This is a more relevant lecture than what it seems at the time. Study this lecture thoroughly
What is health behaviour?
If health is on overall state of wellbeing, not only an absence of disease, what is health beaviour?
Health behaviour is action taken to improve wellbeing and preventing illness
For example good and common 5 health behaviours are
- Never smoking
- Healthy BMI
- Moderate to vigorous exercise
- Healthy diet
- Moderate alcohol consumption (moderate in terms of limit, silly choice of words)
What changes a health behaviour?
Often what changes a behaviour is knowledge about adverse effects. However it isnt this easy and there is often significant barriers to change. These can be internal and external barriers.
Internal barriers include:
- Lack of knowledge (Knowledge about the effects of drinking for example)
- Unhelpful beliefs
- Low self efficacy (disbelief that one can actually change)
- Lack of motivation
- Fear of change
- Triggering situations (Bringing an alcoholic to a liqueur store or a pub idk)
External barriers
- Lack of support
- Societal/cultural expectations
- Geographical location
- Accessibility/lack of resources
The Habit Loop
The habit loop is
- Cue
Trigger that starts the habit
- Routine
Action
- Reward
Benefits from the habit (which feeds back into the cue-reward association)
Barriers to change with respect to habit loop
These are properties about negative behaviours that limit
- Enjoyment of competing poor health behaviours
- No immediate adverse affect of poor behaviours
- Amount of effort involved in changing health behaviours
- Triggering environments/social groups
Breaking Negative Habits
To break negative habits you should attack cue cravings and rewards
- Reduce triggers and cues
- Substitute action with other actions that also help
- Attack rewards (make the reward bitter)
With addictions there are also more cravings and withdrawals
Assessment of health behaviour change
This is a large component of motivational interviewing and should be remembered.
- Precomtemplation
You havent considered changing your behaviour “its fine to have X”
- Comtemplation
Maybe i shouldnt have X
- preparation
i want to stop X and am planning
- Action
I am stopping X
- Maintainence
I’m working to keep away from X
- Relapse
I had X and either want to keep having X or am planning to stop again
flowchart TD A[Pre-Contemplation] --> B[Contemplation] --> C[Preparation] --> D[Action] --> E[Maintenance] --> F[Lapse] --> A