Changing bad habits
WeekendLife
Dr Boima
HEALTH ISSUES
Every now and then when a person assumes a patient role and goes to a Doctor's room, the expectation is to get relieved of the pain they are feeling, to get an answer (diagnosis) to the symptoms they are having, to get prevented from or treated and/or cured of a certain disease, or merely to get a Doctor's opinion or advice about a certain concern.
Fortunately Doctors can meet most of these expectations but sometimes there is just not enough time to address all the concerns or dwell into small details. As Doctors, we tell patients everyday about what they need to do or not do in order to stay healthy and disease-free. We assume and hope patients will figure out the best method that would work for them in maintaining such a clean life. Some manage, some fail.
I recently had a privilege of working with a final year medical student, visiting from USA in my clinic. In the two weeks that she was shadowing me, I got fascinated at how she patiently tried to give time to address the 'how' part of changing bad habits to all our patients that I even asked to feature her in this week's column. This is what Danielle Dougherty, who is just about to graduate from University of Michigan Medical School had to say;
'Changing bad habits is always a challenge. When we go to visit our Doctor we are always told what we need to do in our everyday lives in order to become healthier people. Some of us need to exercise more, others need to quit smoking, others need to eat more healthily. Although most of us desire to become healthier people, it is very difficult to make a plan and take action.
Often we set goals that are ambitious and then we fail because the goals were not reasonable or because they were vague and we were unable to monitor them. For example, quitting smoking suddenly and completely may not be reasonable for you. Telling yourself you will “exercise more” is vague and does not allow you to see your progress. These goals may work for some people, but for most of us it is better to introduce good habits gradually. Below I will outline a way to make positive change in your life by making a plan that is reasonable, able to be monitored and thus may be more effective for you.
1. Identify what you want to change – Do you want to quit smoking? Do you want to exercise more? Do you want to eat more healthily? In this example, we will use quitting smoking.
2. Reflect on when you practice your bad habit – For example, if you are a smoker, think of all the times throughout the day that you have a cigarette on a regular basis. Perhaps you always have a cigarette with your morning tea, or when you take a lunch break with a certain friend. Go though all the times in the day that you regularly have a cigarette and make a list in your head.
3. Then, identify just one of these times in which you will eliminate the bad habit – For example, you could set your goal for the week as: “I will not have my morning cigarette with my tea” but you will allow yourself to have the other cigarettes that you normally have during the remaining times of the day. At the end of the week, look back and see how many days you were able to skip that morning cigarette. The ability to easily look back and count the number of days you achieved this one goal is what makes the goal measurable. The fact that you are only eliminating one cigarette makes it reasonable. If you were able to skip the cigarette at that one given time every day for a week, that is great! You are a step closer to quitting and you can now choose a second cigarette time to eliminate.
This method can be applied to exercise and eating healthily also. For example:
– For exercising: you could start by saying you will take a 20 minute walk on Saturday. Once that becomes easy, choose another day to start walking, and so forth until exercise becomes a regular part of your lifestyle.
– For eating healthily: choose one or two days a week in which you will replace your regular meal with a very healthy meal. For example, your goal could be to eat a salad for lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The rest of the week, you will continue to eat the regular meals that you always eat. Try this for a few weeks and see if you can measure how many times you were successful to eat a healthy lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Once you are successful, congratulate yourself and move on to more days of healthy eating.
Overall, changing our bad habits into good habits is a difficult process. Hopefully these examples will help you introduce healthy change into your life in a way that is easier and makes you feel good about yourself. It will be worth it!''
For comments email agboima@yahoo.com
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