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The Ultimate Guide to Achieving Student Well-Being: Tips and Strategies for a Healthier and Happier Academic Life

As a student, your well-being is essential for achieving academic success and pursuing your goals. Yet, the demands of academic life, such as studying, assignments, assessments, and after-duty activities, can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Managing your well-being in a holistic manner, including mental, physical, and emotional aspects, is critical to maintaining a sense of balance and achieving peak performance in your academic pursuits. In this section, we'll explore strategies for improving your well-being as a student, from coping with stress and anxiety to maintaining healthy habits that promote overall wellness. We'll provide practical tips and insights to help you achieve a greater sense of balance, reduce stress, and thrive in your academic journey.
 

Integrated Resilience image

The Department of the Air Force's Resilience website contains invaluable information and assistance with:
 

Well-Being:  Physical FitnessAirman playing dodgeball

Video IconThe Exercise Happiness Paradox  |  Chris Wharton  
How can you manipulate your brain to achieve greater levels of happiness? Can you be so inspired that your daily exercises bring you joy and increase your self-esteem? By practicing the four key strategies given in this TEDx talk, we can all achieve greater levels of energy...


Video IconWhat is Fitness:  Health & Skill Fitness Components PE
Physical Education PE Lesson: Definition of Fitness and Fitness components: definitions and factors affecting the health-related fitness components, including aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility...


Video IconThe Power of Reframing Exercise as Self-Care  |  Mike Stanlaw
Did you know that 95% of people do not get the recommended 30 minutes of physical activity daily?  This means that this percentage of people are not only neglecting their physical health, but they are also neglecting their mental well being.


Video IconHow Exercise Makes You Smarter and a Better Student
Everyone knows the health benefits of regular exercise, but it will also help improve your grades. Regular exercise will make you a better student by teaching you to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Any form of regular exercise...


Video IconHow to Balance Studying and Exercise  |  A Resident's Perspective  
In this video, the creator goes over some quick ways to help you find time to workout and study.  These tips are helpful for those in college, graduate school, or even residency.




Web Article Icon  Physical Activity, Fitness, and Physical Education:  Effects on Academic Performance from Educating the Student Body
  This article highlights how a child's health is a factor in their ability to learn.



Web Article Icon  The Association Between School-Based Activity, Including Physical Education, and Academic Performance
  This article discusses how physical activity has positive influences on academic performance.

Well-Being:  Social Media and Mental HealthPeople looking at their cellphones

Video IconLive in the Moment:  Delete Social media  |  Ryan Thomas  |  TEDxAshburnSalon
The integration of social media into everyday life has increased dramatically in recent years. Most view it as a positive driving force for social change; however, the over-saturation of social-media driven information in society has become a negative influence with far reaching...


Web Article Icon  Here's How Social Media Affects Your Mental Health
  The social media platform Instagram made headlines last year for suppressing likes in an effort to curb the comparisons and hurt feelings
  associated with attaching popularity to sharing content. But do these efforts combat mental health issues, or are...



Web Article Icon  Anxiety, Loneliness, and Fear of Missing Out:  The Impact of Social Media on Young People's Mental Health
  The rapid growth of social media over the last decade has established an entirely new medium for human interaction. Online platforms such
  as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have allowed people in every corner of the world to be connected 24/7...



Web Article Icon  Study:  Social Media Use Linked to Decline in Mental Health
  Mark Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook at Harvard University in February 2004. Days later, 650 students had made accounts. Today, there 
  are roughly two billion daily active users. Concurrent with Facebook’s meteoric expansion...



Web Article Icon  40+ Frightening Social Media and Mental Health Statistics
  Half of the world’s population are mobile Internet users. As of 2019, there were over 5 billion mobile users, according to Data Reportal. Of
  those people, 2.7 billion of them specifically had a smartphone.

Well-Being:  Emotional FitnessAirmen talking with each other

Video IconGetting Stuck in the Negatives (and how to get unstuck)  |  Alison Ledgerwood  
Alison Ledgerwood joined the Department of Psychology at UC Davis in 2008 after completing her PhD in social psychology at New York University. She is interested in understanding how people think, and how they can think better.


