Behavior Modification Plan - Essay Example

Behavior Modification Plan The global systems operate in different and unique ways. The different roles played by every system balance the excess of the others toward creating a suitable environment for the purpose of continuity. Notwithstanding the foregoing, errors occur creating natural crises; sometimes creating positive or negative changes that can affect the surrounding environment. Likewise, when a person is born, parents and schools work together to shape his/her identity. However, sometimes it is hard to control a person’s behavior. Humans can obtain undesirable behavior that can affect their personality and their lives negatively by increasing the level of stress. This can result into lack of happiness as well as life enjoyment. As a human being, I have struggles with changing two behaviors, exercising irregularly and getting inadequate sleep, that are negatively affecting my life and school performance. In this behavior modification plan my goal is to maintain a healthy lifestyle by exercising regularly and getting sufficient sleep. Indeed, I believe that if I exercise more, I will be able to sleep early at night and feel better about myself. This will as well make me more confident. In order to achieve my first goal of regular exercise, I am planning to seek the assistance of a personal trainer and go to the gym three times a week. This will encourage me to keep up with practice and because I pay for sessions with my personal trainer, I will be less likely to skip or cancel classes. For my other target of getting adequate sleep, I will reduce the frequency of using my phone at night. I realized that I spend a lot of time texting and surfing the internet before sleeping. In week one, I will use my phone for one hour before going sleep in order to dedicate enough time for sleeping. In week two, I will use my phone for 30 min before going to sleep. As for my second behavior, I will go to the gym regularly. The sub-goal for changing the second behavior is to go to the gym without canceling or skipping any session in week one. For week two, my sub-goal is to go to the gym at least three times with the personal trainer and two times by myself. I will monitor this by taking notes in my private journal app “What a Wonderful Life.” Moreover, with the help of my classmates and their feedbacks on my plan, I was able to improve my sub-goals for both behaviors as reflected in the following schedules for the first goal, which is going to the gym: Week One Go to gym three times a week with a trainer without canceling or skipping any session. Week Two Maintain the habit of going to the gym three times with the trainer and two times on my own without being forced by the trainer. For my other goal of getting more sleep, I will monitor my behavior using the app “Path” that counts the hours of sleep. My decision was as follows: Week One I will use my phone in bed, but keep reducing usage time by 5 minutes everyday: - Day1: use my phone for 1 hour. - Day2: use my phone for 55 min. - Day3: use my phone for 50 min. - Day4: use my phone for 45 min. - Day5: use my phone for 40 min. - Day6: use my phone for 35 min. - Day7: use my phone for 30 min. Week Two I will use my phone off-bed for 30 min and if I feel that I’m not sleepy then: I will read a book before I go to bed or I will spend some time meditating. Through the week of observation, I used the private journal “What a Wonderful Life” to monitor my behavior. I found out a couple of unpleasant acts. Indeed, I noticed that I often go to bed at 12:00 am, but stay awake using my phone and surfing the internet until 4:00 am or 2:00 am at minimum. The schedule below provides the days and the period of time I spent using my cell phone before sleeping. In addition, I did not go to the gym at all. Day Time Day1 3 Day2 2 Day3 4 Day4 2:30 Day5 2 Day 6 2 Day7 3 First Behavior: Going To the Gym More For week one of behavior modification plan, my goal was to attend all the gym sessions with the personal trainer without skipping or canceling. I set up my gym schedule with the trainer. I planned to go to the gym three times with a personal trainer, each session running for one hour. My first gym session started Monday, February 10, 2014, from 8:30 am until 9:30 am. I worked out for 60 minutes. After the first session, I was really fatigued because I did not sleep enough the previous night. However, I was really excited and happy because I did not cancel my first gym session. On Wednesday, February 12, 2014, I also managed to wake up on time and attend my second gym session. This also ran 60 minutes, commencing at 8:30 am and ending at 9:30 am. Interestingly, this time I was not as tired as I was on Monday. I was getting used to working out. However, I was unable to attend my third session on Friday, February 14, 2014, because it conflicted with my preparation for a presentation that I had to do on the same day. By the end of week one, I felt a little disappointed because I did not succeed on achieving my sub-goal. For week two of behavior modification plan, my goal was to attend all the three sessions with the trainer and at least two times without being forced by the trainer. On Monday, April 07, 2014, my first gym session started at 8:30 am and ended 9:30 am, working out for 60 minutes. I was feeling better and less stressed. In both second and third sessions on Wednesday, April 09, 2014 and Friday, April 11, 2014 respectively, I went to the gym at the same time from 8:30 am and 9:30 am and worked out for 60 minutes. Practically, I was able to attend all the three sessions with the trainer. However, I was able to attend the gym only once by myself and work out for 60 minutes on Saturday, April 12, 2014. I was not able to keep up with week two sub-goal