How to create healthy habits
When trying to get healthy, many of us know what we should be doing, but how do we make sustainable change to achieve our health goals? The answer lies in managing our environment.
Most people tend to believe their habits are a product of willpower. If they just had enough self-restraint to resist cake or motivation to get off the couch then they could lose weight. However, habit experts believe our environment has a big role to play in our behaviour and making subtle environmental changes can maximise chances of success. Our environment encompasses our home surroundings and who we choose to surround ourselves with.
So how do we make changes to our environment to support health?
The first rule would be to make healthy options easy. Research into behaviour change has found that if we want to create new habits, they should take minimal effort. For example, if you are trying to start a new exercise habit, make it quick and easy. Start with 5 minutes of walking each day to turn it into an automatic habit, then once established extend the distance or intensity.
Healthy food repositioning has also been shown in studies to increase consumption of healthy food. For example, keep healthy snacks readily available (eg.nuts) and at eye level within the fridge. Additionally, keep herbal tea bags at the front of the cupboard, if you are trying to avoid temptation for sugary drinks.
The second rule would be to make unhealthy choices difficult. Try not to keep icecream in the freezer so you won’t be tempted to eat it after a stressful day. Finally, think about all the little things you do routinely and try to ‘habit stack’. Habit stacking is where you connect change to an existing habit. For example, you might do 5 squats as you clean your teeth or 10 lunges as the kettle boils for your morning coffee. Small repeated episodes of movement will result in long term health gains.
It is also important to surround yourself with likeminded people who have similar goals. Having an accountability partner is a good way of committing yourself to a particular action and increases the likelihood of you sticking with it.
To summarise, willpower is not the only factor that determines our health behaviour. Engineering our environment and spending time with those who have similar health goals can help make long term lifestyle changes easier.
