Michelle Segar's Blog, page 2

Putting No Sweat Principles to the Test in Health and Fitness

Sara Hodson told me that she read my book No Sweat after she heard me speak at the American College of Sports Medicine conference — a few years after launching her first Live Well Exercise Clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia. Live Well is a medical fitness clinic specializing in supervised exercise and healthy lifestyle coaching for people with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, as well as for prevention.

Sara decided to implement a traditional strategy used in fitness gyms and clubs — reducing membership fees by 5% if members committed for 6 months, and 10% if they committed for 1 year, financial incentives that are notorious for getting members to sign up but don’t motivate long-term.

She understood those limitations, and wanted to genuinely boost retention and adherence in her patient-based clientele. We spoke after my presentation and Sara shared that she was intrigued by the idea that she might be able to help her patients sustain their motivation to exercise by making only a few simple strategic changes. Sara not only adopted some of the key science-based principles from No Sweat, but she astutely integrated them into her entire patient-centered system — starting from the moment the patient walks in the door.

Three concepts in particular from No Sweat guided her Live Well strategy:

Clients are immediately taught to be aware of the instant gratification that moving brings, such as boosts in energy and mood.
Her exercise professionals help patients understand and formulate their own Right WHY for exercise (to replace a “should” with a meaningful “want”).
They help patients learn “sustainability training” strategies that enable them to navigate exercise challenges within their complex lives outside the clinic.

While I had been excited about her systematic approach to integrating these principles across the patient experience and education, what blew me away was the results she shared with about patient behavior and business growth over the past year that she attributed to integrating these principles from No Sweat into her exercise clinic.

In the year that Live Well had been testing out the No Sweat strategies, patient retention rates had improved exponentially:

Three months after joining, patient retention rates increased from 64% to 97%.
Six months after joining, patient retention rates increased from 51% to 84%.
One year after joining, patient retention rates increased from 38% to 71%.

Starting with just one clinic in 2011, Sarah also told me about the accelerated growth her business is experiencing – “We now have five clinics in the Greater Vancouver Area and are opening an additional 15 all over Canada in the next six to nine months.”

Sarah’s findings align with what I have learned in the 25 years I’ve spent studying the science about and creating and evaluating methods for creating sustainable behavior change: If you want to start achieving sustainable behavior change in consumers, patients, and employees, you need to create a systematic integration of the most relevant and powerful science-based principles into training, programs and protocols, and algorithms for behavior design.

It’s not just about using one, two, or three strategies in isolation or haphazardly, as many do when trying to design behavior change. Instead – whether through an app, health-behavior counseling protocol, or employee well-being program – I advise my organizational clients to strategically integrate these principles into every point of contact. The point is to create a cohesive and consistent system of messaging and methods that continuously reinforces behavior change so it can be sustained.

This type of strategic behavioral architecting and implementation might take longer and be more costly up front, in terms of the need to develop systems across all points of the business (yes, including onboarding and sales in addition to the more traditional staff training). Yet this comprehensive and consistent approach is what will truly reap the best outcomes, including high-quality motivation, behavioral sustainability, well-being, and key health- and well-being-related outcomes. It reflects the often-touted (by myself and many others!) advice “Start with the end in mind.”

Getting people to change their behavior for a while is easy. It’s sustaining a behavior change that needs our attention. Cultivating the right set of scientifically supported principles in systematic ways will help you achieve this essential outcome.

If you have been applying these ideas in your organization or work, I’d love to learn more about what you are finding.

New Research to Know About: Self-Compassion Helps Us Stay the Course With Exercise

In my work with consumers, professionals, and organizations, I always stress the importance of individuals being kind to themselves – using self-compassion – when faced with setbacks and challenges in self-care as a key ingredient for creating sustainable behavior change. So I was excited to read a recent online, cross-sectional study by Drs. Semenchuk, Strachan, and Fortier in Canada (printed in The Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology) that aligns with what I’ve seen in my own clients since 1997: becoming self-compassionate in the face of disappointments facilitates re-engaging with the behavior and ongoing self-regulation.

