Student Wellness

Our mission is to promote a balanced lifestyle, both personally and professionally, through intentional engagement in the Six Dimensions of Wellness.

Intentional Living

Similar to your healthcare-focused curriculum, the journey toward excellence in wellness requires an intentional emphasis on the big picture of your choices and life management. 

Prevent burnout, feelings of low energy, and the impact of trauma events by balancing and embracing each of the Six Dimensions of Wellness: physical, emotional, occupational, spiritual, social, and intellectual wellness.

Maintaining proper care for yourself is a great step toward ensuring the best possible outcomes for those whom you will care for in the future. Dedicated to your overall success, HSC Counseling Services will provide opportunities to experience and enjoy each of the Six Dimensions of Wellness through campus wide programming. Keep an eye out for the HSC Intentional Living icons within campus promotional items and the HSC Daily News.

Learn more about the Dimensions of Wellness

Do you believe that stress is bad for you; that it gets in the way of accomplishing your goals? If so, you’re not alone. Surprisingly, however, this belief could be amplifying negative outcomes and keeping stress from helping you reach your true potential. Let’s start the conversation on how to use stress to enhance, rather than hinder, your performance in school, at work, and in life.

Do you find yourself being self-critical or negatively comparing yourself to others? This workshop series will help you improve your self-talk and learn to respond to your daily struggles with kindness and compassion, rather than criticism. We will explore what self-compassion is, learn various self-compassion exercises, and attempt to integrate these techniques into our daily practice.

Being at the bottom of the professional hierarchy often comes with a strong sense of feeling one doesn’t deserve to be here and a pressure to be a “yes – man!” That is, a person who is agreeable to everything and rarely says “no” to a request. But what about when saying yes is costing you your emotional, mental, or relational health? Let’s talk about how our developing competencies and long-term goals can help us identify our boundaries and set reasonable expectations in the workplace.

Mental Munchies Banner

Years of psychological research condensed into bite-size activities. Join us as we explore the six dimensions of wellness in varying easily digestible formats!

 

How we talk about suicide matters. Talk Saves Lives is a brief introduction on what you can do to help recognize and prevent suicide in your family, friends, peers, and patients. This is tailored to the students at this campus and will include additional online resources to practice and improve your skill in having uncomfortable conversations that help save lives.

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Join us for a wellness discussion! Each session has multiple components: A short video on the topic, accompanying resources, and a 30 minute discussion over Zoom.

Click here to view a YouTube playlist of previous topics!

Our wellness team invites the HSC Writing Center and professional development representatives to give you a boost in interview prep!  Students can expect:

  1. Optimal Interview Skills software demonstration
  2. A brief discussion of general virtual interview tips 
  3. Relaxation Tips
  4. Open Q&A regarding Resume and Interview skills, tips, and tricks. 

Have you ever wondered how meditation can benefit your academic performance?  Attend our Lunch and Levitate series to learn about the research behind meditation, how it works, and how it can help you during your time here at the HSC and onward in your personal and professional life!

Oh, and don't forget to register for a free lunch!

Join us as we hone our professional communication skills to: put our patients at ease with bedside manner, navigate the personal and professional balance of connecting with colleagues, overcome public speaking performance anxiety, and manage appropriate boundaries with challenging mentors by speaking up.We can’t wait to see you and learn together how to Talk the Talk.

You're training hard to be a professional in a specialized field.  Yet, how often do you actually feel like you deserve to be here? Do you secretly worry that others will find out you’re not as bright and capable as they think you are? Chances are that at some point in your time here, you’ve felt you're underperforming, and one slip up might reveal to the world just how inadequate you are. This is a common trick the mind plays on us; no doubt your colleagues have all felt it as well and, here's the kicker--it isn't true! Come learn about the thinking patterns that trip up our perception of competence and how to challenge them. 

How might medical professionals help patients, caregivers, and other professionals define clinical and personal success, even when a patient may have a terminal diagnosis? Perhaps by helping patients achieve their goals of dying with dignity and maintaining their quality of life through their transition. This presentation will review coping strategies to combat the negative influence of vicarious trauma on medical professionals. 

How often do you perfect the delicate balance between personal and professional responsibilities? Would you be surprised to hear research suggests that such "balance" does not exist? If that is the case, pursuing balance is an exhausting and self defeating task. Let's talk about how to reframe our goals for work/life management and tips to evaluate how you're doing on the topic. 

Upcoming Events

March 25 - May 03

Take the Student Satisfaction Survey today!
The Student Satisfaction Survey is a campus climate and student wellness survey administered to all students at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center & OU-Tulsa. The survey data are used to provide OUHSC Student Government Association, staff, faculty, and administrators with unique insights into the...

Friday, March 29 @ 12:00 PM

Happiness Reconnect: Guided Mediation and Breathwork
Tuesdays & Fridays, Jan. 16 – May 31, 12 – 12:20 p.m. 20-minute sessions via Zoom | Register here Led by Pooja Shrivastava, Ph.D. All OU faculty, staff, and students welcome! Provided by LiveWell OU. See more   Student Wellness programming on our website.

Tuesday, April 02 @ 5:00 PM

OU Moneycoach Workshop
Join us virtually for financial workshops with the OU MoneyCoaches! We'll help you build a financial plan for college, create a budget, save for the future, and more.  Attendees will have the chance to win a $500 scholarship and other freebies. Click here for more information and to register for each workshop! See...

Wellness Articles

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Take the Student Satisfaction Survey today!
The Student Satisfaction Survey is a campus climate and student wellness survey administered to all students at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center & OU-Tulsa. The survey data are used to provide OUHSC Student Government Association, staff, faculty, and administrators with unique insights into the student experience at the University of Oklahoma...

Article | January 11, 2024

Attachment Styles and Their Impact on Adult Relationships
Attachment theory focuses on psychological bonds in relationships and suggests that connections with primary caregivers serves as a guide for how we behave in other relationships, including friendships, partners, and our own future children. Our style of attachment impacts our feelings of security, meaning, and ability to build and sustain connection with others. According to research, there...

Article | January 11, 2024

A Deeper Dive into the Four Horsemen: Defensiveness
If you haven’t read the past article on criticism (Link here), it may be helpful to get a quick refresher. If you don’t have time to read the first blog post, this semester, we are taking a deeper dive into Gottman’s Four Horsemen: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. This month, we are digging in further on defensiveness.   Defensiveness is an...

Article | January 11, 2024

A Deeper Dive into the Four Horsemen: Criticism
Conflict is normal in every relationship although not all conflict is created equal. Conflict can provide a space for an individual to increase understanding, trust, and positive connection. Contrarily, when conflict becomes negative, frustration, conflict, isolation, withdrawal, and negative interpretation follow. The next four relationship blog posts will take a deeper dive into Dr....

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