Health Behaviour Change Therapy
You know what you should be doing. Why is it so difficult to keep doing it?
You may already know that you would benefit from exercising more regularly, eating differently, improving your sleep or looking after your physical health.
The difficulty is often not knowing what to do.
It is doing it consistently when work becomes demanding, you are tired, stressed, travelling, looking after other people or simply do not feel motivated.
COMMON PATTERNS
You may recognise some of these patterns:
You start strongly, but a few weeks later the routine has disappeared.
One missed workout or difficult weekend feels as though it has ruined the whole plan.
You repeatedly lose weight and regain it.
You understand exercise or nutrition well but struggle to translate that knowledge into action.
Work and family responsibilities repeatedly take priority over your own health.
Stress affects the way you eat, exercise or sleep.
You keep waiting for Monday, next month or the “right time” to restart.
You feel anxious, self-conscious or out of place when exercising.
You create ambitious plans that work briefly but do not survive ordinary life.
You are capable and disciplined in other areas of your life and cannot understand why this feels different.
PSYCHOLOGY CAN HELP WITH THE GAP BETWEEN KNOWING AND DOING
Health behaviour is influenced by much more than willpower.
Stress, avoidance, habits, immediate rewards, perfectionism, anxiety, self-criticism, previous experiences of failure and the environments in which we live can all affect whether an intention becomes repeated behaviour.
Clinical psychology can help you understand what happens at the point where your plans repeatedly break down and what keeps that pattern going.
Rather than simply creating another diet or exercise programme, therapy focuses on the psychological and behavioural processes that make appropriate health behaviours difficult to sustain.
understanding avoidance and short-term relief
reducing all-or-nothing thinking and perfectionism
developing realistic and flexible behavioural targets
building confidence through graded behavioural change
addressing anxiety about exercise, judgement, injury or physical sensations
understanding stress-related or emotional eating
changing routines and environmental cues
planning for predictable high-risk situations
responding differently to lapses and setbacks
building routines that can survive demanding periods of life
HOW I WORK IN THIS AREA
As a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with a BA degree in Sports Science, my work in this area brings together clinical psychology, cognitive behavioural therapy and behavioural science with an understanding of physical health and exercise.
Therapy does not begin by assuming that you lack motivation or discipline. We look closely at what happens when the desired behaviour is supposed to occur, what makes another response more likely in that moment, and how the pattern can be changed in a realistic way.
THIS IS NOT PERSONAL TRAINING OR NUTRITIONAL TREATMENT
My role as a Clinical Psychologist is not to prescribe detailed exercise programmes or nutritional plans.
Where appropriate, I may recommend or work alongside GPs, dietitians, physiotherapists and appropriately qualified exercise professionals.
The psychological work focuses on a different question:
What repeatedly gets in the way of carrying out healthy behaviours, and what would help you respond differently?
The aim is not perfect adherence. It is to develop a way of looking after your health that is realistic, psychologically sustainable and capable of continuing when life is less than ideal.