GET GOING: Choose activities that interest you: Some people are more likely to adhere to exercise if they join a class or hire a personal trainer.
By Anne Stein
This new year you’ve decided to lose 25 pounds, restart your exercise programme and de-stress. But isn’t that what you decided last year? To keep resolutions, we’ve got to break bad habits while slowly establishing new ones to replace them.
Sports psychologist Gregory Chertok is director of mental training at Tenafly, New Jersey-based CourtSense. He outlines the following habit-forming strategies to achieve your health and wellness goals.
Set specific, short-term goals.
Saying “I’m going to lose 50 pounds” doesn’t offer much guidance, and without a road map, many of us lose motivation, Chertok said. Set attainable short-terms goals to guide you (such as join a health club, hire a personal trainer, work out three nights a week, cut out one dessert a week.)
As you achieve these doable short-term goals, you’ll feel confident and willing to set more challenging ones. Goals should be in your control, Chertok added. We should be able to manipulate, adjust and accomplish them without reliance on someone or something else.
Be realistic: A lot of us expect dramatic results after a few weeks or even a few days of small lifestyle changes and are discouraged when there’s little change. “It can take up to several months of dedicated, consistent behaviour to see change,” he said. Arm yourself with realistic expectations, don’t be surprised by the occasional obstacle and temptation — and persevere. As long as your goals are doable, the results will come.
Be aware of what triggers your bad habits and change them: One of the greatest challenges to breaking any habit is placing awareness on the trigger cues leading to the behaviour. When the trigger cues are removed, the desire for the behaviour can diminish. For instance, an exerciser may wish to take an alternate route home so he doesn’t pass his favourite restaurant (the trigger to stop and eat) or adjust his television package to avoid the temptation of late-night programming and ensure an earlier bedtime.
As these new behaviours are repeated, they’ll slowly become ingrained and replace bad-habit behaviours, Chertok said.
Get support from friends and experts: Knowing that someone is thinking about us and holding us accountable is extremely effective in sticking to new goals. Join an exercise class or exercise with a buddy who expects you to show up. Share your goals with friends and family. Ask for help. For example, ask co-workers or family to discourage you from making poor food decisions. A personal trainer and dietician also will hold you accountable and support your exercise and diet programme.
Choose activities that interest you: Some people are more likely to adhere to exercise if they join a class or hire a personal trainer. Others operate better by themselves. “Based on your personality and temperament, craft the workout environment that’s most conducive to you. If you hate weightlifting, for example, don’t pick that,” Chertok said. “A lot of people think they have to exercise in a particular way, but if you’re not engaged from the start, that’s a red flag. Pick something you enjoy.”
Develop self-efficacy: If you don’t think you’re capable of running a 10k or losing 20 pounds, why bother? Self-efficacy is believing that you have the tools to take on and succeed in a particular situation or challenge. One way to build self-efficacy, according to Albert Bandura, the pioneering psychologist who developed the theory, is through modelling. If we see someone similar to us run a marathon, we might think it’s possible for us to do it too. Look for inspiring stories (books, videos) about people like you who’ve reached their goals. — Chicago Tribune/TNS
Poor sleep leads to addictions
Sleep difficulties and hours of sleep can predict a number of specific problems, including binge drinking and driving under the influence, shows a study. The association between poor sleep and substance use has also been found in younger population.
“Among normal adults, sleep difficulties and insomnia have predicted onset of alcohol use one year later, and increased risk of any illicit drug use disorder and nicotine dependence 3.5 years later,” said Maria M Wong, professor and director of experimental training at Idaho State University.
For their study, Wong and her co-authors analysed data collected from 6,504 adolescents (52% girls, 48% boys) participating in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
They used sleep difficulties to predict substance-related problems at a subsequent wave, while controlling for substance-related problems at the previous wave. The consequences of sleep difficulty and sleep insufficiency when added to use of alcohol or other substances can impact both medical and behavioural areas.
“This study has added to the existing literature by establishing the relationship between two sleep variables — sleep difficulties and hours of sleep — and the odds of serious alcohol- and drug-related problems in a nationally representative sample,” Wong pointed out.
“This paper is important in that it advances our understanding of the relation of sleep to substance use problems to include not only problems sleeping, that is, trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep, but also insufficient sleep, addressed here as hours of sleep,” concluded Tim Roehrs from Henry Ford Hospital.
The results of the study will be published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. — IANS