As the authors state, “The results of this study indicate that self-compassion may assist with self-regulating exercise after an exercise setback. Specifically, self-compassion may provide a strategy to deal with negative emotions, decrease rumination, and extrinsic regulation for an exercise goal reengage in an exercise goal after an exercise setback.”

In everyday terms, this means that when you miss a planned workout, or fail to meet your hoped-for exercise goals, self-compassion can stop you from blaming yourself, feeling bad about yourself, comparing yourself with others, or even giving up on exercise altogether. Simply being kind to yourself can help you course correct and formulate a strategy for dealing with the next (inevitable!) setback. These ideas can also be easily integrated for use in apps, behavior change counseling protocols, and corporate wellness messaging.

When we unconditionally support ourselves to move forward through the ups and downs of our ongoing fitness journey, we are much more likely stick with it. You can see more details of this hot-off-the-press study here.

Working with Will: Helping Clients Ally with the App to Better Motivate Sustainable Physical Activity (A case study)

Will came in for his first appointment with me in a dark state of frustration. “I don’t even know why I’m here,” he muttered, “I should have known from the beginning that I’d never be able to handle regular workouts. I’m a nerd, not an athlete. That’s been proven!”

Will had worked in computer animation and special effects for the past twenty years. His job was creative and consuming, and he sat for at about twelve hours every day. At age 37, he looked up from his computer to find that he was puffing when he climbed even a few stairs. At his annual exam, he was shocked to realize that he’d managed to pack on thirty pounds of extra weight since college. His physician warned him he was on an unhealthy path. “After I left that appointment, I wanted to do something, anything,” he told me, “and when I expressed these concerns to  my friend Rick he showed me his Fitbit and told me to get one. He swore by it, said it had changed his life, motivated him like nothing had. That convinced me to get one.” He held out his wrist and showed me the sleek black plastic band.

“That was a month ago,” Will told me. “The longest month of my life. For the first couple of weeks I threw myself into it. I walked for an hour a day after work, five days a week. On the weekends, I was jogging in place just to keep my step numbers up over 10,000. Then it was four days a week, then three. I got so bored, I wasn’t losing weight, and I felt really guilty. I don’t even want to look at my numbers, and I haven’t walked for two weeks. I am the opposite of motivated!”

Will seemed completely deflated, and at a real loss as to where to go from here. “Okay, Will,” I said, “let’s think about your app and how you’ve been using it from a different perspective. Why are you trying to increase your steps? Because you bought the Fitbit? Or because you really want to benefit from being more active?”

“Well,” he replied, “I do want to be more fit and lose weight . . . and you have to do 10,000 steps a day to achieve that, right?”

“Let’s come back to that,” I said. “Tell me what being more physically active and being more fit would mean to you on a daily basis—how would you feel?”

“I guess I would have more energy, maybe I would feel better about myself.”

I nodded in agreement. “Then let’s be really frank: Research suggests that dietary change is more effective than exercise when it comes to losing weight.”

“Wait—what?”

“Sounds crazy, I know, but that’s what the science is showing. In addition, that 10,000 step goal is very hard to achieve, and as you’ve noticed, chasing it can actually motivate you to choose not to move.

So here’s a radical suggestion—let’s pause that weight loss goal and put that 10,000 step goal aside for now. Let’s get the levers in place that will support you making better choices, consistently. You get to still use the Fitbit, but as your ally-not your enemy.”

Like most clients who are offered this new strategy, Will smiled, clearly relieved. “What do I have to do?”

  Tracking Steps + Energy Levels

“Let’s start by identifying just one experience you’d like to have from becoming more physically active.”

“Well, I seem to just run out of energy by two or three in the afternoon. I feel like an old man.”

