Implementing healthy lifestyle habits into our daily lives can be a challenging journey. Perhaps you are striving to lose weight, quit smoking, or exercise more. While these goals sound like positive lifestyle changes, they can also feel easier said than done. In many cases, adopting a healthier lifestyle requires a lot of work, perseverance, and trial & error.
It is common to overlook the role of mental health in our ability to implement healthier lifestyle choices. However, our mental health often plays a significant role in our ability to adopt healthy habits.
How Our Mental Health and Healthy Choices Are Connected
Understanding the link between our mental health and our health habits is a key and often overlooked step towards healthy living. It is important to understand how our mood and our thoughts play a significant role in our ability to lead healthier lives.
Motivation is a significant factor in adopting healthy lifestyles. It is quite common to have health goals but simply feel unable to initiate the steps towards them. Whether these goals are self-generated or provided to you by a healthcare professional, a lack of motivation can be a significant barrier to healthy change. This is often referred to as ‘non-adherence’.
When we experience difficulties such as low mood, anxiety, and depression, we are also more likely to feel unmotivated and thus, engage in non-adherent behaviour. We may also develop what are known as ‘barrier thoughts’ which further convince us to avoid implementing healthy habits. Perhaps you have experienced some of these thoughts:
“There’s no point dieting, I will never be able to maintain it.”
“I have failed to quit smoking before, so what is the point of trying again.”
“What’s the point of losing weight, I will just gain it all back anyways.”
“I could never commit to an exercise plan, it’s too hard.”
The beliefs we hold regarding our capacity for healthy change can often serve as a barrier to a more fulfilling lifestyle. Therefore, addressing these thoughts is a key step towards healthy living.
Current research tells us that our mental health and health habits are inherently connected.
This is to say that promoting greater mental health helps us instill healthier lifestyle choices. It also means that developing healthier habits can improve our mental health!
How Therapy Can Help
At Connect Cognitive Therapy, we recognize that instilling healthy lifestyle changes can be a difficult process and we are here to help!
Therapy can help us develop greater motivation to adopt long-term and healthy lifestyle changes. When working with one of our registered therapists, we will help guide you through the process of healthy change by exploring your motivations, helping you address barrier thoughts, and collaborating with you to develop a tailored plan to help you get to where you want to be in your wellness journey.
What We Do
When working with our registered therapists, you will be provided with a highly collaborative and supportive approach to assist you in your health goals. This process often consists of:
- Providing you with a judgment-free space to voice your concerns and goals
- Exploring your motivation and readiness for change
- Engaging in collaborative goal-setting
- Addressing barrier thoughts through cognitive restructuring
- Developing positive ‘change’ and ‘sustain talk’
- Creating a ‘healthy lifestyle identity’
- Developing an achievable and highly tailored plan for healthy lifestyle change
- Validating mistakes and relapse as part of the process
- And much more!
Take the Next Step to Healthier Living!
If you or someone you know would like support in adopting healthier habits, we invite you to reach out to learn more and schedule a consultation with one of our licensed clinicians!