Student Tribune
National Wellness Month
August is National Wellness Month and we are joining in the effort to focus
on self-care, stress management, and promoting healthy routines. Research has
shown that self-care helps manage stress and promotes happiness.
If you haven’t already been doing so, we encourage you to give
yourself permission to have fun, laugh, and be silly during the remaining days
of summer, before the busy start of the semester. Small steps can lead to
healthy habits in your lifestyle. There are numerous ways to make those small
changes, too. Here are some suggestions:
Accumulate positive experiences in the short-term: Do pleasant
things that are possible now!
By building positive experiences (doing something enjoyable every day), we
can reduce our vulnerability to our emotion mind (feeling emotions bigger and
stronger and potentially acting impulsively). This allows us to be more
proactive and less reactive, in that we will likely be better able to handle
challenges thrown our way. By making changes and focusing on accumulating
positive experiences whenever possible in the short-term, it will also allow
positive events to occur more often in the long-term. We know that positive
events prompt pleasant emotions. We encourage you to take a look at the
attached Summer Pleasant Activities List. Feel free to edit it and tailor it to
your interests, share it, print it off, and check off one thing each day that
you could feasibly do. Some other tips to consider:
Be mindful of positive experiences while they are
occurring:
- Focus your attention on positive moments when they are
happening
- Refocus your attention when your mind wanders to the negative or
you get distracted
- Participate and engage fully in the experience (throw yourself into
it)
- Remind yourself that you are deserving of good experiences and
things!
It’s healthy to practice taking some time for yourself every single
day. What better time to start than during National Wellness Month? Consider
making a small change this month and impact your health in positive ways.
Attached Files:
Pleasant Activities List.pdf
Kennell, Morgan
Counseling Center & Disability Services
08/10/2022