“Energy is a great benefit to aim for—higher energy in the afternoon. So let’s do an experiment.  On Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, at 1:30 I want you to walk for 17 minutes—I know, that’s an odd amount of time. Just walk outside, look at the trees, whatever. Don’t do anything special in terms of how you walk, but do log the experience. Write down your energy level after the walk from a scale of negative 3 (low energy) to positive 3 (high energy). Then check your Fitbit and write down the number of steps you took next to that number. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I don’t want you to walk, but do log your energy level around 2 p.m.”

When Will came to his next appointment, I asked if he’d noticed anything different on the days he walked.

“Yes,” he said, “I felt less stressed, and it did impact my energy level—I logged a negative 1 when I wasn’t walking, but it jumped to a 2 on the days I walked.”

“Good! Let’s stay on this course for a while—I think using the app to understand the connection between walking and feeling better is going to be more motivating than just using the app to count steps. Do you know how motivation actually works?

“I guess not,” he laughed.

“Well, when you think about it, it’s pretty simple. Research shows that we are much more likely to do activities that make us feel good than ones that make us feel bad or that feel like work. And we are also more likely to stick with activities we choose to do rather than ones we feel pushed to do or obligated to perform.”

He was nodding now. “Makes perfect sense. What do I do?”

Transforming Exercise from a Chore to a Gift

“Well, you’ve already started just by noticing that walking is giving your more energy. We need to transform your feelings about exercise from punishment to pleasure – from a chore to gift, is how I usually put it. And that means changing your why for exercise—the reason you’re doing it. I know you want to lose weight, but the fact is that physical activity is a much better “elixir of life” than a tool for weight loss.”

“Don’t tell me—science?”

“Right. Studies show that when your reason for becoming more active is to feel better or boost your quality of life in a way you value, you are more likely to stay motivated than if your reason is to lose weight, or even aiming for better health. So let’s keep on this logging track for a few more weeks—we can change the parameters later.”

  Allying for Success

Will’s story reflects the beginning of the process of transforming physical activity from a chore he has to accomplish into a gift he wants to give himself. In partnership with his app, Will learns to identify and illuminate a concrete and compelling “why” for being more physically active. This is a systematic process that can be applied in most situations.

Research suggests that our “whys,” our reasons for starting to exercise or become more physically active, are the foundation of the entire behavior change process. So, first, let’s make sure that we help our clients and patients ally their apps and trackers with whys that have the potency to fuel ongoing, stable motivation. When our patients and clients become successful, so do we. While counter-intuitive, if we help clients learn to think that they are successful with fitness when they incorporate movement inside and outside of the gym, we are more likely to retain them as members and clients.

For questions to help your clients/patients spark and sustain their motivation with their Why, Way, and Do, see the questions in Table 1.  For more information about the science and method for helping people create lasting exercise motivation and behavior read No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness.

Table 1. Using Why, Way, Do to Help Clients Ally with the App for Sustained Motivation

WHY, WAY, DO
STRATEGY
STRATEGY GOAL


The Why

(Compelling Reason to Prioritize Daily Physical Activity)
Ask: Does physical activity feel like a chore or a gift?
When you know how exercise makes them feel you can better understand their core relationship with being active. Then you can help change it, if needed.


 
Ask: Why did you decide to become more physically active/exercise NOW?
Help them understand how come future or vague “whys” are not as motivating long-term as ones related to feeling and being better today.


 
Guide your clients/patients toward using their tracking app as a way to become aware of how moving benefits their daily life in concrete ways they value.
 Teach them to use tracking apps to get useful feedback about the relationship between exercise, energy, and mood, creativity, etc. For example, “When I took 1,000 steps I noticed a surge in my energy! That helped me focus for the remainder of the afternoon.”


The Way

(Immediate Positive Experiences)
Encourage people to be active in ways that work for them. Ask them which activities feel good to do, or are at least palatable.
Some people will not know how to answer this question because they have only been active in ways that have felt punishing before now. Help guide them to activities, intensities, and place that will cultivate positive  experiences.