because I failed to go to the gym twice by my self, but still felt better because I noticed that my behavior improved, going to the gym four times a week compared to week one when I went only two times. Second Behavior: Getting More Sleep by Preventing the Use of Cell Phone In week one my sub-goal for the second behavior, getting more sleep, is to reduce the use of cell phone in bed by five minutes every day because it was the main reason that kept me awake until late in the night. Even though I struggled a lot trying to control my cell phone usage, I was able to follow the plan until the sixth day, when I used my phone for 60 minutes instead of using it for 35 minutes. However, I was able to keep following the plan and on day seven, I used my cell phone for 30 minutes. Even though I managed to control my cell phone usage, was still not able to get enough sleep for two reasons. First, I was struggling with myself to avoid using my cell phone and keep on track week one sub-goal. Second, I used to take a nap for one hour as soon as I got back from the gym and then stay up late doing some schoolwork or watching videos on YouTube. Therefore, I could not sleep enough at night because of texting or checking apps on my cell phone. My week two sub-goal was to use my phone off-bed for 30 min and if I felt that I am not sleepy, I would read a book before going to bed or spend some time meditating. I was able to achieve my sub-goal starting from day one, Monday, April 08, 2014 to day four, Thursday, April 10, 2014. In fact, every time I felt the need to use my cell phone, I read a book, but I did not mediate because I did not know how to do that. I never had the chance to attend any yoga sessions because I was busy with schoolwork. On Friday, April 11, 2014 to April 13, 2014, I was unable to follow the plan and stayed late using my phone. Overall, it was hard to keep up with my sub-goal in week one as well as week two Stopping myself from using my cell phone frustrated and stressed me. Graphs: In week one for my first behavior, which is going to the gym, I failed to accomplish my sub-goal because of canceling one session. In week two, I failed to go to the gym twice by myself and went once instead. Even though I could not reach my goals, I was very pleased with my progress, especially because my frequency to the gym increased from zero in the week of observation to five in week two. For my other goal, which is reducing the use of cell phone in order to get more sleep, I was unable to control my behavior. On day six, week one, I used my cell phone for one hour instead of 35 minutes. Even with the improvements in going the gym, I was still struggling with not getting enough sleep. During the week of observation and monitoring of my behavior, I found out that I needed to change my behavior by achieving the goals of getting more sleep and going to the gym more often. This is because it was affecting my school performance. I often felt tired because of lack of sleep. I believed that going to the gym and reducing the use of cell phone would improve my sleep. Moreover, during the two weeks of behavior modification, I found out that going to the gym is not affecting me positively because my gym sessions were held early in the morning. With inadequate sleep, I always woke up tired the following day and could not properly function mentally or physically. Also, I used to take long nap after the gym, which also prevented me from sleeping at night even if I was not using my cell phone, which stressed me up. Therefore, I believe that the main reason that makes me stay late at night is because I feel homesick. I prefer staying late at night texting and calling my family back home instead of feeling depressed and sad. I believe that the sub-goals were helpful for changing my behavior, but the main goal, which is maintaining a healthy life style, was not achieved because my progress was affected by lack of attention and encouragement from my social support. My best friend was supposed to take me for dinner in a fancy restaurant if I accomplished one of the goals. My friend also promised to take me for a movie and dinner if I achieved two goals. However, she did not perform her role of providing social support effectively because she was going through some personal issues that made it difficult for her to monitor my behavior. Hence, I felt discouraged especially with using my cell phone as no one was monitoring my progress and guide me on what should to do next or keep me on track in case I failed. It is hard to change your behavior without someone monitoring you or guiding you, especially when you are deeply involved with doing certain unhealthy things. Some of the things I would change and consider in my future plan are changing my social support. I choose my sister to monitor me even if she is not in the USA, but I believe that she would be a better social support because she always advice me to change me lifestyle and go to the gym more like her. Also, next time I will I will involve my social support when developing a behavior modification plan, especially when setting sub-goals, in order to follow up with me and monitor my behavior more accurately. This will make the sub-goal more challenging, but it will force me to follow the plan. I noticed that I tend to be soft and careless when I create a plan by myself. Indeed, I need to focus on one behavior instead of trying to improve and work with other behaviors at the same time. Focusing on more than one behavior was stressful. In the next plan, I will focus on regulating my sleep only. Overall, I really believe that someone can change his or her behavior if they really want to. Despite the fact that unplanned events can affect the process of behavior modification, one should never give up. Read More