"Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion"

- Alexander Hamilton, 1802

It's January. Everywhere you go you'll see images and messages about change. Changes in diets. Changes in exercise patterns. New challenges to try - dry January, Veganuary, walking challenges, drawing challenges. It's a great time of year to start working on these new things - a time to re-assess our lives and see what we'd like to tweak. But how can we make these changes stick? How do we know we're not going to be popping those new watercolour paints into the bottom drawer with last year's hobby?

To begin with we often try to rely on willpower. Willpower can be defined as the ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals, or what could otherwise be called resolve. Secondly, it can be defined as the capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse, or what could be termed suppression. For example, when you find yourself heading towards that leftover box of Christmas chocolates, you resolve not to eat it so you can have the reward of not gaining weight, and you also suppress the urge to eat them all because they are delicious.

This combination of resolve and urge suppression requires a great deal of self-control. However, research shows us that when we use willpower to resist temptation, this can leave us with less self-control to tackle other challenges. In a recent report, the American Psychological Association stated "A growing body of research shows that resisting repeated temptations takes a mental toll. Some experts liken willpower to a muscle that can get fatigued from overuse". So by resisting eating those chocolates, you may find yourself reaching for a burger later on, rather than the salad that you had planned to have.  In a world where we have so many distractions competing for our attention - social media, one-click shopping, online streaming - the ability to resist tempation may get sapped quite early on.  And additionally, it may have a knock-on effect on our ability to control our emotions, behaviours, or thoughts.

However, this doesn't mean we should give up! What can help us to ensure we keep going with that early morning yoga practice?  Recent research has shown us that building habits may help maintain an activity indefinitely. A habit may be defined as responses that develop over time when people do the same thing in the same context. Habit building can be encouraged by including some or all of the following:

• Creat a behaviour chain or trigger - for example, if I regularly leave my yoga mat next to my bed along with my yoga clothes, when that alarm bell goes at 7am I'm ready to get dressed and get going, without the thought of having to coerce myself into doing it.
• Narrow down your options - this stops willpower being involved too much! And allows you to focus on what you really want to change.
• Make it daily - and mark that time out on your calendar. Consistency is key in laying down new habits. 
• Keep going for 66 days - research shows that's the magic number to make it stick! 
• Start simple - don't try and change everything at once. Rather than throwing everything out on day 1, make a plan to simplify and make small changes each week. If it's a new way of eating you're after, start with your breakfasts - build this habit. Then move on to lunch, and so on. This way it will really stick.

So maybe if you're looking to tweak how you eat, exercise, or live your life, rather than relying on willpower and self-control to keep it going, have a look at how you can build it into a habit. Then it may last a lifetime.

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

References:

Ainslie G (2020) Willpower Without Effort Behavioural and Brain Sciences 1-81 DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X20000357

American Psychological Association (2021) What You Need to Know About Willpower: The Psychological Science of Self-Control last accessed online 08.01.2021 at https://www.apa.org/topics/willpower

Duckworth AL Milkman KL Laibson D (2018) Beyond Willpower: Strategies for Reducing Failures of Self Control Association for Psychological Sciences 19 (3) 102-129

Neal DT Wood W Drolet A (2013) How Do People Adhere to Goals When Willpower is Low? The Profits (and Pitfalls) of Strong Habits American Psychological Association 104 (6) 959-975

So, how do you get started with mindful eating? Well, here are my six top tips for incorporating mindful eating into your daily life:

1. Have a list - by preparing in advance what we need, this will help stop any impulse purchases at the shop. We know what we need and what we are looking for, so armed with our shopping list we can stick to this. Being aware of the food choices we are making and what we are bringing home is an excellent start to the process. This also ensures that what we reach for at home is what we want to eat.

2. Avoid extreme hunger - It's good to be hungry when sitting down to eat a meal, but not so much so that we're compelled to make the wrong choices as we're in a massive hurry and feeling famished. Being ravenously hungry and going past the point of when we should have eaten may make us panic and reach for foods that we wouldn't normally go for purely out of convenience.

3. Make a conscious decision to eat - by planning our meals in advance this allows us to know when we are eating and what we will be eating. This helps us avoid the pitfall of ravenous hunger, but also helps us avoid absent-mindedly picking as we don't know what to eat. Particularly at this time of year, you might like to indulge in festive treats, by making a conscious decision to do so, this will allow you to determine how much and what you have.

4. Take time to appreciate your food - start with a small pause to smell and admire the food are eating. Hey, you or someone else has gone to some effort to provide this for you! The digestive process starts in the brain, so taking some time to smell, see and acknowledge your meal can also help improve digestion, as well as allowing you to enjoy the process.

5. Take your time over eating your food - I grew up in a house where it was always a race to see who could finish dinner first and get down from the table. This is not what we should be doing! By eating more slowly and chewing thoroughly we help get the digestive processes working effectively, but we also allow the brain to sense when our bodies are full. And you get a chance to savour the foods as you eat them.

6. Eat without distractions - turn off the telly, shut the laptop, sit down at the table. By eating with no external distractions, we can turn our full attention to what we are eating - which, in turn, allows us to be more in tune with our bodies, appetites and sense of fullness. 
 

As well as providing nutrients and energy, food should be a source of fun and enjoyment. And this is particularly true as we approach the festive season. Sharing food with our families is such an integral part of this time of year and we should take the time to enjoy it guilt-free.

By following these six simple steps hopefully we can taken some of the absent-minded eating away, leaving us with the foods we have consciously chosen, eaten in a way that enables us to enjoy them, and thereby we can thoroughly appreciate our celebrations.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Having spent five years knee-deep in textbooks and research papers studying for me BSc and Diploma in Nutritional Therapy, it is easy for me to forget that not everyone is familiar with the term. What does Nutritional Therapy actually entail? And how can it help you?

As defined by our professional body BANT (British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine):

“Nutritional Therapy is the application of nutrition science in the promotion of health, performance and individual care. Registered Nutritional Therapists use a wide range of tools to assess and identify potential nutritional imbalances and understand how these may contribute to an individual’s symptoms and health concerns.”

This basically means that as a Nutritional Therapist I work with you to try and find out what changes can be made to your diet and lifestyle to make you feel better. What foods you eat, what sleep and relaxation you get, your medical and family histories, your environment at work and home, what exercise you get, your stress levels – all of these factors and more can impact how you feel and any symptoms you may be getting.

Nutritional Therapy uses a Functional Medicine approach. This entails a client-centred and science-based approach which allows us to work together to address the underlying causes of any symptoms you may have to promote wellness. By addressing the root causes, via taking personal histories, mapping symptoms, and using functional testing, we aim to get to the bottom of what’s going on.

I keep up to date with scientific research to ensure that I have the latest nutrition science at my fingertips. And, as a complementary therapy, I work alongside your GP and other healthcare professionals to try and give you the best outcomes.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different lives, responsibilities, tastes, amounts of time and money to spend. It’s my job to help find an approach that works for you as an individual. Click here to book a call with me today.