Taking Charge of Personal Wellness

Chapter 9.2: Taking Charge of Personal Wellness

Objectives

• Define wellness in terms of nutrition, exercise, sleep, and social media use.
• Describe the relationship between stress management and wellness.
• Describe how critical thinking and mindfulness inform wellness.

Wellness in Practice

• Wellness is central to the textbook, enhancing learning in college and beyond.
• Monitoring behaviors, forming effective habits, creating intentional goals, improving metacognition and critical thinking, increasing motivation, and learning time management are key.
• A balanced approach to wellness is a prerequisite for optimal learning outcomes.
• Daily functioning is impacted by lifestyle choices, affecting information processing, memory retrieval, and learning.
• Effective memory retrieval strategies depend on daily wellness choices: nutrition, exercise, sleep hygiene, and stress management.
• Learning is an integrative neurobiological process.
• Physical and mental health are crucial for succeeding in learning.

Wellness Routines: Sleep, Nutrition, and Physical Activity

• College students often understand the importance of sleep, nutrition, and exercise, but struggle to act on this knowledge.
• Poor eating habits in college can lead to dire health consequences later in life (Plotnikoff et al., 2015).
• Physical activity declines between high school and college; only 40% of college students exercise regularly (Kim & Cardinal, 2019).
• Insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic (U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention).
• 50% of college students report daytime sleepiness, and 70% report insufficient sleep (Hershner & Chervin, 2014).
• Short-term sleep deprivation impacts the cortex's functioning and the temporal lobe's ability to consolidate and encode into long-term memory.
• Sleep deprivation affects focus, learning, and information retention.
• Establishing wellness routines considering sleep hygiene, nutritional intake, and physical activity is crucial.
• Deficits in these areas detract from mood stability, memory consolidation, and attentional capacity.
• Poor wellness habits increase the risk of anxiety, burnout, depression, and illness (Plotnikoff et al., 2015).
• Physical needs impact emotional responses to stress and anxiety, focused problem-solving, curiosity, patience, and attentiveness.
• Occupational and spiritual wellness suffer when energy is lacking.
• Improving wellness demands a self-regulated learning process: setting goals, applying strategies, monitoring changes, and evaluating outcomes.
• Self-monitoring strategies: journaling, smartphone applications, and physiological monitoring devices (e.g., Fitbit) can increase self-awareness.

Sleep Hygiene Recommendations

• Do:
  • Establish a daily routine: Go to bed and wake up at the same time, have a bedtime routine, maintain the routine even when tired.
  • Ensure the room is cool and comfortable; use earplugs and eye masks if needed.
  • Use the bed only for sleep or sex.
  • Get regular exercise, preferably earlier in the day.
• Don't:
  • Stay in bed awake; get up and do something boring until sleepy.
  • Consume caffeine or alcohol or exercise close to bedtime (4-6 hours prior).
  • Read, watch TV, or engage in other activities in bed.
  • Take afternoon naps or limit them to 20 minutes.

Connection of Gut to Brain

• Hunger can overtake cognitive function, reducing the ability to monitor and regulate emotions, work effectively, and focus.
• The vagal nerve directly connects to brain centers maintaining energy homeostasis and cognitive functioning.
• Vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) impacts digestion by initiating messages to activate digestive enzymes and food absorption (Gómez-Pinilla, 2008).
• The sensory process of preparing a meal begins in the visual and olfactory centers of the brain (occipital and parietal lobes).
• Mood is impacted as the vagal nerve prepares the digestive tract for food ingestion.
• Once food is ingested and hormones like insulin are released, synaptic activity increases, aiding in memory and learning.
• Food is a direct link to learning and retaining information.

Wellness Routines: Stress Management and Mindfulness

• Stress reactions occur when perceived demands exceed personal resources (Lazarus, 2006).
• Stress corresponds with the release of cortisol, influencing working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (Shields et al., 2016).
• Chronic stress impairs emotional regulation, memory retention, planning, and impulse control.
• Moderate stress can improve performance (Kohn et al., 2017).
• Duration, intensity, and source of stressors are important to consider.
• Stress management strategies are a crucial component of wellness.
• Time management practices (ideal schedules, master calendars) manage stress by creating consistency and predictability.
• Routines related to sleeping, eating, and exercise also manage stress.
• Personal wellness involves using mindfulness strategies to manage stress.
• Mindfulness: the practice of self-awareness, noticing one's thoughts, emotions, actions, and experiences in the present moment.
• Mindful self-observance: considering the order and duration of routines without judgment.
• Visual imagery enhances memory retention, emotional regulation, and stress management.
• Active visualization practices increase wellness.

Visualization Practice

• Beach Visualization: Imagine lying on a beach, feeling the sun and cool sand, with the ocean's ebb and flow mirroring your breath. Float away with each exhale, releasing tension, and then return to the beach with each inhale, feeling grounded and relaxed.
• Container Visualization: Imagine a container strong enough to hold distressing thoughts, memories, and sensations. Describe the container (size, color, material, security) and place the distressing elements inside, securely shutting them away.

