Health Behavior Change - Essay Example

Health behavior change is complex, and that is why we continuously strive to understand it. What is health behavior change? According to Miller base motivational “Change Model” change happens in five stages. The stages are important since every stage must be fulfilled before successfully moving to the next stage. As such therefore none of the stages can be skipped. The first stage is referred to as the pre-contemplation; here one has no conscious intention of making any changes or is unable to change, but is influenced by exploration of the meaning of events that may spark the interest or awareness. The second stage is contemplation where one knows about the possibility of changes, realizes and begins the process, but is not committed. At this stage the person continues with the exploration of pros and cons of the change. The third stage is preparation, here the person is committed to changing but anticipates obstacles thus plans how to counter them. The fourth stage is action and the person makes steps to address the problematic behaviors as they are facing the challenge of living life without the old behavior. The final stage is Maintenance. The person has achieved the goals and is working to maintain them as well as avoiding with the old habits. These learning stages will guide our development of awareness on behavior change learning process. For this health behavior change activity goal, I am deleting all my favorite fun apps on my iPhone. I spend at least two hours daily on Flipboard, Slickdeals, team stream, casino, free deals and many other apps. I have 170 apps to begin with, and I am deleting all including my Facebook for the next 4 weeks so that I keep only the basic apps on the phone. My main goals are to sleep early and save time every day. I usually don’t go out much and even don’t have a TV. I accumulate all the apps from Appsgonefree and similar apps. Every day apps become free for a day or even hours before going back to regular price. I chose this specific behavior change for this experiment activity goal for learning experience that is difficult to do in the life of today because I knew the apps on the phone cause some distraction on the daily basis. Were you able to incorporate the change? I was able to delete my apps which was a big improvement on the first day. I did have a problem with coping in first week but successfully kept myself busy most of the time. In the same week, I was on the process of moving my apartment from the first to the second floor. Because my mind concentrating on clean up and preparation for the movement, I didn’t think about the phone as I did before. This was great improvement during the first, but the same was not shown during extra free extra time or bedtime as I still did not go to be early. On my second week, I was still in the process of moving; I used most of my free time to organize the new apartment and unpack. I did a little at a time each day and thus it took couple of days. I was able to adapt to the new change without a problem. When I drove home to Dallas and back to San Antonio, I did download Coast-to-Coast AM app and listen for 6 hours to talk shows about GMO foods, harmonic sound, Ebola and Isis. It was so good but I deleted it again on Sunday night. I guess that I had some signs of withdrawal. On week three, I had an allergy and cold caught from my classmates hence used most my free time researching how to cure my allergy and cough. I was so obsessive about Ebola just for fun. It took me all Saturday night searching on my phone in Safari search about the history of Ebola, Ebola patent, and cure. I learnt about Colloidal Silver for the natural cure of my symptom bought a bottle of Colloidal Silver for my common cold on Amazon. I tried it for couple of days and the result was awesome. The cough faded and I felt much better even on the day that I tried the product. I also found that most people used coconut oil for running nose and so I gave it a try. It also worked for me, but I failed again by using Safari search on the phone. In the week, I did not go to sleep until 1 or 2 and did not open new apps, but I used google search on my phone to find new and natural ideas while I couldn’t sleep. On my forth week, I spent a couple of days waiting at the hospital for my appointment at the VA. On the first day I spent five hours of waiting. I tried killing time by listening to Spotify and also downloaded a bigfish casino app, because I couldn’t concentrate on doing anything else. What were the biggest challenges? Most of my apps are utilities that make short cuts for the search engine. I love reading news from flipboard apps, and they create every news in one simple app thus because I had deleted the app, I tried using Google news on the laptop. My second challenge was that since I couldn’t use GPS apps on my phone I could still access them using an old Garmin. The 3rd challenge came about when driving long distances. I usually listened to an interesting talk show to avoiding falling asleep thus had to re-download my Coast to coast AM app very time I drove for a long distance. I also missed my redlaser or price scan app for finding the cheapest price for price match at Walmart or Target store. I also couldn’t use any of my dictionary apps and thus tried using them on the search engine. What could you have done to make this experience more effective? In my behavior change activity, I would switch to a basic phone that is not capable of receiving Wi-Fi or internet. I found that without using app, I could still have internet access through search engine browsers. The phone without internet is the best way for my experiment to have effective outcome. What motivated you during this process? I set goals and ideas of saving time and having less distraction, but I was not motivated during the process. I am happy to have learnt why behavior change is hard and why we should keep trying. What made this experience worthwhile? I found that today we all have in one way or other some addiction to phones. The phone apps addiction is not the individual’s fault. We become addicted to phones because there is demand connectivity in our daily lives. We need to check e-mails from work or school every minute and the mobile learning apps are required on a daily basis. Corporations give us free addiction app to sell their products. The companies spend millions of dollars to find best addictive apps for users. There is no winning solution for users with smartphone today. In this experiment, I learnt that advance phone and useful apps are not bad at all. We should take an advantage of the technology we have and use for our benefit. On my behavior change, I will continue with my utility apps, but the key difference is how setting a limit so that I do not get addicted. It is harder to set a limit on a phone because there is no rule and structure for everyone yet there is massive sociological affects. How will this experience impact your communication and support to communicating a behavior change with your patient concerning their oral hygiene regimen? This experience helped me understand how other people go through struggles with behavior change. It is not easy and by understanding the five stage model I will able to identify the patients’ stages of the behavior change process. I will be able to communicate effectively and support them during the change process. The peer OARS helped to answer open end, affirmation to build confidence, reflective listening questions and kept me in check at all times. It is a good tool to motivate both for myself peers. It is a great tool to support and build confidence for everyone in the process. The OARS and the five stage process helped me understand how to succeed in health behavior change for everyone. On my behavior change, I did well so far, and I did not miss any of my apps. After the assignment I plan to re-install the most important apps. I recorded about 40% improvement. I found that most of my apps make life easier every day. This change will help me find an easier way to motivate my patient for any type of behavior change in the future by following the OARS method. Read More