 
Ask about physical activities beyond the gym experience that they enjoyed as a child (biking, skating, swimming, dancing, sports) and give them permission to do these activities.
This exploration can help identify the Right Ways for each person they may not have considered as “allowed.”


 
Help clients use their trackers to learn the associations between the moments that they move and the positivity they feel.
Trackers offer concrete support that exercise really is helping to improve their quality of life.


The Do

(Learning Mindset)
Help your clients value the idea of becoming consistently and regularly physically active as a process, not a target to hit.
Understanding exercise as a life-long journey of learning how to integrate and sustain physically active lives allows them to continue to adjust their activities to their changing daily needs, and help them continue to enjoy the incredible benefits that it brings.


 
If clients ask for radical, fast change, use the science described in the article as justification for taking a more strategic, slower, long-term approach. Then guide them to build small steps and create strategies for integrating consistent physical activity into their lives—both inside and outside the gym.
When you help them become successful both inside and out of the gym, you will be more likely to retain them as clients and members.


 
If they enjoy tracking, make sure they track and count even the smallest activities—walking from the parking lot to the office, walking the dog, going down to the basement for laundry, playing with the kids outdoors—and recognize those opportunities to move as valid activity that counts!
Activity trackers are great tools to help people learn that it all adds up! They can also be used to help people learn how to integrate more physical activity into their life—for life.

 Copyright © 2017 Michelle Segar.

 

 

The Middle Priority: Why Being Flexible with Exercise Plans Can Help You Better Sustain a Physically Active Life

 

High priority” exercise may pressure women, thwarting motivation.

by Dr. Michelle Segar and Dr. Jennifer Taber (This article was originally published on Global Thrive.)

The message about exercise that women regularly get (from doctors, the media, friends and family) is prescriptive: we must make exercise a top priority because our future health and attractiveness depend on it. That’s a lot of pressure and an almost surefire recipe for failure for most. And, as our research team discovered, this message about exercise flies in the face of what actually makes women happy.

Our new research focuses on what women say makes them feel happy and successful, and how their expectations and beliefs about being active either foster or undermine those feelings. A better understanding of how physical activity actually interacts with women’s daily roles, priorities, and desires could make a real difference in helping women make physical activity part of their daily routine—and feel good doing it.

“High priority” exercise may pressure women, thwarting motivation

We recently published a paper in BMC Public Health entitled Rethinking physical activity communication: using focus groups to understand women’s goals, values, and beliefs to improve public health. In this study, with our colleagues Heather Patrick, Chan L. Thai and April Oh, we conducted eight focus groups among White, Black, and Hispanic women aged 22-49 who either reported a lot or very little physical activity. We first investigated what makes them feel happy and successful in their daily lives, and both groups reported these same factors:

• Connecting with and taking care of other people

• Being relaxed and free of pressures during their leisure time (and doing leisure activities)

• Accomplishing goals (from getting the shopping done to fulfilling career goals) and helping other people do the same

But when we asked these participants what they thought and how they felt about exercise, we found something very interesting, particularly among the women doing very little of it: their beliefs and expectations about exercise actually thwarted the very things that they say make them feel happy and successful.

• They believe that for exercise to “count,” it needs to consist of uncomfortable high-intensity exercise lasting for longer durations like 30-60 minutes. Most don’t like the way this high-intensity activity feels—some thought it was painful, others dreaded the thought of it. Yet, they believed they must do it—thus undermining their desire to be relaxed and free from pressures. Consider the following quote from a woman who was not active:

“You have to do this at this time, and you have to commit to these hours. You have to do this activity. You have to be so good. I feel like it’s a lot of pressure for me, with exercise, to perform and do well and commit to that schedule. I can’t commit.”

• In general, their definitions of valid exercise were narrow (for example, I must exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and work up a sweat). This made exercise unrealistic to sustain (because life always presents new obstacles to our plans), and prevented women from ever feeling successful about exercise.

