Self-Awareness includes recognising ourselves, our character, our strengths and weaknesses, desires and dislikes. For example, developing self-awareness can help us to recognize when we are stressed or feel under pressure. It is also often a prerequisite to effective communication and interpersonal relations and developing empathy for others.

Empathy is the ability to understand what life is like for another person, even in a situation that we may not be familiar with. Empathy can help us to accept others, who may be very different from ourselves this can improve social interactions, especially, in situations of ethnic or cultural diversity. Empathy can also help to encourage nurturing behaviour towards people in need of care and assistance, or tolerance.

Coping with Stress is about recognizing the sources of stress in our lives, recognizing how this affects us, and acting in ways that help control our stress levels. This may mean that we reduce the sources of stress, for example, by making changes to our physical environment or lifestyle. Or it may mean learning how to relax, so that tensions created by unavoidable stress do not give rise to health problems.