Changing Behaviours

Last week I talked about the difference between Behaviours and Responses and this week I'm going to write about how to change behaviours that are unwanted and replace them with wanted behaviours. For the purpose of understanding how this can be done I'm going to refer to my own addiction to nicotine and how I kicked the habit of smoking.

The first step to changing a behaviour is understanding that behaviour.  By this I mean understanding why you are choosing to use this behaviour in your life. What are you getting out of it? Why did you start in the first place? What is going on before you start the behaviour? Do you really want to change the behaviour what are the pro's and con's? How much do you want to change the behaviour? Are you prepared to do whatever it takes to change elements in your life to remove the behaviour? Then you need to monitor the behaviour before even thinking about changing it. This will give you a better understanding of how this behaviour is impacting on your life.  It helps you to be honest with yourself.  Food diaries are something that is used in changing behaviours related to weight and weight gain or loss. Exercise journals and apps such as Runkeeper help to monitor good behaviours. All of this leads toward being accountable for your actions. It also identifies key times or danger times where the negative behaviour is most prominent and least prominent.

In my smoking addiction key times for me were in the morning, times of stress and after the evening meals. I loved my cup of coffee and ciggy in the morning.  I still love a cup of coffee in the morning and it taste so much better now that I am a non-smoker.  However, when I first gave up I had to stop having that morning coffee for a little while.  I replaced it with a herbal tea which was also lovely and instead of having a cigarette I had a slice of toast. Lemon herbal tea isn't compatible with a ciggy but it is with toast and lemon butter. In times of stress instead of going outside to have a cigarette I replaced that behaviour with 20 sit ups or 20 push ups, sometimes I would just go for a walk. A rather fast paced walk with a bit of swearing under my breath about what was annoying me. After the evening meal I worked  a tapestry while watching TV.  I lapsed a few times as my husband was still smoking. I just got back to the program I had made for myself and didn't beat up on myself or considered myself a failure. In fact the few times I did lapse back into smoking I found that I didn't enjoy the cigarette and it reinforced that I didn't want to be a smoker anymore.

This brings me to the stages people experience before they can attempt change.  The pre-contemplative stage which is the part where smokers might think "I'm going to die anyway it may as well be of smoking related illness or my grandmother lived for ages and she smoked so I'll probably be the same". The contemplative stage this might be signified by the smoker saying to themselves "Do I really want to die of smoking related illness" or "My Grandma did only smoke one or two cigarettes a day while I smoke a whole packet" this might lead to "Maybe I should give up smoking"
This thinking might be followed by some actions like phoning up the quitline researching ways to give up smoking. The next stage is the planning stage. During this stage you might start putting some things into place as I did regarding methods of replacing the unwanted behaviour of smoking with some healthier behaviours. You may return to the planning stage periodically and adapt to your changing circumstances for example I can enjoy my morning coffee now without thinking about having a cigarette yet in the early stages this would have been impossible for me. The next stage is the Action stage this is where your plans are implemented. The first steps toward changing the behaviour are underway. The final stage naturally is the maintenance of the wanted behaviours over the unwanted behaviour.

There we have it behaviour change in a nutshell.  I do hope that if you are considering changing a behaviour this is helpful to you. You can apply these to family patterns of behaviour as well for example if there is a history of smacking kids you can apply a plan for change. An example of this would be to think about alternative methods of relating to your children.  You could withdraw a favourite toy or send your child to their room. You could even talk to your child in an age appropriate way to teach them that throwing a tantrum is not an effective way of getting what they want. Persistence and consistency is the key to any kind of change.

Image from website (http://www.livestroo.com/?p=32)

References

Bowles T."Developing Adaptive Change Capabilities Through Client-Centered Therapy" Published in Journal, "Medical Sciences Psychiatry-Neurology". Australia, Bowen Hills (Dec 2012)

Caltabiano M, Safafino E. &Bryne D. "Health Psychology Biopsychosocial Interactions" Publisher Wiley & Sons Australia (2008)

Watson & Tharp "Self-Directed Behaviour" Publisher Wadsworth (2007)