How do some of us resist the temptation to overeat palatable (pleasurable) food, get through the last exhausting mile in a marathon, and force ourselves to make tough decisions when it would be easier to give in, stop and/or walk away respectively? Is will power or self-control just a learned (habitual) skill or could it… Continue Reading
Although there is some debate as to whether an illness such OCD or severe depression can be learned like any other habit such as driving a car competently, or addictions to alcohol and gambling are somehow different to habits such as overeating, what I hope to show you is that the similarities in the learning… Continue Reading
It has been estimated that about 40-45% of what we do each day is habitual although as we shall see this may depend on the characteristics of an individual’s make up and experience. In the main habits are really useful learnt routines sometimes involving quite intricate behaviors and/or complex skills which help us to operate… Continue Reading
This article is the first in a series which will be devoted to the Habit for Habit (H4H) strategy for change which we have referred to in other posts. For those of you who are interested in learning a new skill and/or unlearning a bad habit and replacing it with a new and more useful… Continue Reading
This is more about successful ageing, and what we need to do or stop doing to achieve that, than chipped potatoes or how we cook food! Fries refers to James Fries about whom more later; Linda Fried is a doctor working in the US who led a group of researchers who proposed criteria for the… Continue Reading
Did you know that: In the UK, 22 million people, or a third of the population, are aged 50 years or over? 40 percent of people aged 65 and over have a long term limiting illness? If nothing is done about age related illness, in less than 16 years, it is estimated there will be… Continue Reading
Six tips to help you avoid taking taking long term medication. Why is this important? Because in a 2013 report in the BMJ, professors Christopher Dowrick and Allen Francis drew attention to the evidence that depression is over diagnosed and over treated at the expense of ‘medicalising’ a normal human experience such as sadness or… Continue Reading
Five steps towards making it easier to learn the habit of moving more often and more regularly. When do you need to start to do what you need to do and how easy will it be? Basically the idea is first to move, then move more often and then move regularly and frequently. As you… Continue Reading