8 Habit Tips to Bridge to Your Overall Health Goals
Shift Your mindset and identity to achieve and maintain your objectives
By Greg Friese , MC , NRP Lexipol Editorial Director
Reprinted with permission from Police1 , www . police1 . com .
The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | September 2023
We should all strive to sleep more and better , eat less and better , and exercise more often . Reasonable goals for overall health might include :
�� �� ��
Sleep at least 7 hours per night Eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day Lose 20 pounds
Reaching those goals requires stopping bad unhealthy habits , adopting new healthy habits , continuing those habits to meet the goal and continuing the habit toward maintaining or reaching a new goal .
New habits are the bridge between our current state and the goal state , but many health and wellness discussions overlook the importance of habits in achieving the goal state . Eating better and walking more aren ’ t habits ; they are loose directives . A habit is regular , reoccurring and often done without consciously thinking about it . Habits become part of a daily routine that shapes our identity . A collection of habits is the difference between , “ I go running ” and “ I am a runner .”
The new self-identity shaped by the accumulation and repetition of habits , begets additional habits in support of the identity . When a goal transitions from “ cook one healthy meal per day ” to “ become an expert home chef who specializes in cooking with locally sourced ingredients ,” habits form , well beyond the kitchen , to meal planning , grocery shopping , creating community connections and building a new skillset .
Are you focusing on improving your overall health ? Do you have a goal you ’ d like to reach ? Here are a few habit tips to get from your current state of knowing you want to make a change to actually making that change :
1 . Start small then stack small habits together . Your goal might be big and audacious — run a marathon next year — but if you ’ re not a runner now , it is going to take a lot of new habits to become a marathoner . A walking habit , 10 minutes before and after work , is a great start . As regular walking becomes a habit and part of your daily routine , extend the time spent walking and incorporate slow jogging when you are ready to increases your distance .
At the mid point of her 30-day ice bath challenge , Police 1 Senior Editor Sarah Calams discusses how habit stacking works .
2 . Work on the habit , not the goal . Between-meal snacking , especially easy-to-access processed foods , is my Achilles heel to achieving my goal of losing weight . I recognize I have a bad habit that needs to be replaced with a healthier habit to replace the crunch of chips with the crunch of carrot and celery sticks . Creating and maintaining a new snacking habit will help me reach my goal .
3 . Understand the “ if this , then that ” of unhealthy habits . A sleep tracker has been revelatory to my understanding of the quality and duration of my sleep . The impact of moderate alcohol consumption , even as little as one beer , is clearly evident in my sleep duration and quality of sleep data . The connection of — if I drink beer , then I will sleep poorly and if I sleep poorly , my run training will suffer — has driven me to significantly reduce my alcohol consumption because my preferred identity is runner , not beer drinker .
4 . Track your habit progress . Remember the goal is the other side of the bridge . To get there requires the creation and continuation of habits . Use a pen and paper calendar , smartphone app , or spreadsheet to track the practice of a habit . If a small habit becomes a routine , stop tracking that habit and track the next habit that comes from that habit . The next habit after regularly reading one research article a week to improve your clinical
knowledge might be to participate in an in-person or virtual journal club .
11
Continued on next page