Diabetes Motivation Book Includes Five Ways to Boost Your Energy for Improving Your Health

March 6, 2013 - PRLog -- Changing health habits for the long term is very difficult. That’s why 45% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions before the end of January and why many people feel that they simply cannot lose weight, go to the gym, or eat more vegetables. The author of a book designed to enhance motivation for diabetes self-care says that individuals will be more likely to take good care of their health if they try a few proven change strategies.

“Change is a skill that takes practice, practice, and more practice!” suggests Dr. Heidi Beckman, clinical psychologist and author of The Diabetes Motivation Book: Change One Thing at a Time with the Science of Willpower. “Whenever you have a setback, think of it as an opportunity for growth and proof that you have taken on a worthwhile goal. This will increase your energy, focus, and confidence.”

Beckman offers additional tips for enhancing your health motivation:

• Create the identity of a healthy person. The more you identify with a particular role, the more likely it is that you will participate in related behavior. More specifically, if you identify yourself as the “doer” of a particular behavior, you will behave in concordance with that identity, even when obstacles or barriers arise in your path. For example, if you have a strong identity as a “runner,” you will still put your running shoes on and go outside for a 5K, even when storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.

• Add something to your life instead of taking something away. Write your health-related goals in positive language. We tend to be more successful when we think of ourselves as moving toward something rather than moving away from something. For example, consider how it feels when you think “I will eat more vegetables” versus when you think “I will not eat desserts.”

• Use “action triggers.” An action trigger is a stimulus in your environment that will prompt you to do something healthy. For example, you might decide that every time you go retrieve the newspaper on your driveway, you will take a ten-minute walk. Or every time you see the brake lights of the car in front of you, you will take a slow, deep breath.

• Learn how to slow down your breath. There is some very interesting research that has come out that suggests that if we can shift to slow, deep, even breathing (approximately 4-6 breaths per minute), we can trigger changes in the brain and body that give us more freedom for flexible, thoughtful action. In other words, breathing slowly can help us access our impulse control. When you want to do something but know that you shouldn’t (like spend money on a frivolous purchase), or when you know you should do something but really don’t want to (like hit the gym), try spending a few moments slowing down the breath.

• Make good use of social support. When you are working on a health-related goal, you get to choose your support people. But you also get to choose how you want them to provide support. Try to be very specific in “coaching” them how they can help you. For example, I met an individual who wanted a certain coworker to remind him in a lighthearted manner to choose something healthy off of the menu every time they went to a restaurant together.

The Diabetes Motivation Book: Change One Thing at a Time with the Science of Willpower ($9.99 print version, $4.99 electronic version; 118 pages, 5.9 X 8.9, paperback, ISBN: 978-1479215225; copyright 2012 by Heidi T. Beckman) is available through Amazon and other online booksellers. For more information, go to http://www.heidibeckman.com.

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