The millennial generation’s self-care practices – a poetic representation

Abstract

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the Professional Doctorate in Health & Wellbeing.Background: This study explored the poetics of the self-care practices of the millennial generation. Millennials are those with the starting birth years of early 1980s and ending birth years of 2000s. This was during the era of technological revolution and are thus known as digital natives. Having been born and raised with technology, they are a distinct generation which are culturally dissimilar to the previous generations. Being ubiquitous, dominating the higher education and workplace spaces, their health and wellbeing are of public health interest. While on one hand, there is tension in the literature on their ability to self-care, there is a gap in the literature on what their self-care practices can mean on the other hand. It was thus necessary to investigate their notion of self-care without the encumbrances of scientism. The study examined their self-care practices and made sense of them contextually in order to be culturally relevant to them. Methodology: The research design used poetic inquiry to relook at the self-care practices of the millennial generation. Poetic inquiry is a way of knowing and provides the space for polyvocal voices on a given concept. It is rooted in subjectivity and expressed using language, reflexivity, and metaphor. These poetic devices were helpful both in crafting the found poems from the graphic and textual data on millennials’ self-care practices provided by the study participants and in developing and discussing the themes that emerged. An inductive approach based on the Braun & Clarkes (2006) method was utilised as the analytical framework. This allowed fluidity in how the meanings were made and discussed. Findings: The study explored the self-care practices of the millennial generation through a primary study involving the use of digital theme boards and written stories on their self-care practices. The study contributes to furthering the body of knowledge of millennials’ self-care practices by providing found poems and exploring their meanings contextually. This threw up new themes, Academic Stress and the Ways to Overcome It; Parental Support among the Millennials; The Millennials’ Tribe; and Spirituality and Millennials’ Self-Care, and meanings on millennials’ self-care practices that extends knowledge which are useful for professional practice and further research. It offers new insights into the cultural values held by the millennial generation which are different from previous generations. The millennials’ self-care practices identified and discussed are exposed as important for their health and wellbeing. They trump the notion of scientism on what is acceptable as self-care practice and are thus canvassed for as necessary in holistic care. Recommendations: Quantitative research involving the use of structured questionnaire would be helpful in providing outcomes that are both generalisable and comparable with the current study. A longitudinal study which monitors the millennials till old age and the poetics thereof would be helpful to find out if their values are simply based on their young age or the generation to which they belong. Findings should be conveyed to health and wellbeing professionals working with young people to provide insights into the millennials’ self-care practices and the meanings