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Being physically and mentally healthy forms the core of our fast-paced lives today. Lifestyle risk factors are now recognized as leading contributors to morbidity and mortality. Many chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obstructive lung diseases, diabetes, etc., are strongly linked to lifestyle. There is convincing evidence that a healthy lifestyle is associated with a longer and healthier life span and includes regular exercise, a balanced diet, and habit and behavioural changes. Have you ever wondered why behaviour change is necessary? Now you will know!
Understanding the Behaviour Change: What is Behaviour Change
What is behaviour change? It’s replacing unhealthy patterns with positive actions that support wellbeing. The importance of behaviour modification lies in its ability to create lasting improvements in physical and mental health. Whether it’s adopting healthy behaviour like regular exercise or quitting harmful habits, sustainable behaviour change for good requires understanding the key factors in behaviour change – motivation, environment, and consistent practice.
How To Achieve Your Health Goals?
Achieving meaningful health transformations requires a structured approach. The SMART framework is particularly effective for behaviour change for health:
- Specific: Clearly define what “which behaviour helps us restore our bodies and our health” means for you (e.g., “I will walk 10,000 steps daily”)
- Measurable: Track progress using apps or journals to maintain accountability
- Attainable: Set challenging yet realistic goals based on current capabilities
- Relevant: Ensure goals align with personal values and long-term wellbeing
- Time-bound: Establish deadlines to create urgency (e.g., “Reduce sugar intake by 50% in 8 weeks”)
This method addresses the factors of community health by creating personalized, achievable roadmaps. Research shows that those who implement SMART goals are 3x more likely to sustain new habits.
How to Implement Strategies for Behaviour Change?
Understanding why is behaviour change important is just the first step – the real challenge lies in implementation. Successful behaviour change for health requires strategic planning and addressing the key factors in behaviour change. Here are five proven strategies:
1. Habit Stacking
Link new healthy behaviour to existing routines. For example, practice deep breathing while waiting for your morning coffee to brew. This leverages established neural pathways, making new habits easier to adopt.
2. Environmental Design
Modify your surroundings to support your goals – a crucial aspect of factors of community health. Keep workout clothes visible, place healthy snacks at eye level, and remove temptations from your environment.
3. Social Support
Engage friends, family, or online communities. Research shows that social accountability increases success rates by 65% for behaviour change for good. Join groups with similar health objectives for mutual motivation.
4. Progress Tracking
Use apps or journals to monitor improvements. Tracking helps identify patterns and provides concrete evidence of progress, reinforcing what behaviour changes in practical terms.
5. Reward System
Celebrate small wins to reinforce positive behaviour. Immediate rewards activate dopamine pathways, making you 3x more likely to repeat the action.
The most effective approach combines these strategies, focusing on one change at a time. Remember that which behaviour helps us restore our bodies and health varies by individual – personalize these methods for optimal results. Studies confirm that people implementing these strategies are 2.5x more likely to maintain long-term positive changes.
Factors of Sustainable Behavioural Change
Why is behaviour change important? Let us answer this, too. Behaviour plays a major role in people’s health, and different behaviour patterns are deeply embedded in people’s social and material circumstances. Sustainable behavioural changes are crucial in changing long-standing habits that can cause various health hazards. It is thus essential to identify practical approaches and strategies that motivate change and sustain newly adopted healthy behaviour.
The two main factors of behavioural relevance when it comes to health and wellness are:
- Self-Regulation: Self-regulation is central to effective human functioning and focuses on health behaviour change. It is imperative to direct our behaviour and control our impulses to achieve certain goals or meet certain standards. It helps us achieve short- and long-term interests consistent with our deepest values.
- Habits: Habits are powerful, shaping our existence and future and are key to our wellness. For better or worse, habits influence health, well-being, and quality of life. If you are striving to improve these, you need to think about habits because if you change your habits for the better, you change your life for the better.
Impacts of Behavioural Changes In Terms of Health & Wellness
Sustainable behaviour change for health yields remarkable benefits: improved immunity (up to 50% fewer sick days), 30% higher energy levels, and enhanced mental clarity. The importance of behaviour modifications extends beyond physical health – they foster emotional resilience, better relationships, and increased productivity. Those maintaining healthy behaviour for 6+ months report 60% higher life satisfaction scores.
Reasons Why Sustainable Behaviour Change is Hard to Achieve
Behaviour change is essential and challenging as it requires a person to disrupt a current habit while simultaneously fostering a new, possibly unfamiliar, set of actions. The process takes time to become a consistent, habitual behaviour. The various reasons why sustainable behaviour change is hard to achieve are:
- Lack of Motivation
- Not Enough Willpower
- Lack of Management of Setbacks and Lapses
- Impatience
- Not Enough Education
How Can a Health Coach Help with Sustainable Behavioural Change?
A wellness coach needs to understand the internal strengths of their clients and guide them towards a better life. They get to the intrinsic, internal motivation of what a person wants and why they want. A health coach talks about health behaviour change and helps to attain healthy, sustainable behaviour change by challenging you to:
- Listen to your inner wisdom
- Live by your values
- Transform your goals into actions
They effectively pave the path to healthy behaviour and broad knowledge of health and wellness. They create personalized and effective programs that match your lifestyle, habits, and health goals. A health coach works closely with you to assess your daily habits and determine the reasons impacting your long-term health. They provide emotional support and encouragement and help you change your lifestyle and habits.
Partner with Weljii in Our Endeavour to Bring a Real Change
Having coached thousands and supported hundreds of coaches and the well-being environment in India, Weljii is the pioneer of health and wellness coaching.
Why Weljii?
Where most wellness coach training programs are information-oriented, they must be people-oriented for long-lasting behavioural impacts. Weljii offers health and wellness programs that weigh on teaching the neuroscience of coaching to all. We offer health and wellness coaching services and programs for individuals and organizations for sustainable lifestyle habit change focused on preventive health and proactive wellness. At ‘Weljii,’ you can pair up with your coach to help you create your road map to recovery and wellness all holistically and naturally. This is done by using the science of behavioural change, matched with evidence-based nutrition, exercise, and stress management techniques. Visit our website for more information.
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