Many of us think about changes we'd like to make in our lives. When it comes to health recommendations, we mostly know the drill: Exercise most days of the week; eat a varied and nutritious diet; keep your body mass index between 18.5 and 24.9; get enough sleep; keep up with medical screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar; get mammograms and Pap smears at recommended intervals; don't smoke; and limit alcohol to seven drinks a week. Reducing stress, improving relationships, and developing new interests or hobbies also contribute to healthy living.
Making healthy lifestyle changes affects not only our risk for disease and the way we feel today but also our health and ability to function independently in later life (see "Lifestyle factors reduce the need for nursing home care"). What we do for ourselves is often more important than what medicine can offer us. Yet making healthy changes is easier said than done. Even when we're strongly motivated, adopting a new, healthy habit — or breaking an old, bad one — can be terribly difficult.
Considerable research has been aimed at identifying factors that contribute to successful lifestyle change as well as more effective tools for clinicians — especially in the context of a brief office visit — to counsel their patients on adopting healthier habits. One problem may be that we're motivated too often by a sense of guilt, fear, or regret. Experts who study behavior change agree that long-lasting change is most likely when it's self-motivated and rooted in positive thinking. In October 2006, the Economic and Social Research Council, a British research group, released findings on 129 different studies of behavior change strategies. The survey confirmed that the least effective strategies were those that aroused fear or regret in the person attempting to make a change.
Studies have also shown that goals are easier to reach if they're specific ("I'll walk 20 minutes a day," rather than "I'll get more exercise") and not too numerous (having too many goals limits the amount of attention and willpower you can devote to reaching any single goal). Another recurring theme is that it's not enough to have a goal: You also need practical ways to reach it. For example, if your goal is to stick to a low-calorie diet, have a plan in place for quelling hunger pangs (for example, keep a bottle of water or cup of tea nearby, or chew sugarless gum).
Research has also produced models that help account for success and failure, and explain why making healthy changes can take so long. The expert conclusion is that any effort you make in the right direction is worthwhile, even if you encounter setbacks or find yourself backsliding from time to time.
A study published in the May 8, 2006, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine followed nearly 6,500 middle-aged and elderly people for 20 years. Among the more than 3,500 participants ages 45–64 when the study began, those who were obese, were physically inactive, smoked, or had diabetes or uncontrolled high blood pressure at the start of the study were much more likely to be admitted to a nursing home.
Middle-age smoking increased the chance of a nursing home admission by 56%, physical inactivity by 40%, and uncontrolled high blood pressure by 35%. Diabetes more than tripled the risk. (Middle-age obesity was also associated with higher risk, but the association wasn't statistically significant — that is, the numbers could have resulted from chance.) All of these conditions, of course, can be modified with lifestyle changes.
There are several models of behavior change, but the one most widely applied and tested in health settings is the transtheoretical model (TTM). First developed in the 1980s by alcoholism researchers James O. Prochaska and Carlo C. DiClemente, TTM presumes that at any given time, a person is in one of five stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, or maintenance.
The idea is that people move from one stage to the next. Each stage is a preparation for the following one, so hurrying through or skipping stages is likely to result in setbacks. Also, different strategies are needed at different stages. For example, a smoker who's at the precontemplation stage — that is, not even thinking about quitting smoking — probably isn't ready to make a list of alternatives to smoking.
Most of the evidence for this model comes from studies of alcohol, drug abuse, and smoking cessation, but it's also been applied to various health behaviors, including exercise and dieting. Clinicians and health educators use TTM to counsel patients, but you don't need to be an expert to try this approach. Anyone motivated to change can use it to assess her situation and formulate strategies. Below are the TTM stages of change and some ideas about how people move through them:
Source: Adapted from Prochaska, JO et al. "In Search of How People Change," American Psychologist (Sept. 1992), Vol. 27, No. 9, pp. 1102–1114.
The path from one stage to the next is rarely straightforward. Most people relapse at some point and recycle through certain stages, like a spiral (see illustration). One study found that smokers trying to quit cycled an average of three or four times through the "action" stage before they succeeded. When relapse occurs during the maintenance stage, you may find yourself back at the contemplation or preparation stage — or perhaps all the way back to precontemplation if the relapse was so demoralizing that you don't even want to think about changing.
Relapse is common, perhaps even inevitable. Experts urge people not to be derailed by it but to think of it as an integral part of the change process. You learn something about yourself each time you relapse. For example, you may find that the strategy you adopted didn't fit into your life or suit your priorities. Next time, you can use what you learned, adjust, and be a little ahead of the game as you continue on the pathway to change.
(This article was first printed in the January 2007 issue of the Harvard Women's Health Watch. For more information or to order, please go to http://www.health.harvard.edu/womens.)
Harvard Women's Health Watch – the monthly newsletter that focuses on the special health concerns of women, with expert information and advice from the specialists at Harvard Medical School.
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