The direct conflict between what they believe they should be doing when they exercise and their desire to decompress and renew themselves during leisure time seemed to demotivate low active women, impeding them from successfully adopting and sustaining physically active lives.

Treating exercise as a “Middle priority” facilitates fitting it in. There was one surprising strategy that some women who were exercising a lot use to stop this vicious cycle before it starts. Although it would be logical to think that more active women hold exercise as a high priority, comments from many of our active participants suggested that they actually did not consider it a top priority; they held more flexible views of exercising than their counterparts who were not regularly exercising.

These highly active women appeared to treat exercise as a “middle priority,” leaving room for compromise when schedules and responsibilities got in the way of their planned exercise, as exemplified by the following quote:

“If we have to spend the long nights [helping] my son on a homework assignment, the workout needs to go on the wayside, and so be it….you have give and take…”

As this comment suggests, these active women gave themselves permission to do what they could and felt good about it. The did not beat themselves up when they didn’t get to do their planned or desired physical activity because they knew they would just fit it in another time soon. For example, highly active women told us that it “was not the end of the world” when they couldn’t fit exercise in. They understood how being active benefited their lives, and because of that, they were confident that skipping a planned session was no big deal.

While it might be counter to the more traditional exercise recommendations aimed to achieve specific “doses” of activity (e.g., exercise for 30 minutes), new behavioral science suggests that being flexible toward behavioral goals (e.g., “flexible self-regulation”) may help people better stick with these goals. One newly published study found that “people with greater cognitive flexibility are more likely to use flexible self-regulation, leading to greater physical activity.” The flexibility resulting from task-shifting (e.g., changing days, doing something different) instead of dropping the actual goal (e.g., to stay active) is thought to support the self-regulation that underlies on-going goal pursuit.

Being flexible (rather than rigid) with behavioral plans even seems to help people better manage themselves and even maintain weight loss over time. People who have flexible mindsets are also happier and healthier.

Because physical activity is constantly competing for time against other valued daily goals—many women are already juggling work and family—physical activity might be more seamlessly and consistently fit into a busy life when it can be modified and “flexed” to meet the unique needs of any given day.

People who perceive physical activity as a middle priority might have an easier time negotiating schedule conflicts that arise or switching gears without the additional negativity from judging themselves as failures. This might be considered as a type of behavioral resilience, because resilience more generally is defined as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity.”

Other research has found that individuals who made physical activity an “equal priority” to other goals exercised just as much as those who made it a higher priority than other goals. This study was conducted among adolescents, but it hints at a strategy that might work for all of us. When we don’t feel pressured to hit a specific target to achieve success, we can relax and feel more self-determined (e.g., be in the driver’s seat) about the activities we choose to do. Research shows that feeling self-determined about our exercise is important for motivating it over time.

Ironically, by treating physical activity as a middle, instead of a top, priority we become more likely to achieve sustainable behavior change, like consistent physical activity, within the constant ebbs and flows of our daily schedules.

Why You Should Stop Exercising to Lose Weight

This was originally posted on U.S. News & World Report's webiste.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Exercising for the primary goal of losing weight will not help most people stick with exercise over time. It may get you to start, but it most likely sets you up to exercise in ways that you don't like. As a result, you'll stop once you get tired of forcing yourself to adhere to this regimen and feel like a failure – again. Not only do you not achieve your weight-loss goal, but you also miss out on the multitude of benefits of being active.

My studies are not the only research supporting this contention. Other behavioral researchers also find that focusing on weight loss is far from the most strategic way to stay motivated to enjoy and benefit from regular physical movement. For example, one recent study on fitness centers found that people motivated to exercise by weight loss go to the gym less frequently than those with different goals.

What's more, a parallel (and growing!) body of knowledge in the biological sciences aligns with this perspective; it suggests that physical activity is generally an ineffective tool for losing weight. Take one recent study, for instance, in which researchers investigated almost 2,000 people in different countries over five years and found that physical activity was not necessarily a shield against weight gain.

