Intellectual Wellness: Expand Your Knowledge and Skills

You can feel more confident, boost your productivity, increase your job satisfaction, and more by finding ways to learn throughout your career.¹ Taking a continuing education course after completing an allied health training program is one example of continual professional learning. Another way to expand your knowledge and skills involves intellectual wellness.

What is Intellectual Wellness?

Intellect isn’t just about being smart; it’s also about the way you understand and think.² It involves critical thinking and problem-solving.³ Someone who is intellectual is curious about the world around them, honest about what they don’t know, and humble enough to admit when they might be wrong.⁴

Developing your intellectual wellness can:⁵

• Promote lifelong learning
• Support emotional stability
• Improve creativity
• Enrich your quality of life

Benefits of intellectual well-being as a working learner

There are benefits to working on your intellectual health as an adult learner in the healthcare field. If you’re enrolled in a medical billing and coding program, for example, being curious about different diagnostic and procedural coding processes can motivate you to pay closer attention during these courses.

Recognizing (and being honest about) your knowledge gaps is also important. If you want to become a medical assistant, you must know how to take vital signs and draw blood for testing. Medical assistant training can provide the skills needed to perform both of these tasks.

Other potential benefits of intellectual well-being when taking healthcare courses include:³

• Better concentration and memory
• Greater clarity when thinking
• Increased open-mindedness

How to Improve Intellectual Wellness

There are many things you can do to foster your intellectual wellness. Here are a few strategies to consider.

Stimulate your brain, regularly

Stoke your inner curiosity and satisfy your thirst for knowledge by regularly learning new things. Use a language app to become a proficient speaker of Spanish or another language. Take a class that teaches you about something you know nothing about, such as one related to a hobby you’ve been wanting to try.

You can also download a brain-training app designed to help build cognitive skills related to memory, critical thinking, and more. Set aside a few minutes each day to use it and stimulate your brain.

Write in a journal

Emotional well-being is connected to intellectual well-being, so finding ways to identify and handle your emotions can help promote well-being overall.⁶ Keeping a journal is one way to support your emotional wellness.⁷

Journaling helps you take a deeper look at your emotions. It allows you to understand how you feel. Through journaling, you can also investigate what may be causing your emotions to emerge and brainstorm ways to handle these feelings in a healthy way. Write for 5-10 minutes each morning or night to get your feelings out.

Develop healthy habits

Eating nutritious foods like leafy green veggies, fatty fish, and berries may improve memory and slow cognitive decline.⁸ Physical activity is also good for brain health, supporting your ability to learn, think, and problem-solve⁹ — all actions involved in intellectual wellness.

Journaling helps you take a deeper look at your emotions. It allows you to understand how you feel. Through journaling, you can also investigate what may be causing your emotions to emerge and brainstorm ways to handle these feelings in a healthy way. Write for 5-10 minutes each morning or night to get your feelings out.

Develop healthy habits

Eating nutritious foods like leafy green veggies, fatty fish, and berries may improve memory and slow cognitive decline.8 Physical activity is also good for brain health, supporting your ability to learn, think, and problem-solve⁹ — all actions involved in intellectual wellness.

Developing healthy eating and exercise habits can feel overwhelming. Break them down into smaller pieces to make them more manageable. Instead of completely overhauling your diet, for instance, just eat healthier for breakfast. Once you’ve accomplished that, eat healthier lunches, then work on your dinners. Take one small step at a time.

Make time for your wellness

You have tasks to tend to and deadlines to meet. From being a parent to working full-time to pursuing a healthcare degree, time management becomes critical to also making time to tend to your wellness. Here are some tips for staying on track when you have a busy schedule:

• Make a to-do list. This is an easy way to stay on track with completing your necessary duties. You can list tasks by priority, deadline, or from biggest to smallest. If you don’t check off every item, simply add it to your list for the next day.
• Set reminders. We use our cell phones to talk, text, access the internet, and post on social media. Why not also take advantage of their built-in calendars to help you better manage your time? Set reminder notifications to stay on top of your duties and schedule.
• Allow yourself to say no. As a working learner, you may not have a lot of free time in your schedule. Telling someone “no” when they ask for a chunk of time doesn’t mean you don’t care about them. It just means you don’t have the bandwidth to take on their request. Permit yourself to kindly step back from doing things that may jeopardize you from meeting your deadlines or goals.

UMA is Here to Support You

UMA is here to help you during your academic journey. Our student services team members can answer questions about coursework, talk to you about financial aid options (if you qualify), and connect you with our education partners if you want to pursue a bachelor’s or master’s degree in healthcare.

It’s also helpful to know about UMA Cares. UMA Cares handles important student issues that may need to be addressed with special attention. Our representatives are here to help you resolve obstacles you face related to your learning experience.

Contact us to talk about what we can do for you, or to learn more about how we can help you pursue a career in healthcare.