‘Being awesome at self-care’ exercise

Learning to look after yourself has been shown to build self-confidence and provide positive feelings. It’s not always easy to get into the habit of self-care, so this session will look at a few ideas to get students started.

Year Level

7-12

Duration

5 minutes

Type

  • In class activity

SEL Competencies

  • Self-awareness
  • Self-management

Learning Intention

Students learn some simple self-care strategies that they can implement in their everyday routine.

Key Outcomes

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

  • manage anxiety and stress in their life through self-care
  • develop a self-care strategy.
ACTIVITY 01

Instructions 5 min

As a group or individually, students read the ReachOut.com article 'How to be awesome at self-care'.

  1. Students make a list of pros and cons of each of the strategies identified in the article for their self-care.
  2. Individually, students choose two strategies that they think would be most valuable to implement in their own lives in the next week.
  3. Students write down the two strategies they will try to implement in the next week.
  4. Ask students to respond to these questions:
    • When will you implement these strategies?
    • What benefit are you hoping to achieve by implementing this strategy?
    • What may be a barrier to implementing this strategy? How can you remove this barrier?

Implementing a regular self-care strategy has been shown to be effective in creating a greater sense of connection to the outside world. It’s also helpful in managing the stress and anxiety students may experience in their everyday lives.