The GHC community is known for showing passion for excellence, demonstrating great care for our students and for each other. A deep sense of satisfaction is found in doing your work well, caring for your students and colleagues, and seeing students with whom you work succeed. Helping others puts you in direct contact with other people’s lives, and as you probably have experienced, life can get pretty messy. Taking care of others quite often takes precedent to taking care of yourself.

My goal for the next few entries is to help you access your Self-Care and to find strategies to take care of yourself, so that you can be healthy to care for others. I can hear the old familiar message from the flight attendant now. “In case of emergency, place the oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others.”

This assessment tool provides an overview of effective strategies to maintain self-care. After completing the section choose one item that you will actively work to improve.

Rating: 5= frequently; 4=occasionally; 3=rarely; 2= never; 1=It never occurred to me

Physical Self-Care

 Eat regularly (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
 Eat healthy foods
 Exercise (join walkgeorgia)
 Get regular medical care for prevention
 Get medical care when needed
 Take time off when needed
 Get massages
 Dance, swim, walk, rum, play sports, or other physical activity that is fun
 Take time to be sexual with your spouse, or partner
 Get enough sleep
 Take day trips or mini vacations
 Make time away from telephones, computers, research