Building wellbeing habits

School holidays are a regular chance to restore and recharge, and also to intentionally plan for the following term – not only for learning (students and ourselves) but also our wellbeing.? One effective way of safeguarding and strengthening wellbeing in the coming term is to consider harnessing the process of habits.

In psychology, a habit can be defined as “a process whereby exposure to a cue automatically triggers a non-conscious impulse to act due to the activation of a learned association between the cue and the action” (Gardner,?2015) … catchy, I know ??… or more simply a cue followed by action.? For many of us (me included!) it takes a little more than knowing this to build a habit. So what else do we need to know and do to form new habits or replace old ones?

Gardner and Rebar (2019) suggest a habit is formed by an individual:

(1) making a decision to act and

(2) acting on the decision

(3) repeatedly

(4) in a manner that supports to the development of associations between the cue and the desired behaviour.

So for example, I could

(1)?? decide I want to walk every weekday morning, and

(2)?? start on school holiday weekday mornings

(3)?? walk many days

(4)?? set up by seeing my walking gear ready to go when I wake up.

Rewards also play a part in supporting habit formation. They may be intrinsic (feeling great afterwards) or extrinsic (stopping for a coffee) but for many of us, they are an important part of starting and building new habits.? And it can take a couple of tries, or many tries – the key is to keep going as every time you act you are building and reinforcing the habit process. Good luck!

References

Gardner, B., & Rebar, A. L. (2019). Habit formation and behavior change. In?Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved from https://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-129.

Gardner, B. (2014). A review and analysis of the use of ‘habit’ in understanding, predicting and influencing health-related behaviour.?Health Psychology Review,?9(3), 277–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2013.876238

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Melinda Phillips

Compassionate Schools

Compassionate Schools is based in Sydney and supports schools throughout Australia. Combining the science of compassion, wellbeing science and workplace mental health, Compassionate Schools offers individual wellbeing e-learning; leader/school programs and workshops; individual and small group psychology support for leaders and staff (supervision, coaching, counselling); and consulting support (one-off and over time) for school leaders. Compassionate Schools is happy to provide pro-bono support where possible to underserved schools, please get in touch.