Wellness in Nursing through the Lens of Lifestyle Medicine

Catalog description

This course is designed to introduce students to concepts of wellness through the essential pillars of the growing field of Lifestyle Medicine. Lifestyle Medicine is an evidence based approach of helping indiviuals and families adopt and sustain healthy behaviors in preventing, treating and reversing disease by replacing unhealthy behaviors to optimize quality of life. Course content will focus on methodologies in the promotion on healthy lifestyle chice, stress management, optimal nutrition, sleep and physical activity. This is a discussion-based class with the expectation that students will discuss topics surrounding current events and its effects on health including in the context of health disparities. Wellness at the individual, community, and institutional levels will be highlighted including how infectious disease outbreaks expose practicing health care workers to a myriad of occupational, emotional, mental and physical stressors. Students will investigare literature on wellness, including the theory recovery and its application to clinical practice. Students will formulate opinions, discuss topics in small and large groups, engage in reflecive writing weekly, and develop a Group Enrichment Project (GEP) on a chosen topic of interest. At the end of the course, students are encouraged to formulate opinions and strive to adapt lifestyle strategies that can be integrated into clinical practice to optimize both self-care and patient wellness. This course is open to graduate nursing students as an elective.