Notes
Class 1-1: Navigating Wellness
Overview
Overview
Class 1-1: Navigating Wellness will:
- Show you what to expect from this course.
- Introduce the foundational concepts we’ll build on with each new class.
- Prepare you to succeed with our course.
Objectives
After completing Class 1-1, you will be able to:
- Identify the purpose and intended outcomes of this course.
- Differentiate between the concepts of "health," "fitness," and "wellness."
- Discuss the theory of needs using one of your favorite characters from TV, books, movies, etc.
- Reflect on your learning and prepare to succeed in the course.
Outline of Today's Class
- Read through today's materials:
- Overview
- Getting Started with Lifetime Wellness
- What is Wellness?
- Thinking About Wellness
- Summary
Getting Started with Lifetime Wellness
Welcome
Welcome to KINS 1106 - Lifetime Wellness!
This course is designed to be accessible, easy-to-navigate, and easy to work into your schedule.
By working through each Class, you will grow your ability to develop informed, nuanced understandings about a variety of topics related to your personal, lifelong well-being.
The following pages will introduce you to the purpose, expectations, and routines of the course.
Why This Course?
Think of all that you have accomplished to reach this point in your life, and all the challenges you faced in that journey.
In your path, you may encounter - or have already encountered - many obstacles to living the life you would like.
You may face insecurity in meeting your basic needs for food, water, shelter, and safety.
You may find difficulty in knowing yourself, in connecting with others, in addressing the innate human need to be validated, cared for, and supported.
You may be grappling with the impacts of a difficult childhood, sociohistorical pressures, intergenerational trauma, or other challenging experiences.
You may be learning to live with illness, facing the illness of family and friends, or even experiencing grief and loss.
You may feel the pressure of overwhelming social and environmental problems, or struggle to grow and maintain healthy relationships with others.
You may be looking forward at the next stage of your life with concerns, doubts, and worries.
Throughout your life, you may face these or other challenges to your ability to live well.
Though many of the obstacles above do not have simple answers, bringing together scientific findings from a variety of fields can equip us to navigate through them as best we can - recognizing what choices we have available and practicing making the ones that support our goals and intentions.
When we look at our personal wellness, we are looking at how we move through this large interconnected world in which we live.
This course is intended to help you:
- develop a better awareness of your own experience
- connect with your fellow students and share those experiences
- learn well-demonstrated theories and acquire evidence-based tools that you may find helpful in managing your personal obstacles as you progress on your journey throughout life.
What is Wellness?
What is Wellness?
The word "Wellness" can be hard to define.
What does it mean to you?
It might bring to mind closely related concepts, like health (the general absence of illness or injury) and fitness (your ability to meet the demands of your tasks and goals), phrases like "self-care" and "treat yourself," or perhaps any number of products and services that use the term for marketing.
Conversely, you might think of some of the obstacles to living your ideal life, like pressure from friends, family, and society and limitations of time, money, and energy.
Thinking about the challenges and difficulties you have faced in the past, that you face now, and that you might face in the future:
- What experiences, tools, and information prepared you for those challenges and difficulties in the past?
- How are you managing your challenges and difficulties here, now, in the present?
- How do you deal with the uncertainty of the challenges and difficulties that the future may bring?
By exploring these questions in your own life, you can develop routines, habits, and strategies that help you succeed in your goals and live your best life. This is the abstract concept we call being well.
In our next class, you'll explore the idea of wellness further through seven areas of life, so it is fine to have just a general idea of this term right now.
Today, we'll begin thinking about wellness by looking at needs.
What are your needs?
Though the experiences you thought of a moment ago are unique to you, we as humans share some common needs.
These include things necessary for survival like food, water, shelter, and air, as well as other needs related to our emotional, social, and psychological health and development.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that much of common human behavior is based on these needs.
His most influential idea is often represented as a pyramid, with survival needs - like food, water, air, and rest - at the bottom.
As the foundation for someone's life, these survival needs become priorities and driving forces for behavior when not met.
When those needs are met (at least for the immediate future), a person can direct their energy and efforts towards needs related to emotional, social, and psychological health, such as the belonging to a group, being cared for, and finding recognition and purpose.
