The Wellness Wheel

Like the Discovery Wheel in Chapter One of your Master Student text, the Wellness Wheel is an opportunity to tell the truth about your current effectiveness in several key areas of life. With this self-knowledge, you can make choices that take your health and well-being to a whole new level.

This is not a test. There are no trick questions or right answers. You will do the rating, and your answers will apply only to you.

Background

While you're in school, your health might go though major changes. For some students, these changes are difficult.

For example, Richard Kadison and Theresa DiGeronimo, authors of College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What to Do About It, report that:
  • The likelihood that college students will become depressed has doubled since 1988.
  • During the same period, sexual assaults involving college students increased fourfold.
  • Nearly half of America's college students have regular episodes of binge drinking -- increasing their risk of car accidents and sexual assault.
Figures like these highlight the importance of doing this exercise - and taking action on what you discover.

Getting the most from this exercise

As you complete the Wellness Wheel:
  • Tell the truth. The more candid your responses, the more you will learn about yourself.
  • Keep it light. This exercise is not about earning praise or assessing blame. You might score lower than you like in certain areas. If so, use this fact to motivate changes in your beliefs and your behavior - not to judge yourself.
  • Remember that this exercise has two purposes. One is to highlight areas where you can improve your level of health. Equally important, however, is celebrating what you're already doing well when it comes to taking care of your health.

How it works

This exercise has seven sections. Each section consists of seven statements. Position the slide bar for each statement based on how much it applies to you.

By the end of this exercise, you will have a colored circle similar to the one on this page. Each color represents your total score in a section of this exercise. The closer the shading comes to the outer edge of the circle, the higher your self-evaluation in that section.

In the example below, the student has rated her self-care skills lower than her energy level.

Again, the terms "high" and "low" are not meant to reflect a negative judgment. The Wellness Wheel is not a fixed picture of who you are. It is a picture of how you see yourself today - and a cue to creating your future health.

Start the Wellness Wheel

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