Healthy Habits

Change is never easy- especially when someone is trying to make positive changes to promote a healthier lifestyle. Whether the change includes eating better, exercising, or eliminating stress, it is difficult to stay motivated.

According to the Healthy Tip titled “Understand These Five Behaviors That Can Prevent Sticking With Healthy Habits” from the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee website, there are five main barriers that prevent individuals from making positive changes and experiencing healthy results. These common barriers include overlooking context, choice overload, incremental progress, relapse, and poor goal setting.

Overlooking context refers to the idea that what works best for one person might not work best for the next. An individualized plan that fits your schedule, budget, and lifestyle is ultimately what will be the most effective. Similar to overlooking context, choice overload is a barrier that discourages people from making positive lifestyle changes because there are too many strategies that are considered. Instead of examining each and every option to improve your wellbeing, you should consult a doctor or someone you can trust. With incremental progress, it often takes a great deal of time and effort to experience real impact. This amount of time can lead to fatigue and quitting. To combat this, it is important to celebrate any improvements in your health, no matter how small they might be. Another factor that can lead to someone giving up is a relapse. Confidence can deteriorate when workouts are missed, or pounds are gained back for example. Instead of losing hope, use these relapses as motivation to hit the gym or make better food choices the next day. Finally, setting unrealistic goals will significantly stunt your development. Discouragement tends to settle in without specific, measurable goals.

The secrets to living longer and having healthy habits are not an unsolved mystery. Understanding the barriers that can get in the way of making healthy changes will help you recognize and overcome them instead of getting stuck in poor habits. To learn about more about this healthy tip and many more, check out the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee’s Healthy Tips webpage: Healthy Tips Archive | Blue365 Deals.

BlueCross BlueShield|Blue365. (2022, October 24). Healthy Tips: Understand These Five Behaviors That Can Prevent Sticking With Healthy Habits. BlueCross BlueShield|Blue365. https://www.blue365deals.com/BCBSTN/healthy-tips/understand-these-five-behaviors-can-prevent-sticking-healthy-habits

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