Life skills

(b) Abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life

The WHO defines life skills as these adaptive and positive behavioural abilities; options (a), (c) and (d) each narrow the concept to only one sphere (livelihood, vocational training or physical health), whereas the WHO definition covers all aspects of daily living.

Importance of Life Skills for Adolescents in Nepal

Adolescence (roughly 10–19 years) is a period of rapid physical, emotional, and social change. In Nepal, where many adolescents face poverty, migration of parents, exam pressure, peer pressure, and exposure to social media, life skills act as a protective shield. Life skills are the abilities that help a person deal with the demands and challenges of daily life effectively. Their importance for Nepali adolescents can be explained through the following five points:

1. Development of self-awareness and confidence: Life skills such as self-awareness and self-esteem help adolescents understand their own strengths, weaknesses, values, and emotions. This builds confidence and a clear identity, which is very important at an age when they are confused about who they are and what they want to become.

2. Management of emotions and stress: Nepali adolescents face pressure from the SLC/SEE and other examinations, family expectations, and, in many cases, the absence of parents working abroad. Skills like coping with stress, managing emotions, and resilience help them stay calm, avoid depression and anxiety, and face failure without losing hope.

3. Building healthy relationships and avoiding risky behaviour: Skills of empathy, effective communication, and interpersonal relations help adolescents respect others, resolve conflicts peacefully, and say "no" to negative peer pressure. This protects them from drug abuse, smoking, alcoholism, early sexual activity, and involvement in antisocial groups.

4. Making responsible decisions and solving problems: Decision-making, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills enable adolescents to judge right from wrong, set realistic goals, and choose the right career path. This is especially important in Nepal, where misinformation, superstition, and misleading advertisements are common.

5. Promotion of health, hygiene, and social responsibility: Life skills encourage adolescents to adopt safe health practices, avoid child marriage and gender-based violence, and take part in community activities such as cleanliness campaigns, blood donation, and awareness programmes. Thus they become responsible citizens who contribute to the nation's development.

Conclusion: In a country like Nepal where adolescents form a large part of the population, life skills education is not just useful but essential. It helps them become physically healthy, mentally strong, socially responsible, and economically productive citizens.

Stress management is the set of techniques, skills and activities that a person uses to control the level of stress in his or her life, to reduce the harmful effects of stress on body and mind, and to keep stress within a healthy, manageable limit. In other words, it is the planned effort to identify the causes of stress (stressors), change or avoid them where possible, and build the capacity to face those that cannot be avoided. Its main aim is not to remove all stress — some stress is useful for motivation — but to prevent stress from becoming distress.

Four effective strategies for coping with stress in daily life:

1. Physical exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Regular exercise such as walking, jogging, yoga, cycling or playing games releases pent-up tension, produces endorphins (the body's natural mood-lifters) and improves sleep. Along with this, eating balanced food, drinking enough water, avoiding tobacco, alcohol and excess caffeine, and sleeping 7–8 hours a day keep the body strong enough to bear stress. A tired and unhealthy body becomes stressed very quickly.

2. Time management and proper planning. Most stress among students and workers comes from unfinished work and last-minute haste. Preparing a daily or weekly routine, fixing priorities (important work first), dividing big tasks into small steps and keeping some time free for rest reduce the pressure of deadlines. This gives a feeling of control over life, which itself lowers stress.

3. Relaxation techniques and positive thinking. Methods such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, listening to music, reading, gardening or pursuing a hobby calm the mind and slow down the heartbeat. Along with relaxation, replacing negative thoughts ("I cannot do it") with positive and realistic thoughts ("I will try my best") and avoiding unnecessary worry help a person face problems with confidence.

4. Social support and sharing of feelings. Talking openly with parents, teachers, friends or a counsellor about one's problems gives emotional relief and practical advice. Sharing does not mean weakness; it lightens the burden. Spending time with family and friends, joining social or religious activities and helping others also create a feeling of belonging and reduce loneliness, which is a major cause of stress.

Besides these, developing a sense of humour, accepting things that cannot be changed, practising spirituality or mindfulness, and seeking professional help when stress becomes severe are also useful. Thus, stress management is a regular habit of balanced living rather than a one-time remedy.

