Teaching Self-care: Graduating Students Need It Most
In the fall of 2021, I was the most burnt-out that I had ever been. I was juggling my education, a part-time job, an internship, being president of a club, and just general life events as well as applying to graduate school. It took me almost to the end of the semester to realize how unhappy, anxious, and drained I was. And as more and more people started to ask me about my plans for after graduation, my feelings of anxiety and unhappiness shifted to absolute dread of any possible future. My feelings evolved from just feeling so beat to self-doubt quickly. I started to wonder too often if I would be able to handle a career after graduation or be successful in a graduate program. And I kept circling back to the idea that I was afraid that I was always going to feel this way because of my desire to work in a helping profession. My biggest issue with all of these feelings is that I had no idea how to not feel like this. I wanted to improve my well-being but had no idea where to start. So my desire to improve my well-being sparked my idea for my capstone project. At the start of this process for my capstone project, I reflected on my time here at Champlain College, specifically looking at what impacted my well-being and where I had support. I quickly realized that within my four years at Champlain, I had constantly been told that I needed to be practicing self-care. And while I was told that, I was never told how to, besides general healthy practices (ex. eating healthy or getting eight hours of sleep) or generic self-care practices, or how to figure out what works for me. As I reflected more on my well-being in connection to Champlain College, I thought of my division within the college, Education and Human Services (EHS). The EHS division includes six majors; education, environmental policy, criminal justice, law, psychology, and social work. The motto of the EHS is “We Do Good Work”, but I kept getting stuck on that motto. How are students meant to do good work when they don’t know how to take care of their well-being? How is anyone supposed to be effective in their job if they don’t practice self-care or have feelings of burnout? And so, I quickly realized that my capstone project was going to be about teaching self-care to students in hopes to improve well-being and prevent burnout.
Within my research for this project, I learned a couple of things that greatly impacted my project’s many evolutions. First, there is no finite definition of self-care, it is commonly referred to as an activity or behavior that is done to maintain or enhance one’s well-being and is used to prevent burnout and illnesses (Coaston, 2017; Miller, 2021). And burnout is commonly referred to as psychological distress identified with overwhelming exhaustion, cynicism and detachment, and a sense of ineffectiveness (Martin, 2021). Second, there is a large misconception that people actually know how to practice self-care (Miller & Grise-Owens, 2020). Third, providing college students with information about self-care and stress management does not effectively teach students about self-care or stress management or have any real impact (Meyers & Larson, 2018). Finally, there is a huge gap in information about self-care and burnout, specifically there was no information about graduating students or recently graduated students. And so, after many conversations with faculty and students, this information, and my personal experience; my project idea greatly evolved into a more finite deliverable. I created a google site titled “Teaching Self-care: Graduating Students Need It Most”. This google site is now home to six modules, one for each major within Champlain College’s Division of Education and Human Services. These modules are designed to be taught within each major’s current capstone course. The modules are to teach the soon-to-be graduating students about self-care, burnout, and how each topic relates to their major and possible future careers. Each of the modules is designed based on how each capstone course is actively taught; for example, the criminal justice and law modules are all virtual as that is how the course is. The basic setup of each module is a discussion about the students’ understanding of self-care, a self-care activity with room for adaptation, and finally a discussion on how successful the self-care activity was and burnout, as well as a number of resources specific to their major. These modules have three major goals; (1) expose students to self-care and its relationship to their professional self (2) give students the opportunity to practice and adapt self-care to best serve them, as self-care is not one-size-fits-all, (3) provide students with information about burnout in general and specifically to potential future careers.
Please feel free to visit the website, Teaching Self-care: Graduating Students Need It Most.
This project holds a special place in my undergraduate career, as it allowed me to do much more than I ever thought I could. I was able to connect with so many people that I typically would not have the chance to. I was able to learn so much and have wonderful conversations with so much of Champlain College’s EHS community. I was able to learn about professors’ concerns for their students, as well as EHS students’ concerns for their future and careers. Through this project, I was able to realize that I am not alone in my feelings of anxiety and pressure as a graduating senior, and it reassured me that self-care is not a one-size-fits-all. I believe the biggest impact of this project is that I was able to learn how I can practice self-care. One of the goals of this project is to show students that self-care is adaptable and different for everyone. I was able to embody that goal of this project and take the time to figure out what self-care practices actually work for me. A process in which I never knew where to start, but also felt silly doing.
Below is a graphic to show what I know now to be my self-care practices.
Refrences:
Coaston, S. C. (2017). Self-Care Through Self-Compassion: A Balm for Burnout. The Professional Counselor, 7(3), 285–297. https://doi.org/10.15241/scc.7.3.285
Martin, E. M. (2021). College Student Self-Care: A Journey, Not a Destination. College Student Journal, 55(2), 208–218.
Miller, A. E. (2021). Self-care as a competency benchmark: Creating a culture of shared responsibility. Training and Education in Professional Psychology. https://doi-org.cobalt.champlain.edu/10.1037/tep0000386
Miller, J. “Jay,” & Grise-Owens, E. (2020). Self-Care: An Imperative. Social Work, 65(1), 5–9. https://doi-org.cobalt.champlain.edu/10.1093/sw/swz049
Meyer, S., & Larson, M. (2018). Physical activity, stress, and academic performance in college: Does exposure to stress reduction information make a difference? College Student Journal, 52(4), 452–457.