Muscle Relaxation

• Progressive muscle relaxation calms the mind and body by tensing and relaxing muscle groups systematically.
• Visualize tension flowing away from each muscle group when relaxed.
• Process:
  • Sit up straight, feet flat on the floor.
  • Breathe deeply: inhale gently through the nose, hold for three seconds, and exhale gently through the mouth.
  • Tense each muscle group for five seconds, then relax for ten seconds, breathing throughout.
  • Muscle groups: eyebrows, smile, eyelids, head tilt, shoulders, upper back, chest, upper arms, hands, stomach, lower back, thighs, and feet.

Boundaries

• Establishing boundaries (time, mental space, substance use) is important for stress reduction.
• Attend to emotional, occupational, and social boundaries.
• Reflect on personal boundaries and their relation to values, ideals, and goals.
• Consistent maintenance of personal boundaries is key.
• Mindful reflection on clear boundaries across all wellness dimensions enhances life.

Critical Thinking

• Critical thinking: self-guided, self-disciplined thinking that attempts to reason at the highest quality in a fair-minded way (Elder, 2007).
• Critical thinkers consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, and empathically.
• Critical thinking skills are essential for effective learning and building personal wellness.
• The process of critical thinking can be applied to personal wellness: monitoring, analyzing, and reformulating plans.
• Building wellness requires mindful self-awareness of thoughts, feelings, values, perceptions, and beliefs.

Critical Thinking Steps

• Metacognitive Knowledge: Increase awareness surrounding situational information, personal beliefs, and understanding of boundaries before creating a plan for change.
• Establish a Goal: Create a plan to tackle the problem and establish concrete, challenging, though attainable, goals for change.
• Gather Resources: Plan for roadblocks (low motivation, lack of accountability) by establishing enabling goals and proactive/reactive steps.
• Monitor the Plan: Honestly assess how well the plan is working by monitoring how each area of wellness is being impacted by the established plan.
• Analyze the Outcome: Check-in with each area of wellness to assess progress. Was the plan effective, and were outcomes achieved?
• Reformulate Plan and Repeat the Process: Make adjustments and changes to the plan. Recognize the process is active and ongoing.

Critical Thinking and Social Media Wellness

• Metacognitive Knowledge: Understand personal beliefs about social media use.
• Establish a Goal: Set a concrete goal for changing social media habits.
• Gather Resources: Plan for potential roadblocks by filling gaps in metacognitive knowledge.
• Monitor the Plan: Check-in about the effectiveness of the plan and strategies.
• Analyze the Outcome: Evaluate satisfaction with the result.
• Reformulate and try again: Make changes and adjustments based on the evaluation.

Wellness Routines: Social Media

• Social media impacts the social dimension and other areas of wellness.
• Social media culture significantly affects student wellness.
• Social media facilitates social connectedness, but there's an increase in problematic social media use (PSMU).
• PSMU: excessive concern with and use of social media to the exclusion of other activities (Andreassen, 2015).
• Upward of 44% of young adults self-report PSMU (Shensa et al., 2017), linked to increased risk of anxiety and depression (Shensa et al., 2018).
• Social media use becomes problematic when it interferes with relationships, community involvement, and academic/career achievement (Shensa et al., 2017).
• Multitasking and non-academic social media use while studying detrimentally impact college student performance (Lau, 2017).
• Excessive social media use is associated with reduced physical activity (Barkley & Lepp, 2017), poor sleep habits (Levenson et al., 2016), and lower self-reported life satisfaction (Andreassen, 2015).
• Critical thinking about social media use is essential for personal wellness.
• Mindfulness and critical thinking skills can determine how social media influences wellness.

Self-Assessment Questions

• Activate Prior Knowledge
  • What area of wellness will you reflect on?
  • What are you unsatisfied with in this area of wellness?
  • What previous things have you tried that did and did not work?
  • What gaps exist in your knowledge of this area of wellness?
  • How might you seek to fill those gaps? What resources can you access?
• Metacognitive Knowledge
  • Knowledge of Person Variables
    • What is your current motivation level for making changes in this area of wellness?
    • What skills do you currently have that can aid you in successfully making this change?
    • If you imagine this area of wellness, what are the perceived barriers to change?
  • Knowledge of Task Variables
    • What is the easiest or least time-consuming part of maintaining this area of wellness?
    • What is the hardest or most time-consuming part of maintaining this area of wellness?
    • Based on those two answers, how might you choose to approach planning for change in this area of wellness?
  • Knowledge of Strategy Variables
    • What strategies do you use to maintain satisfaction in the identified area above?
    • What strategies have you tried that make maintaining this area more difficult?
    • Based on the above answers, what strategies can be adapted to promote this area of wellness?
    • How will you know if a strategy is effective or not?

Chapter 9.2 Summary

• Information processing depends on daily wellness choices related to nutrition, exercise, sleep hygiene, and stress management.
• Poor wellness habits increase the risk of anxiety, burnout, depression, and illness.
• Wellness is a self-regulated learning process.
• Mindfulness is the practice of self-awareness.
• Progressive muscle relaxation is a stress management strategy.
• Critical thinking can be applied to personal wellness.
• Critical thinking about social media use is important for personal wellness.