You might think of times you heard "I'm sorry I said that, I was just hungry," or how the determination to study for an exam late into the night is eventually overtaken by the need to sleep.
When we look at wellness in the context of these needs, we can think of wellness behaviors as ones that enable us to care for ourselves and our communities, to take steps - like being physically active and eating nutritious foods - that help avoid preventable illness and support longevity and mobility, and to manage existing conditions and obstacles to the greatest extent that is possible.
Other behaviors that can support wellness might include:
- setting healthy boundaries with those around you
- understanding and being aware of your emotional and psychological experience
- having areas of satisfaction and fulfillment in life
- making choices consistent with your beliefs and goals
- continuing to grow and adapt throughout each stage of the lifespan
- having a sense of meaning and purpose
When we use the word "wellness," we're considering both our personal behaviors and our greater environment to look at how we can best move through life.
Exploring these ideas can be freeing, inspiring, concerning, even - understandably - uncomfortable; however, doing so can offer a clearer awareness of your life, helping you navigate through the world, develop strategies and find resources, practice self-advocacy in relationships and other situations, and succeed in setting and achieving your personal and professional goals.
Thinking about Wellness
What is Metacognition?
This course will focus on concepts, resources, context, and skills that may be useful as you move throughout your life.
The first of these is metacognition.
Metacognition can help you be more effective in your education, your relationships, and your career.
What does this word mean and how can we use it?
Cognition is our thinking, our ability to turn over ideas and explore them.
We might think of "cognitive psychology," the English word "cognizant" (meaning to be aware) or even the Spanish verb conocer, meaning "to know."
Meta means "self-referential" or "a level above".
The prefix might bring to mind characters in media who are aware that they're fictional, like the Marvel character Deadpool or Abed Nadir of the TV show Community.
Meta-cognition then means to be outside or above our own thinking.
That is, to be aware of our thoughts and internal processes in order to inform our behaviors and choices.
Optional: Visit this website to learn more about metacognition, including a short video discussing the concept.
Metacognitive Strategies
Developing the skill of metacognition allows us to monitor, evaluate, and adjust how we approach learning, work, and interaction.
For example:
If I know that I have only a few hours to study five chapters for an exam, I might feel overwhelmed by all the things I have to review.
I might sit down to start reviewing with the first chapter, become overwhelmed, and decide to not bother studying - leading to a less-than-ideal outcome (a failing grade).
Instead, I can use metacognition to think critically about my learning and come up with a more helpful strategy.
I know that I need to cut down on what to study, so I may ask myself "What do I already know?"
Listing out what I can recall about each topic, I might realize that I remember most of Chapters 1 and 2 from a class last year, Chapter 5 covers the same stuff I'm learning in another class, and I kinda-sorta know Chapter 4... but also that I missed Chapter 3 entirely!
Now I know how to strategize, focusing my time first on Chapter 3. That way, I can at least earn some of those points.
Once I've done that, if I have time, I can look over Chapters 4 and 5.
And I know I don't need to pressure myself about Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
In this situation, taking a few minutes to think metacognitively can remove unnecessary stress, improve the likelihood of a passing grade, and save time and energy that I can use elsewhere!
Developing the skill of metacognition, or thinking about thinking, can help you make better informed and more active decisions in many situations.
In today's activity, you'll perform a self-inventory that asks you to reflect on your behaviors and perceptions as they relate to learning and well-being in order to practice metacognition and observe your thoughts about learning.
Summary
Major Points
During this first class, you have learned:
- Health - The absence of illness or injury.
- Fitness - Your ability to meet the demands of your tasks and goals.
- Wellness - The abstract concept of living in a way allows you to meet your needs, work toward your goals, and move through life in the best way possible.
- Abraham Maslow's general theory that human behavior is based around needs.
- When survival needs (food, water, air, shelter, safety) are not met, these are a person's priority. Their behavior is focused on obtaining these necessities.
- When survival needs are less of a concern, behavior can be directed towards building relationships and connecting with others (psychological, social, and emotional needs).
- When survival needs are met as well as the emotional, social, and psychological needs, a person can focus on developing themselves further.
- Metacognition is a skill and faculty that can be learned and developed by practice.
- Metacognitive strategies can help you take control over your education, assist with navigating relationships and help, you understand and fulfill your needs.