Definition of Life Skills

Life skills are the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), life skills are "abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life." In simple terms, life skills are those psychosocial and interpersonal competencies that help a person cope with daily situations, make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, and manage emotions and stress.

Six Core Life Skills Identified by WHO

The WHO has identified ten core life skills. Any six of them are described below:

1. Self-awareness – It is the ability to know and understand oneself, including one's character, strengths, weaknesses, values, beliefs, likes and dislikes. A student who is self-aware recognises his or her own abilities and limitations and works to improve them.

2. Empathy – It is the ability to understand and share the feelings and experiences of another person. Empathy helps a student accept and respect people who are different from them and respond sensitively to the needs of others.

3. Critical thinking – It is the ability to analyse information and experiences objectively and to evaluate them from different angles before forming a judgement. It helps students question superstitions, misleading advertisements and peer pressure.

4. Creative thinking – It is the ability to think in novel and original ways and to generate new ideas, alternatives and solutions. It helps students find innovative solutions when conventional methods fail.

5. Decision making – It is the ability to choose the best option among available alternatives after assessing the consequences of each. It helps students make responsible choices about study, health, time and relationships.

6. Problem solving – It is the ability to identify a problem, find its causes and work out effective steps to solve it. It enables students to deal with difficulties in a planned and constructive manner.

(Other WHO core life skills are effective communication, interpersonal relationship skills, coping with emotions and coping with stress.)

Contribution to Personal, Social and Academic Development of Students

Personal development: Self-awareness and coping with emotions help students understand their own feelings, control anger and anxiety, and build self-confidence. Decision making and problem solving make them independent, responsible and able to face failure without losing hope. Creative thinking develops their personality and helps them discover their hidden talents. Thus these skills build a balanced, disciplined and self-reliant personality.

Social development: Empathy and effective communication help students understand others, express their views politely and adjust in a group. Interpersonal relationship skills enable them to make and maintain good friendships, cooperate with classmates, respect diversity and avoid conflict. Critical thinking helps them resist negative peer pressure, drug abuse and unhealthy habits. In this way life skills prepare students to become good family members, citizens and social beings.

Academic development: Critical thinking and creative thinking improve learning, memory and the ability to solve difficult questions. Decision making helps students set study goals, prepare a timetable and use time and resources properly. Coping with stress reduces examination fear and keeps them mentally fit for study. Problem solving helps them overcome learning difficulties and improve performance. Students with strong life skills are more regular, disciplined, motivated and successful in their studies.

Conclusion

Life skills are therefore essential competencies for every student. They not only help in solving day-to-day problems but also develop a sound personality, healthy social relations and better academic achievement. Hence life skills education should be made an integral part of school education.

तनावमा परेको साथीलाई आफ्ना कुरा खुलेर भन्न प्रोत्साहन गर्ने, उसलाई ध्यानपूर्वक सुन्ने, र गहिरो श्वास, ध्यान वा हल्का व्यायाम गर्न सुझाव दिन सकिन्छ ।

तनाव र द्वन्द्वबिचको सम्बन्ध

तनाव भनेको मानसिक वा शारीरिक दबाबप्रति हुने प्रतिक्रिया हो भने द्वन्द्व भनेको व्यक्ति वा समूहबिच स्वार्थ, मूल्य, आवश्यकता वा विचारमा हुने टकराव हो । यी दुई एकअर्कासँग जोडिएका छन् ।

• द्वन्द्वले तनाव ल्याउँछ: परिवार, साथी वा समुदायमा झगडा हुँदा चिन्ता, रिस, निद्रा नलाग्ने, एकाग्रता घट्ने जस्ता तनाव देखिन्छन् ।
• तनावले द्वन्द्व बढाउँछ: तनावग्रस्त व्यक्ति चाँडै रिसाउँछ, गलत बुझ्छ र कडा बोल्छ; यसले सानो मतभेदलाई द्वन्द्वमा बदल्छ ।
• यसरी तनाव र द्वन्द्वले चक्रीय रूपमा एकअर्कालाई बढाउँदै जान्छन् ।

