Using Life Skills To Improve Health

Mr. Royer

Life Skills

• Are skills that help you deal with situations that can affect your health.

• Life skills give you tools to deal with problems that you will face.

• Problems can be very simple or very complex.

• We will discuss 9 different life skills and explain how using these life skills can improve your health.

1. Assessing Your Health

• Periodically evaluating each of the four parts of your health.– Physical, Mental, Emotional, Social.

• Assessing your health behaviors.– Health Assessment Test

• Figure out what you can do to improve your health if it is not as good as it can be.

2. Making Good Decisions

• Making healthy and responsible choices will led to good decisions.

• You need to make decisions daily.

• You must have the courage to make difficult decisions and then stick to them.

• What is a decision you had to make today?

• Was it a easy or difficult decision?

3. Being A Wise Consumer

• Being a wise consumer includes…– Learning about the product.

• Reading the labels on the product.

– Comparing products before buying them.• Value.• Quality.• Price.

• Do you feel you are a wise consumer, a impulse shopper, or a little of both?

4. Communicating Effectively

• Good communication skills can help you avoid unwanted misunderstandings by expressing yourself in a healthy way.

• Using good listening skills is a very important factor in communicating effectively.

• When you really listen to what someone has to say, they will really want to listen to you as well.

• What is something you do to effectively communicate with your family or friends?

5. Practicing Wellness

• Being informed about good health habits is an excellent way to practice wellness.

• Good health habits you should practice daily…– The Three E’s:

• Eating a healthy and well balanced diet.• Exercising.• Enough (Eight hours) sleep to function properly.

• What other health habits do you practice to achieve wellness?

6. Setting Goals

• Setting goals will allow you to aim for something that will give you a sense of accomplishment.

• Set achievable or realistic goals.

• What are some of your short-term goals?– What to wear to school.

• What are some of your long-term goals?– What career to pursue.

7. Using Refusal Skills

• What is a refusal skill?• A refusal skill is a way to say NO to something

that you do NOT want to do.• This is a skill that requires practice and is not

always easy to do.• First, you must feel strongly about the things you

want to avoid.• If you do not know where you stand on a

particular issue, giving into pressure may be easy.

8. Coping

• Dealing with problems in an effective way.

• Sometimes you may feel sad or be afraid of something, but when you learn to deal with your problem in a healthy way, then you are coping with your problem.

9. Evaluating Media Messages

• Judging the worth of a media message is very challenging.

• Media include…– Television, Commercials, Internet, Radio,

Newspapers, Magazines

• Valid vs. invalid.

• Doing so takes practice because most media messages are very convincing.