Health Behaviour Modification Exercise
Part 1
| Day | When | Where | With Whom | Under what circumstances you engage in this behaviour | ||||
| 1 | Monday, 10-1-2012 @ 8.00- 8.20 a.m | My Neighbourhood | Alone | Self-efficacy | ||||
| 2 | Tuesday, 10-2-2012 @ 2.00 – 2.20 p.m (Failed) | My Neighbourhood | Alone | Self-efficacy | ||||
| 3 | Wednesday 10-3-2012 @ 8.30 – 8.50 a.m | My Neighbourhood | Alone | Self-efficacy | ||||
| Part 2 | Modification Stage | Modification Stage | Modification Stage | Modification Stage | ||||
| 4 | Thursday, 10-3-2012 @ 9.00 – 9.20 a.m | My Neighbourhood | Alone | Self-monitoring | ||||
| 5 | Friday, 10-4-2012 @ 8.00 – 8.20 a.m | 2 km away from my neighbourhood | A group of friends doing aerobics | Modelling | ||||
| 6 | Saturday, 10-5-2012 @10.30 – 1050 a.m | 2 km away from my neighbourhood | A group of friends doing aerobics | Modelling | ||||
| 7 | Sunday, 10-6-2012 @ 2.00 – 2.20 p.m | My neighbourhood | A trainer in aerobics | Stimulus Control | ||||
| 8 | Monday 10-7-2012 @ 11.00 – 11.20 a.m | My neighbourhood | A trainer in aerobics | Stimulus Control | ||||
| 9 | Tuesday, 10-8-2012 @ 4.00 – 4.20 p.m | My Neighbourhood | Alone | Self-Reinforcement | ||||
| 10 | Wednesday, 10-9-2012 @ 8.30 – 8.50 a.m | My Neighbourhood | Alone | Self- Reinforcement | ||||
Part 3
My health behavior was aerobic exercise. This is a health behavior since it has many health benefits concerning health sustenance both physically and emotionally. According to our textbook, research indicates that aerobic exercise stimulates and strengthens the heart and the lungs, improving the body’s utilization of oxygen (pg. 78). According to health practitioners, mere minutes of jogging can reduce the risk of several chronic illnesses like heart disease and cancers including breast cancer (Facts of Life, March 2004). Aerobic exercise also increases the efficiency of the cardiorespiratory system, improve physical work capacity, optimization of body weight, improvement or maintenance of muscle tone and strength, increases soft tissue and joint flexibility, reduction or control hypertension, lower levels of inflammation, improve cholesterol level, improve glucose tolerance, and improve tolerance of stress (pg. 78). Exercise can work as a positive stimulus towards quitting an unhealthy behavior like drug and substance use. For instance, when a smoker who approximately smokes 20 cigarettes daily engages himself in exercise like aerobics, he ends up reducing the number of cigarettes. In general, these benefits result into avoidance of numerous ailments and chronic diseases, which in turn is a healthy experience.
For my health behavior change, I used self-efficacy to work towards my exercises. I had an inner drive that my health behavior should change so that I could avoid some unhealthy practices like smoking. Self-efficacy is a crucial determinant of healthy behaviors. According to our textbook, self-efficacy is the belief that one is able to control one’s practice of a particular behavior (pg. 56). For instance, an individual who smokes and believes that he will not break this habit possibly, he will not attempt quitting the behavior. This is regardless of the number of times they can imagine that smoking is a risk venture and stopping the same is imperative. Similarly, self-efficacy works towards behavior change in many ways, including exercise in which case I considered aerobics. In general, research establishes a strong link between perception of self-efficacy and both initial behavior change and long-term sustenance of the change (pg. 56). The final implication in self-efficacy is that, ways vary among individuals for undertaking various health behavior changes.
During the period of jogging for my health exercise, I noticed that many external factors were both helpful and detrimental towards my aerobics. There were situational circumstances that made me fail to attend the exercise especially on day two of aerobics. This resulted from pain and soreness after having started the previous day of intense jogging up the hill. My body could not act in response to the beginning of a new work out. Life stressors made me move on with my aerobics. This was evident on the third day when I had a feeling of stress and self-pity. I had to exercise the next day to keep stress out of my life. In addition, there were internal factors that I believe hindered me from practicing my aerobics. I felt like I lost a sense of self-control when the next day I yielded to my pain. During day three of aerobic exercise, my blood sugar level dropped down to only 55 mg/dl while I was jogging around the hill. I felt fatigue, dizzy, drowsy, and lacked energy. As a result, I had to go for less than 20 minutes, which was against my initial budgeted time for aerobics.