द्वन्द्व रूपान्तरण भनेको द्वन्द्वलाई दबाउने वा बेवास्ता गर्ने होइन; यसका कारण पहिचान गरी सम्बन्ध र परिस्थिति सुधार्ने अवसरका रूपमा लिई रचनात्मक बाटोमा लैजाने प्रक्रिया हो ।

द्वन्द्व रूपान्तरणले तनाव व्यवस्थापनमा खेल्ने भूमिका:

१. मूल कारण समाधान: द्वन्द्वको जरा पत्ता लगाएर समाधान गर्दा तनावको स्रोत हट्छ । २. सञ्चार सुधार: खुला संवाद र सक्रिय श्रवणले गलत बुझाइ हटाउँछ र मनको बोझ हल्का हुन्छ । ३. सहानुभूति र विश्वास: अर्काको दृष्टिकोण बुझ्दा रिस घट्छ र सम्बन्ध सुदृढ हुन्छ । ४. वार्ता, मध्यस्थता र सहमति: दुवै पक्षलाई जित्ने (win–win) समाधानले निराशा र चिन्ता घटाउँछ । ५. भावना नियन्त्रण: रिस नियन्त्रण र सकारात्मक सोचको अभ्यास विकास हुन्छ ।

उदाहरण: दुई साथीबिच परियोजना कार्यमा काम बाँडफाँडमा विवाद भयो र दुवै तनावमा परे । तेस्रो साथी वा शिक्षकको मध्यस्थतामा दुवैले आफ्नो कुरा राखे, एकअर्काको कठिनाइ बुझे र कामको नयाँ विभाजन गरे । यसले विवाद सकिएर तनाव घट्यो र मित्रता झन् बलियो भयो । त्यस्तै, परिवारमा सम्पत्ति विवादलाई छलफल र सहमतिबाट मिलाउँदा सदस्यहरू तनावमुक्त हुन्छन् ।

निष्कर्ष: द्वन्द्व रूपान्तरणले तनावको कारण जरैदेखि हटाउने भएकाले यो तनाव व्यवस्थापनको प्रभावकारी उपाय हो ।

मितव्ययी जीवनशैलीका व्यावहारिक अभ्यास

मितव्ययी जीवनशैली भनेको आफ्नो आम्दानी र स्रोतको विवेकपूर्ण प्रयोग गरी अनावश्यक खर्च रोक्ने र बचत गर्ने जीवनशैली हो । मैले अपनाएका अभ्यास:

१. बजेट बनाएर खर्च गर्ने: पाकेट खर्च र आम्दानीको योजना बनाई आवश्यक कुरामा मात्र खर्च गर्ने । २. नियमित बचत: पाएको रकममध्ये केही हिस्सा बैंक वा बचत खाता वा गुल्लकमा जम्मा गर्ने । ३. आवश्यकता र चाहनाबिच छुट्याउने: किन्नुअघि वास्तवमै चाहिएको हो कि होइन सोच्ने; देखासिकीमा किन्न नहुने । ४. सामानको दिगो प्रयोग: कापी, किताब, लुगा र सामान लामो समय प्रयोग गर्ने, पुराना सामान बनाएर वा साटेर काम चलाउने । ५. बिजुली, पानी र इन्धनको बचत: अनावश्यक बत्ती, पङ्खा बन्द गर्ने, पानी खेर नफाल्ने र नजिकको ठाउँ हिँडेर वा साइकल/सार्वजनिक यातायातमा जाने । ६. खाना खेर नफाल्ने: आवश्यक जति मात्र पकाउने र पस्किने, बचेको सदुपयोग गर्ने; घरकै ताजा खाना खाने र बाहिरको महँगो खाना कम गर्ने । ७. पुनः प्रयोग र पुनःचक्रण: प्लास्टिक, कागज र बोतल पुनः प्रयोग गर्ने; फोहोर घटाउने । ८. कर्जा र फजुल खर्चबाट बच्ने: पर्व, भोज, विवाहमा देखावटी खर्च नगर्ने, लत (धुम्रपान, जुवा) र अनलाइन गेम/सपिङमा पैसा नफाल्ने ।

यस्ता अभ्यासले परिवारको आर्थिक स्थिति बलियो बनाउँछ, भविष्यका लागि पुँजी बनाउँछ र वातावरण संरक्षणमा समेत सहयोग पुर्‍याउँछ ।