Even Martin Gibala, the founder of high-intensity interval training (a type of exercise involving short bursts of all-out exercise), doesn't necessarily endorse fitness as a clear route to weight loss. "In general, exercise is not a huge contributor to weight control. People don't like to hear that, but it's true," he said in a recent New York Times story. "It is much easier to cut calories in the diet than to burn large numbers of them with exercise of any kind."

On top of that, Kevin Hall, a leading weight-loss scientist at the National Institutes of Health, told Vox last year, "Exercise isn't a weight-loss tool for health. It's excellent for health. It's the best single thing you can do after you stop smoking to improve your health. But don't look at it as a weight-loss tool."

You and your health professionals might be alarmed by the idea that what you've always been told – that exercise is an important way to lose weight – sets most of us up to fail most of the time. But more and more professionals who work in health, wellness and fitness discover the same thing: The goal of "weight loss" doesn't help most of their patients and clients stay motivated over time. Put bluntly: When you're told you should exercise for weight loss, you probably won't stick with your physical activity program – even though you actually want and intend to do so.

How many times are you going to approach taking better care of yourself with a strategy that has failed numerous times in the past? If this most common and traditional approach to physical activity doesn't keep most of us motivated, isn't it time for all of us – including you and your health care team – to pause and wonder whether we should ditch it? If you truly want to be consistently more active and take better care of yourself, start thinking about physical activity in a new way.

Science shows that what works most consistently is what feels good now – not something that feels like hard work or punishment, even if you're doing it for a great reason. If you want to motivate yourself or others to strive for a distant goal like weight loss and health, you need to translate it into its immediate influence on life today. Even marketing guru Seth Godin agrees. He says that if you want to motivate people to strive for a future-oriented goal, you actually need to figure out how to convert it into "how it feels right now." Enough said.

So Instead of dragging yourself to the gym because you want to lose weight, consider how moving makes you feel. For example, do you tend to feel an energy boost? Do you sleep better? Does your stress go down? Make those your reasons for exercise – and watch your desire to exercise increase. The irony is that when you start taking better care of yourself in order to feel better in the now, you'll set yourself up to better cultivate good health in the future.

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Why Exercise Is Just Like Sex

Nobody looks forward to the same old boring meal every day or a night of bad sex. Most of us take these uncomfortable moments as one-offs and course correct for fun and variety as quickly as possible. Or we simply stop desiring it. Yet far too many people still think or exercise as something they have to clench their jaws and just get through for the sake of health and beach bodies. They regularly grumble about workouts they hate, classes that make them feel tired just thinking about, or feel resentful about “having” to exercise at all.

But just like sex, exercise should feel pleasurable or positive in other ways. Exercise that feels good to do will naturally make you want to repeat that experience again and again. And just like that, regular physical activity can become a partner for life you don’t want to be without. Indeed, sex is perhaps the perfect analogy.

I've found similar thinking in conversations with sex therapist Lori Hollander, who discusses the important role of pleasure, spontaneity, and personal choice in her work.

Remember Pavlov’s dogs, whose mouths watered in anticipation of a good meal when they heard the dinner bell ring? Classical conditioning is something we’ve known about for decades. More modern research studies what is called anticipatory affect: basically, this work shows that the type of “affect” (e.g., feelings) we anticipate we are going to experience from a behavior influences whether or not we choose to do it. If it’s positive, we naturally go toward it. If it’s negative, we deeply want to avoid it. And studies on intrinsic versus controlled motivation have found that we tend to look forward to doing the things we choose versus  resisting doing things that others tell us to do, or that we feel we should do.

Think about it: If you were restricted by law to having sex in a “right” way,  how would you feel? When the power of choice is taken away from us, or even when we freely give it over to an outside power, we create a power vacuum inside ourselves that sucks all the pleasure out of what we do. We no longer have ownership over it. Yet, many of us don't think about exercise in this way.

