggest alternatives: propose a safe healthy activity to do instead.
Use appropriate body language: look directly into their eyes and do not back down from your position.
Leave if necessary: if the other person continues to pressure you, just walk away.

8. Conflict resolutions skills
Conflict resolution is the process of ending a conflict through cooperation and problem solving. The key to conflict resolution is respecting others’ right and your own.
Willingness to compromise will also help achieve a resolution that satisfies everyone.
Take time to calm down and think through the situation.
When discussing the conflict, speak calmly and listen attentively asking questions when appropriate.
Use a polite tone and try to brainstorm where no one loses respect.
Activity: Cooperation learning activity (pg. 30)

9. Self Management Practicing healthful behaviors:
Two self management skills, practicing healthful behaviors, and managing stress helps provide a foundation of good health
Practicing healthful behaviors:
Help to protect you from illness or injury
Eat nutritious foods
Get regular medical and dental check-ups
Avoid the use or tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs
Express your feelings
Build your self-esteem
Maintain healthy relationships
Stress management: ways to deal with or overcome the negative effects of stress
Stress management becomes more important as you take on more responsibility for your health and additional roles as an adult
Ex: physical activity, listening to music, managing time effectively, laughing

10. Analyzing Influences Showing a variety of influences.
Show both internal and external influences.
Explain the complexity of the influences.
Show how the influences affect health choices.

11. Accessing Information
Learning how to find and recognize trustworthy information will help you be better prepared to make healthful choices
Reliable sources:
Parents, guardians, and other trusted adults
Library resources such as encyclopedias and nonfiction books
Reliable Internet sites such as those posted by government and educational institutes
Newspaper and magizine articles by health professionals or experts
Government agencies, health care providers, and health organizations

12. Decision making/Goal Setting
Steps that enable you to make a healthful decision
Steps that help you to protect your rights and health as well as the rights and health of others
Steps of the decision making progress:
Step 1: State The Situation
Step 2: List The Options
Step 3: Weigh The Possible Outcomes
Step 4: Consider Values
Step 5: Make A Decision And Act On It
Step 6: Evaluate The Decision
A goal is something that you aim for that takes planning and work
There are two different types of goals: short-term (over a short period of time) and long-term (over a long period of time)
To establish your goals,

13. Advocacy Taking a clear stand for a healthy choice. Being persuasive.
Explaining why the stand taken is good for health.
Use information to support the choice.
Show awareness of the audience for the message
Show conviction about the message