Many people try to change their lifestyle to improve their health. This may involve more exercise, healthier eating, or quitting smoking.
Nevertheless, experience shows that these changes often do not last.
According to Christine Foss Henriksen, MSc in physiology, the problem is not a lack of knowledge, but the difficulty of maintaining new habits in practice.
Ambitions become an obstacle
One central problem is that many people set very high goals from the outset.
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Professor of psychology Bobby Zachariae from Aarhus University explains to Netdoktor that big ambitions can make it difficult to move forward when plans do not hold.
If the goal, for example, is to work out several times a week, it can quickly feel overwhelming.
Within health psychology, it is well known that overly demanding goals increase the risk of giving up.
The reward comes too late
According to Bobby Zachariae, another explanation lies in how people experience rewards.
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A healthy lifestyle only provides benefits in the long term, such as a lower risk of disease. This can be difficult to notice in everyday life.
At the same time, sacrifices, such as saying no to cake or relaxing on the sofa, are felt immediately. This difference in timing makes it harder to maintain motivation.
Research into behavior also shows that repetition and fixed routines often matter more than motivation alone.
The important turning point
Relapses are completely normal. According to Bobby Zachariae, they are not a sign of failure, but part of the process.
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The most important thing is to start again and continue working with small, realistic changes.
With support from one’s surroundings and a focus on what is achievable, the chances increase that new habits will gradually become a stable part of everyday life.
Sources: Netdoktor.dk.
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