For consistency, I introduced modification activities for my health behavior change. First, I used the Self-monitoring technique of the cognitive-behavior therapy (pg. 58). I sought to understand the dimensions of my aerobics. This included assessment of my target behavior of doing aerobics for health purposes, the antecedents and results of the behavior (pg. 58). I learnt how to discriminate my target behavior. Given the short period of observation, there was no need to chart my behavior during self-monitoring. I only kept in mind circumstances in which I avoided going for my exercises. I felt guilty for the second day when I did not engage in aerobics. At this stage, self-efficacy moved in as I picked up my exercises again on the third day.
During self-monitoring, I established some hindrances towards my aerobics. First, I was carrying out this activity alone within the neighborhood. This reduced my self-esteem since I could not go on doing something on my own. The other issue was lack of appropriate facilities within my neighborhood for efficient practice in aerobics. I needed somewhere more appealing and conducive to continue with my exercises. I also required moral support from friends and other peers in doing aerobics. This led me to the next stage of modifying my behavior change. I embraced modeling.
Modeling is learning through witnessing other people carrying out a behavior change (pg. 61). I moved out of my neighbourhood to look for a convenient group of people carrying out the same exercise. I started doing my aerobic at a track field that is two kilometers away from my neighborhood. One vital advantage about modeling is that I saw myself carry out the same exercise by looking at the rest of the group. There were so many people jogging and sprinting at the track field. This positive motivation instilled the operant conditioning in me (pg. 61). After engaging in aerobics with friends for two days, I realized that the behavior change had become part of my daily activities. I realized that modeling is a long-term technique of behavior change. In the event of carrying out a self-help program especially for individuals addicted to drugs, this program changes the negative behavior. After realizing that I could do aerobics for two consecutive days, I needed something new to keep going without the risk of monotony. This led me into stimulus control to modify my health behavioral change.
Stimulus control required that I understand the antecedents of my aerobics (pg. 62). I decided to keep off from negative stimuli that triggered sluggishness in me to miss exercises and created new stimuli (pg. 62). As a result, I sought for a trainer in aerobic. This resulted into taking my exercises back in my neighborhood to avoid any chances of excuses resulting from distance. I had two private lessons with a trainer for two consecutive days. The trainer brought many different types of equipment such as, jump rope, weights, and medicine balls for me to use in my lesson. The trainer gave me moral support as well as physically engaged me to keep time in doing my aerobic activities. He guided and timed me in jogging, sprinting, jump rope, weights, and medicine ball training for a full hour. This also took two days and I realized that I was consistent. Even though, my whole body was sore again after the first aerobic session with my trainer (day 7), I did not cancel the second workout with my trainer. I just stretched a lot and took a warm bath soaking my body with Epsom salt to reduce the soreness.
After the exercise, I noticed that there was an improvement in the health behavior change. I decided to carry out self-reinforcement. Self- reinforcement is a technique of continuously rewarding oneself to increase the occurrence of the target behavior change (pg. 62). Since I had been successful in my modification process, I had to reward myself positively. I decided to go to a movie the next day after my training. This served therapeutically to relax my muscles and change events. I avoided monotony through constant change of settings and activities (pg. 63). The self-reinforcement stage was also within my neighborhood. In this case, I did not need to change agents like a physiotherapist to monitor my behavior change and reinforcement.
Overall, my current health status is healthy. My last lab work (three months ago) which included the metabolic panel, lipid panel, hematogy, thyroid, and urinalysis tests came back normal. Currently, I have no major or chronic illness. If I were to continue my aerobic exercise program consistently, then my long-term health or future health status would be very healthy. My cholesterol level, HDL, LDL, blood pressure, and glucose level will be very stable. If I can keep everything normal or in range, then I will not only feel physically or emotionally strong, but I will have a lower risk in developing heart disease, stroke, cancers, etc.
Given a chance in the future to carry out health behavior change, I will incorporate relaxation training. In this health behavior change, a psychotherapist is crucial. It involves a patient or client in training to substitute relaxation in the event of circumstances that trigger anxiety (pg. 65). This process involves a successive breath taking activity and progressive muscle relaxation. During breath taking, an individual should take deep, controlled breaths that produce a variety physiological alteration, such as decreased heart beat rate and blood pressure as well as increased oxygenation in blood (pg. 65). During times of relaxation, it is possible for people to engage in unnoticed deep breaths. On the other hand, progressive muscle relaxation requires that a person learn how to relax all his muscles in the body system to reduce tension. Relaxation training will serve well in the event of practicing a healthy living process like avoidance of chronic heart diseases and stress.
