Health-and-Fitness online information.

About this time every year, many of our self-improvement resolutions center around changing our lifestyle habits. Yet even when we have the best intentions, our resolutions are often circling the drain by about Feb. 15, as we revert to ingrained behavior patterns.

Sure, we'd all be fit, healthy and energetic if we could just get into the habits of exercising regularly and eating nutritious foods, and break the habit of downing a pint of Rocky Road in front of the TV instead of taking an after-inner walk. But why is it so difficult to cultivate good new patterns and break bad old ones? "Humans were designed to habituate," says Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine. "Our brains are wired that way." It's habitual behaviors like eating and sleeping, after all, that keep humans surviving as a species.

While these two behaviors are instinctual, most of our habits are learned, often in childhood and from repetition. It's been said that a habit is like.a sheet of paper: Once it has been creased, it tends to fall into the same fold. But even if your habits are as plentiful as folds in a triple A map, you can learn new ones.

Just don't attempt to change them all at once. A grand scheme to quit smoking, drinking, eating junk food and being a couch potato simultaneously is likely doomed to failure. Pick one habit and focus on it. Decide which will be most encouraging to you: to master the hardest or the easiest one first. When that habit is entrenched, tackle the next one.

Also, be specific, Instead of vowing to "eat better," for example, determine to eat more fruits and vegetables daily for a month, then to have well-balanced breakfasts and then to make menu plans.

Set yourself up to succeed

First, arrange your environment to support your desired new habit, and remove sources of temptation that perpetuate the old one. If you're trying to quit eating so much ice cream, for example, don't keep any in the freezer. Ask your friends and family for their support. Or, if you suspect they might not bolster your efforts or even sabotage them, keep your plans to yourself. You might want to "bribe" yourself by setting up a system of rewards. Do whatever it takes to stack the odds in your favor.

You'll also have to be staunchly resolute until you've established your new habit. "Make no exceptions for the first month," Walsh says. It's easy to convince yourself that just one cookie, just one missed workout, doesn't count. Psychologists say it's like dropping a ball of yarn you're trying to wind: It quickly unravels. Only when you've broken your habit of eating a pint of ice cream every night is it safe to enjoy an occasional serving.

# posted by Medical Information : 1:39 AM