1
Making Time for Self-Care
Ima Student
Department of Psychology,
PSYC
Instructor
February 3, 2022
2
Health Behavior Change Project: Part 1
This is where you will follow the prompt in the “Health Behavior Change Project
Instructions” document. For example, the prompt say to introduce and operationally define your
behavior which may look something like this: I have always had a busy schedule trying to
balance work, school, and family life. As a perfectionist I tend to spend more time on completing
tasks to make sure that they reach my high standards. Therefore, I may not take as many breaks
and engage in self-care activities as much as I should. The behavior of self-care can be defined as
completing 10 minutes of a self-care activity which can include painting, listening to music, and
reading. Therefore, if I paint for 30minutes in one day, I would have completed three self-care
activities. This is the behavior that I will target for the purposes of this project and to better my
physical health, mental health, and overall quality of life.
Here is an example of how you might set your goals for your project: My short-term daily
goal is to engage in five behaviors of self-care; according to my definition, this is 50 minutes of selfcare per day. When considering a full week, I hope to engage in X behaviors of self-care, which
translates to X hours. For the long term, I am hopeful that I can engage in at least one hour of selfcare per day or at least seven per week.
In these next paragraphs you will continue to answer questions from the prompt. Be sure to
read the document thoroughly to ensure that all parts are included in your paper. Remember there is a
3-4 page requirement (this does not include title page, behavior chart, or references). Do not forget to
cite every article listed in the reference page that you use for your project in the body of the text.
Also remember to cite the lecture or course readings for HBCP2. Please see the week 1 discussion
slides on APA for more information.
3
References
Arora, T. & Grey, I. (2020). Health behaviour changes during COVID-19 and the potential
consequences: A mini-review. Journal of Health Psychology, 25(9), 1155-1163.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105320937053
Conner, K. (2022a, January 18). Behavioral health: Smoking. [Class PowerPoint]. University of
five decades of health psychology research. Social Science & Medicine, 196, 218-226.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.001
Note: Lectures are ordered alphabetically here, but you could order them by date as well (just
stay consistent).
4
Self-Care = 10 minutes of self-care activity (painting, listening to music, reading)
Day of the Week and Date
Monday 1/10
Tuesday X/X
Wednesday X/X
Thursday X/X
Friday X/X
Saturday X/X
Sunday X/X
Number of behaviors
0.5 (5 minutes of music)
0
2 (20 minutes of painting)
0
2 (10 minutes reading, 10 minutes painting)
1 (10 minutes of music)
0
Note: You can start documenting your behavior on any day of the week. Feel free to get creative
with this part. You can use color, graphics, or leave it simple like this. It doesn’t have to be chart
like this as long as the day of the week, date, and number of behaviors are present.