Yet given what we already know about ourselves, many, many (many!) people continue to bang their heads against the sad treadmill of “should do” exercise that not only doesn’t bring joy and it even causes pain. If this is you, here’s my advice: dump that partner and start having some fun. Once you do, you'll be surprised and delighted by the new pleasure and joy, and will find yourself desiring to do it again and again.

 

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Five Fitness Strategies to Feel Great this Fall

This is a true belief that unfortunately most people don’t yet believe:  All types and any duration of movement you can fit into your day COUNTSs toward revitalization, fueling joy, supporting good health and restoring your sense of yourself.

Use these five strategies to discover how you can find time for physical movement on even the most crazy busy, over scheduled day:

Stop "shoulding" on yourself

Toss out old definitions about you should work out. Many people think they have to work hard for 40 minutes for their workout to "count." Not true! Exercise of any kind – including walking, yoga and strolling around town – adds up over the course of a day. If you don’t like intense exercise that makes you breath hard and sweat – you are not alone. Many others feel the same way..

Consider movement as an elixir of life and nurture yourself with it.

The benefits from moving our bodies constitute an elixir of life. But it’s important to do it in ways that feel good to you and that work with your life. So give yourself permission to renew yourself when you know you need it by simply taking a five minute walk. With this mindset, you’ll be amazed that when you walk for even a short period of time you feel like you’ve just given yourself a gift of relaxation, centering, and less stress – you’ll return and be better than you were before.

When life throws you a curveball, shrink your goals.

If you had made plans to workout for 30 minutes, but “stuff happens” and you only have 15minutes, do it anyway.  It’s not about hitting a specific time target, it's actually about learning how to be active on a consistent basis. Even one minute of movement in an otherwise busy day reminds you of your intentions and builds consistency.

Claim opportunities to move. 

Opportunities to move are the natural spaces in your life. Literally hundreds of opportunities to move – one minute, three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes – exist in everyone's days. If you work at a computer, try to get up 1-2 times per day to just move a little. Take the stairs, walk around your office, walk to mail a letter. This strategy make accumulating movement easy and you’ll be amazed by the increased energy you’ll feel from just moving even a minute.

Make it playful.

Movement is a world of infinite possibilities! Walk to catch  up with your friend.  Do the “couple’s cruise” with your sweetie. Try backyard or park games like croquet, badminton, basketball, pickleball, catch or just turn up the music and dance.

The post Five Fitness Strategies to Feel Great this Fall appeared first on Michelle Segar.

Sparks from the torch of POS ignite new ideas in positive health care and beyond

I am not an athlete or even a sports fan. Yet, in 1992, I not only became an employee of the Olympic Committee in Spain, I had the honor of carrying the Olympic Torch.

I ran through cheering crowds and passed the torch to the next runner, helping it on its way to light the fire that would ignite the Barcelona Olympic Games. Afterward, my legs and arms ached (that torch was heavy!), but the experience sparked a visceral change. I could feel the pulse of the ongoing connection between the athletes of ancient Athens and the modern Barcelona, and the shared humanity and pursuit of optimal performance that is the spirit of the Olympic Games.

Over the years, the idea of people carrying a positive spark of energy from one to the next has been a goal and an inspiration in my work as a motivation researcher at the University of Michigan, coach, and consultant. And I have been thrilled to recognize the same spirit in the “sparks” of relational energy—the energy you get when you interact with someone who energizes you—that characterize the people and work of Michigan Ross’ Center for Positive Organizations (CPO).

The Center does not take the typical approach of identifying “problems” and focusing on how to “overcome” them. Instead, guided by the philosophy of Positive Organizational Scholarship, CPO illuminates insights and identifies methods for bringing out the very best in employees, leaders, and organizations. The focus is on optimizing instead of avoiding. Their work has been so influential among their peers that in 2010 the Academy of Management awarded them the prestigious Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award for opening up a new field of inquiry in management science. Torch carriers indeed.

