Type 2 diabetes is a bad habit. It’s a habit of eating more than can be used or stored in muscles and liver. It’s also sleeping poorly, feeling no energy, anxiety, depression and thousands of dollars out of pocket expenses!

It’s a habit because it all happens without thinking about it. There’s nothing being done to avoid something. Or even something to enjoy. It’s just a bad habit.

Nonconscious processes direct everything we do. They’re simply the result of everything we’ve always done. We can make changes but we have to plan it all out.

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Here’s how to think about redirecting health habits.

To learn more about programs Herd Healthcare offers, our website is:
www.herdhealthcare.com

What Are Habits?

Habits are automatic responses that occur regularly without conscious control. They are acquired initially through frequent repetition in specific situations.

When we first learn a response, we consciously make decisions about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how we feel about it. When the situation comes again and we repeat our response, the neural processes get reorganized in our brain. Each time the situation and our response is repeated, the neural connections become more consolidated. Why we’re responding this way soon slips out of our consciousness.

When we’re thinking about what’s happening, we can quickly change our response. We can make conscious decisions that may be different from what happened previously. Also, we can make decisions about what we want in the future. Being able to assemble information and create new responses is a uniquely human talent.

We are able to think about different things at the same time. But about three things at a time is all we can manage. While we’re using all our conscious capacity, our habits take care of immediate details outside our conscious awareness.

Eventually habits may become sufficiently automatic as seeming to occur for no reason at all. We may not even notice what we’re doing. Much less why we’re doing it. When we do notice what we’re doing, we always assume we had a good reason for it.

Our habits don’t always produce the best possible results. Even when we know a better response, we can’t always change our habitual responses. If challenged about it, we defend what we’re doing.

During ordinary daily activities, we’re only consciously directing what’s happening about 10% of the time. Most of the time, habits and other nonconscious processes control our daily experience. Our conscious attention is on other things than just what’s happening around us.

Nobody runs all day entirely on automatic conscious control. However, most conscious decisions bring only immediately expedient adjustments. Minor tinkering all day with occasional major emergency upheaval. Only occasionally do we make major adjustments for possible future benefit.

Habit Formation, Maintenance And Replacement

Formation

Definition and description are extremely important. Exactly what situation should elicit exactly what response must be stated. What to do when, where it will be done and step by step how it should be done.

There are choices to be made. Choose whatever will give the most pleasure and satisfaction. Enjoyment will be the reward for this habitual response. A positive affect is essential! Propose a situation and a response that will make you smile.

Initially, you might get the most satisfaction from successfully completing the desired response. Eventually, the long term benefits will be your reward.

Performance day by day and week by week must be recorded and analyzed. More than just general statements like, “I’ll do the best I can.”

Start with quantitative measurements of baseline skills. How well can you do now what you propose to establish and improve? How does it feel in your body? How does thinking about it make you feel in your mind?

Results from every performance must be recorded, assessed and reported. Prepare text in a computer file or write notes in a daily journal. Take pictures with your camera, photos of where you are and selfies while you’re responding.

Concentrate on what you’re doing with full sense of your routine. Think positively about what you’re doing and attach that sense of accomplishment along with your positive affect associated with the mental image.

Review the text or script and open your photos. Revive the experience stored in your mental image. Reliving this experience adds to the weight and consolidation of memory bits stored in your brain. The virtual copy behaves just like you had done that routine in real time all over again.

Revise your performance as you go along day by day and week by week. If something is not working quite right or you don’t feel really good about what you’re doing, change it. Make it work so you can enjoy doing it every time.

Repetition is essential. As close to daily as possible. Give it your full attention every time.

Eventually, routine responses will become automatic. But that will take several months. In the meantime, keep building your skill, improving your results and increasing your pleasure in successful performance.

Popular belief is that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit. Expert science reveals that it takes months to make habits completely automatic. It’s true that something threatening bodily injury or financial ruin can make a sudden change in your life. But good health habits will build slowly and must be consciously monitored for months or even years.

Quantitative measurements are essential. Actual numbers and photos of performance as you continue are valuable to compare to measurements and photos taken at baseline. This is how to record consistency, assess your skill and demonstrate improvements in performance.

Include quantitative assessments of affect. On scales of 1 to 10, how do you feel before, during and after each repetition of the new routine?

Coaching, mentoring, and sharing your experience. All help build successful routines. A good coach tells you what has worked for others in similar situations. A mentor shows what they’ve done and what you can accomplish. Sharing your experiences with friends and family gives you positive support and feedback about what you’re doing.

Most of all, outreach to others helps to focus on specific objectives and make realistic plans. It helps you pay attention and not get distracted. It also helps you keep going if you get impatient or discouraged.

Maintenance

Pay attention forever. When a habit becomes automatic, it still competes with processes formed during all your previous years of life. If you drift away from a new routine, the old ways will come back into control.

Enjoyment is essential to maintaining good health. Keep noticing what you’re doing and how much you’ve gained. Set up your daily activities so good health practice is important. So you really feel badly when something gets in the way.

Include schedules for relaxation, recreation and entertainment.

Continue quantitative measurements. Keep a pedometer on your hip every day. Add up and note your minutes of exercise every week. Note the miles you walk or run.

Measure your weight at least once every week. Measure your waist circumference at least once every month. What’s your belt length, your pants size, your dress size?

Note the hours of sleep you’re getting every night.

You worked successfully to improve your health. Don’t let it get away.

Replacement

Getting rid of a bad habit is difficult. At some time in your life, that habit provided some benefit. It got established in your brain. Now, it’s almost impossible to “just don’t do it.”

Sometimes, you can change your environment and the situations stimulating the habit you want to replace. But there are some things you just can’t change.

If you’ve been overeating, it’s hard to just eat less. If you’ve been sedentary all day, it’s hard to get moving. If you’ve been sleeping poorly, it’s hard to just tell yourself “go to sleep.”

Establish good habits to replace the old. Establish routines you can do in situations you pretty much have to endure. Most of all find what will give you more pleasure than what you’ve been doing.

If you’ve been overeating, start planning meals and snacks you can learn to enjoy. If you’ve been sedentary, wear a pedometer, take the stairs, walk in from parking farther out. Schedule time every evening to relax before getting ready for bed.

Good And Bad Health Habits

Good Health Habits

Bad Health Habits

Summary

Habits are automatic responses that occur regularly without conscious control. They are acquired initially through frequent repetition in specific situations.

During ordinary daily activities, we’re only consciously directing what’s happening about 10% of the time. Most of the time, habits and other nonconscious processes control our daily experience.

Definition and description are extremely important. Exactly what situation should elicit exactly what response must be stated. What to do when, where it will be done and step by step how it should be done.

Quantitative measurements are essential. Actual numbers and photos of performance as you continue are valuable to compare to measurements and photos taken at baseline.

Enjoyment is essential to maintaining good health. Keep noticing what you’re doing and how much you’ve gained.

Establish good habits to replace the old. Establish routines you can do in situations you pretty much have to endure. Most of all find what will give you more pleasure than what you’ve been doing.

Let us help you redirect health habits to reverse type 2 diabetes.

We are pleased to share our blog articles with you, and we are always interested to hear from our readers. Our website address is: www.herdhealthcare.com

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