“Eat this because it’s healthy”, “drink that because it’s healthy”, “exercise like that because it’s healthy”. These are some common phrases that most of us have probably heard in our life. Behaviours undertaken by people to enhance their health are known as healthy behaviours. Therefore, healthy eating and exercising are healthy behaviours. One of health psychology’s aims is health promotion.
In this blog, I will look into different types of healthy behaviours, and in my next blog I will be looking at different methods of how can healthy behaviours be enforced.
This is a list of some common healthy behaviours that are highly encouraged to be practised:
- No smoking
- Sleeping 7 to 8 hours per night
- Restricting alcohol intake
- Having breakfast
- Not eating between meals
- Balanced diet
- Exercise
These healthy behaviours can be implemented in one’s life with small steps. An example would be if I smoke 5 cigarettes a day, I would reduce the amount to 4 cigarettes per day for some time, then for 3 cigarettes per day. Reducing the number incrementally, until the habit is totally eliminated. Another example includes walking for 3 minutes, the following day walk for 6 minutes, the day after for 9 minutes. Increasing the healthy behaviours incrementally is important instead of one extreme or another. In the next blog I will look into different models of how healthy behaviours can be enforced.
References: Taylor, S.E. (2011). Health Psychology.
(8th Ed.) McGraw Hill
Danica Cassar is a third-year psychology student at the University of Malta. She is the Triage Manager at Willingness.com.mt.
You can visit her profile on: https://zme.tec.mybluehost.me/willingnessmt/team/danica-cassar/