Video IconEmotional Well-Being Affects Personal Growth  |  Simone Cox
Simone Cox, a professor of counseling at Point University, explains her own experience with emotional well-being and tries to communicate the importance of mental health. Simone Cox is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a licensed professional counselor and...


Video IconHow to Build Your Well-Being to Thrive  |  Dr. Beth Cabrera
You have the ability to improve your well-being. The amount of happiness and meaning you experience in life depends on the choices you make. Psychologist Beth Cabrera proposes three choices about where to focus your time and attention...


Video IconStop Chasing Purpose and Focus on Wellness  |  Chloe Hakim-Moore
For ages, people have been told to find our purpose, and that purpose will lead to a fulfilled life. But what if finding purpose isn’t enough to bring fulfillment? What if the focus on finding purpose, in fact, has been harming us by obscuring who we are with ideas of who...


Video IconHow to Stop Your Thoughts From Controlling Your Life  |  Albert Hobohm
Albert Hobohm shares life-altering, personal and professional ideas on how to take charge of your reality. Through alarming statistics and hands-on solutions, Hobohm shows us our critical situation as a species and how to start taking control over our mental operating systems.


Video Icon6 Types of Best Friends You will Make in Your Life
Do you believe in the saying “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are?” Do you have a best friend? Do you value friendship? The different types of friends can bring out the worse or best in you. However, in this video, we talk about the good...

Well-Being:  Mental FitnessIndividual rock climbing

Video IconLife Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone  |  Yubing Zhang  
Leaping off buildings wasn’t exactly something graduate student Yubing Zhang ever thought she’d do. But pushing beyond her comfort zone and taking that bungee cord leap taught her more than she ever could have imagined.



Video IconMaster Your Mindset, Overcome Self-Deception, Change Your Life  |  Shadé Zahri
What differentiates those who are the happiest, most successful and most fulfilled, from those who aren’t? Having spent countless hours with hundreds of teams from startups to Fortune 500s globally, Shadé Zahrai has observed clear behavioural and cognitive...


Video IconThe Power of Positive Disruption  |  Karen Ellenbecker
In her TEDx talk, Karen Ellenbecker, founder of Ellenbecker Investment Group, explains the meaning of positive disruption, how it has allowed her to make an impact on her life, and how others can become a positive disruptor to make change in their lives and...


Video IconThe Skill of Self-Confidence  |  Dr. Ivan Joseph
As the Athletic Director and head coach of the Varsity Soccer team at Ryerson University, Dr. Joseph is often asked what skills he is searching for as a recruiter: is it speed? Strength? Agility? In Dr. Joseph's TEDx Talk, he explores self confidence and how...


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Skill Benchmarks

Skill Benchmarks provide you with a means to assess your competence level in a specific skill. When you complete a Skill Benchmark questionnaire, you obtain a proficiency score for the designated skill. Rather than comparing your score to others, it is measured against a predefined set of objectives established by an expert in the field. The outcomes of the benchmark highlight your proficiency in the skill, and based on these results, Percipio promptly presents tailored content suggestions that address the areas you struggled with. These recommendations are conveniently displayed alongside the results, enabling you to concentrate on enhancing your weaknesses and avoiding unnecessary repetition of knowledge you already possess.
 

Skill Benchmarks that support Well-Being:

Stress Management & Wellness

Self-Development

Emotional Intelligence & Tact

Important instructions:  When accessing the above links from a computer with a Common Access Card, the links will take you to the Percipio DAF e-Learning platform. To access from a mobile device, the Skillsoft Percipio app is required. The app can be installed by scanning the QR code and following the instructions below.
 
Percipio mobile app QR code

To access DAFeL on the Percipio Mobile App on iOS or Android devices, you must first add a password to your Percipio account on your workstation:
 
  1. If you haven’t self-registered, visit https://usaf.percipio.com and login with your CAC using “corporate credentials” and then log out. 
  2. On the DAFeL login page, select “Alternatively, login with your Percipio credentials”.
  3. Enter your official email address or DoDID number and press “Next”.
  4. Under the password field, select “Get password help”. 
  5. Enter your official email address and press “Send”. 
  6. Follow the instructions on the email to setup your password.
  7. Launch the app and enter “usaf” in the site name field.
  8. Login with your DoDID or official email address and Password.
  9. Start building new skills on your terms.


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