The New Year is an ideal time to pause, reflect and prepare for the year ahead. Lily Henderson, National Nutrition Advisor for the Heart Foundation takes us through latest science around what it takes to build long-lasting healthier habits.
What are habits?
Most of our daily behaviours are made up of thousands of habits and many of them we do without even thinking. For example, you may have a certain way you prepare your cup of tea or a ritual before you lock your front door – all of these are a series of actions which are performed together.
It can be helpful to think about our habits when we are thinking about our health goals and lifestyle changes.
Don’t rely on willpower
You may have health goal focused around eating better, moving more or managing your weight.
Willpower and self-control are an important piece of the puzzle but are not everything when it comes to building healthier habits! What’s most important is creating habits that not only benefit our health but ones that we do almost automatically without even having to think about them, even on days we’re stressed, tired or distracted.
It means we use minimal brain activity and don’t have to waste energy trying to motivate ourselves to do something (which can get tiring and exhausting).
6 tips to help you make habits that stick
1. Understand the science
Your everyday behaviours are likely to become habitual when they are frequently and consistently performed in the same context1. For example, if you eat vegetables as a snack every day, at some point eating vegetables in this way will become a habit.
The process of building or performing a habit can be divided into four simple steps2:
- Cue: The trigger in your brain to initiate a behaviour. It could be related to the time of day, a location or an activity you do.
- Craving: the desire to change your internal state. This is what motivates you to act.
- Response: the habit that you perform which could be a thought or action.
- Reward: what you will get out of it. The more satisfying or pleasurable the better.
Over time, this loop becomes automatic and eventually a habit is born, and the brain stops fully participating in decision-making. If we want to form new habits, we should make them obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying2.
We’re more likely to form new habits when we clear away the obstacles in our way and place obvious cues in our work and home environment2,3. It could be as simple as having a fruit bowl visible on the bench, placing an appointment in your calendar for a lunchtime walk or having your gym bag packed and ready at the door.
With lifestyle changes it may take a little longer to reap the reward however something that is instant is the way we feel. A 10-minute burst of movement whether it’s a walk or some yoga can have an instant impact on our mood and stress levels4.
2. Let go of the ‘all-or-nothing’ mentality
Every little habit counts and doing something is better than nothing.
Whether that’s extra sleep, an extra serving of vegetables or a 5-minute walk. In fact, The Heart Foundations physical activity and sedentary behaviour position statement clearly shows that any type and amount of movement counts because it helps to break up time you may spend sitting4.
3. A change can be tiny
Habits may take some time to create, but they form faster when we do them more often, so start with something reasonable that is easy to do. You’re more likely to stick with a food, sleep or exercise habit that you can easily perform every day such as having a glass of water to start the day, going to bed 15 minutes earlier or parking further away from work.
If you consistently keep up these tiny habits and they become permanent, they can have a big impact on your heart health. Once these become habit, you can explore more ways to build onto your existing habits.
4. Habit stacking
Your routine is the foundation that new habits can be built on. Pairing a new habit with an existing one can help to make new habits stick and is referred to as ‘habit stacking’. This could be as simple as adding a new habit you’d like to create to your routine before bed or before you leave the house.
5. Consistency not intensity
The trick to creating habits that stick is to set the bar low. Anything you perform that is above and beyond is a bonus. You ideally want to create a habit that you know you can keep up even on your stressed and busy days. When you perform your habits on days that are harder this helps to create consistency.
6. Track your habits
Tracking your habits helps you to feel satisfied that you are working towards your health goals. This could be as simple as marking off the days you complete a habit in a diary, tracker or App. This can help you to self-monitor and measure your progress and celebrate any small wins too.
Where to start
We all have different health goals and parts of our lifestyle that we can work on so the key is to think about a small habit you want to form that is right for you.
Here are some tiny habits you could try this year:
- Having a piece of fruit or a vegetable as a snack
- Putting your phone away at mealtimes
- Drinking a glass of water after every alcoholic drink
- Walking your kids to school one day a week
- Serving half a plate of vegetables at dinner
- Adding a handful of nuts/seeds to your breakfast
- Planning a meat-free dinner every week
- Going to bed 15 minutes earlier
- Starting the day with 10 minutes of mindfulness
It’s a good idea to focus on what to do instead of what to remove and remember that just one new habit can protect your heart and benefit your long-term health.
References
- Van der Weiden A et al. How to Form Good Habits? A Longitudinal Field Study on the Role of Self-Control in Habit Formation. Front Psychol. 2020 Mar 27;11:560.
- James Clear. How to start new habits that actually stick. https://jamesclear.com/three-steps-habit-change
- Lucas Carden. Habit formation and change. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. Volume 20, 2018, 117-122, ISSN 2352-1546.
- Heart Foundation (2021). Physical activity, sedentary behaviour and heart health.
