How do we know if we are caring properly for our wellness? And how can we best support the well-being of our whole school population?
These are big questions that we owe our fullest dedication and expertise!
Check out some tips for all of us as we pursue wellness and happiness in our day to day school life.
What is mental wellness?
Wellness is more than just feeling good or the absence of illness, it relates to opportunities to function, to connect, to learn, to live without excessive stress, and to maintain body, brain, and mental health in balance.
Each of these crucial elements of wellbeing profoundly affects all other aspects of people’s lives and learners’ studies.
According to the Global Wellness Institute, we can achieve mental wellness by flourishing in four dimensions:
– mental (thinking);
– emotional (feeling);
– social (connecting);
– psychological (functioning);
Overall wellness fuels the body, engages the mind, and nurtures the spirit. The benefits of wellbeing can have a huge impact on our lives.
Wellness at St. Nicholas
Considering the holistic growth of our learners, we continuously work toward providing healthy relationships and a positive environment to foster their overall happiness and life satisfaction.
Research shows that students who are happy and healthy develop important skills like:
– resilience and coping skills;
– build better relationships;
– feel more social responsibility;
– experience higher concentration, motivation, and energy levels.
As educators, we see each learner as a whole person, someone who is much more than their ‘academic performance’. For this reason, we try to ensure that their voice and agency feature strongly in our learning principles.
We empower our young people to act productively and to gain both the knowledge and the skills needed to cope with the many challenges facing our world.
It works as a cycle, in which student wellness is a foundation for meaningful learning, and these significant experiences reinforce their welfare.
The Wellbeing Centre at St. Nicholas
To help fulfil our mission for every learner, the St. Nicholas community has the Wellbeing Centre to make provision for mental wellness.
Our priority is focused on developing every learner’s social and emotional abilities as well as their self-confidence throughout their studies within school community interactions. With these in place, our graduates are best equipped for their studies beyond our campus.
For us, the Wellbeing Centre has the general objective to provide student wellness services in partnership with the other pedagogical departments.
In order to align goals and expectations for learners regarding their wellbeing, we:
– Listen actively and embrace individuals’ suffering and difficulties;
– Aim for student welfare;
– Support and mentor educators;
– Advise and provide guidance to families;
– Establish partnerships with outside specialists (psychologists, psychiatrists, among others).
Moreover, we connect the whole school community.
Pathways to Mental Wellness:
Mental wellness is an active and dynamic process which involves every single aspect of our lives. These aspects affect us somehow and influence our wellness because they are interrelated.
It is based on how you feel about yourself and about your life, that’s why measuring wellbeing is difficult considering its subjectivity.
Find below some tips on how to foster your wellness:
Source: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/what-is-wellness/mental-wellness/