CPO’s purposeful goal is both important and vitally worth pursuing, and it sparked changes in how I thought about my own work. As a motivation scientist who works in the wellness and healthcare industries, I study systemic ways to create sustainable health-related behavior. In this regard, it is important to help individuals and organizations see behaviors like exercise not as a vaguely threatening prescription against future disease that must be grudgingly endured, but as a gift of immediate energy and well-being that fuels what matters most every day. I became involved with the Center in 2012 because it was clear we were moving in the same direction.

CPO faculty’s discoveries for creating contexts, leaders, and practices that enhance business outcomes had significant overlap with the principles I had discovered and been using to drive the sustainable individual behavior that underlies well-being and health.

For example, Gretchen Spreitzer (CPO’s faculty director and Keith E. and Valerie J. Alessi Professor of Business Administration) and Christine Porath have identified two key levers of organizational thriving, indicated by improvements in key outcomes: When employees have opportunities to learn and experience vitality, they report enhanced performance, commitment, and job satisfaction, and lower burnout. What if these same levers—learning and vitality— become the foci within organizational health and well-being initiatives? Can we promote employee health and well-being using methods and messages that can simultaneously also boost outcomes tied to the bottom line, such as better performance? Talk about a strategic and efficient investment!

Pursuing answers to this question within organizations is one of the many ways that my work has been sparked and deepened by CPO insights. In my current ongoing work with a large health care organization, for example, we are interested to see if reframing so-called “healthy” behaviors (such as exercise and dietary change) as “vehicles of vitality and opportunities to learn”—the levers or organizational thriving—also brings greater engagement in self-care and behavioral sustainability. My work, in addition, has been sparked by CPO Co-Founder Jane Dutton’s (et al.) high quality connections. Through informal yet quality conversations fostered by the Center, we have formed a new sub-group of academic and industry professionals interested in exploring how evidence-based positive principles can be used to create systems and practices within healthcare to improve health among employees and patients. And this is just one small spark from the torch that has passed from hand to hand and mind to mind.

CPO’s flame is fueled by the intellectual friction of combining faculty, staff, organizational leaders, and student perspectives. Sparks from this powerful flame jump easily from individual to individual, from organization to organization. We are not just lone runners, lighting a dark path; we are powering up the myriad positive connections that will broaden and enrich our lives at home, and work, and as part of the global community.

New work by the CPO’s Kim Cameron and Wayne Baker (with Brad Owens and Dana Sumpter) suggest real benefits from relational energy, including a positive association with employee job performance. And there are numerous other exciting projects and studies underway. If these ideas ignite your enthusiasm, consider joining us in our pursuit of excellence. There are many ways to receive the spark:

Sign up to receive Positive Perspectives, the Center for Positive Organizations’ monthly newsletter, to learn about new study findings and upcoming events (most are streamed live)
Attend a Positive Links Speaker Series event (the first one for the 2016-17 season is September 20)
Learn more about how the Positive Organizations Consortium unites researchers and organizational change leaders to build a better working world.
Review faculty profiles or join the Community of Scholars

This content is cross-posted on the CPO website.

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Want to Improve Patient Health? Stop Promoting Health!

ealth promoters need a better hook than “health” if they want patients to actually achieve better health.

This suggestion may seem paradoxical and even downright heretical. But a quick reality check with those who have tried and failed repeatedly to stick to a health-motivated exercise or diet plan (maybe even yourself!) will reveal the truth: The vague promise of future “health” is rarely enough to sustain the behavior that gets us there.

Prescribing and promoting “health” as the reason for adopting a healthy lifestyle (eat more fruits and vegetables, move more, get enough sleep) seems like a logical thing to do, right? Interestingly, this is simply an assumption. It has no basis in science.

Based on research in behavioral economics as well as on my own published studies about how to motivate sustainable healthy lifestyles, the case that health organizations and professionals should stop promoting health right now is strong. Here’s just a few of the reasons why.

Logic Doesn’t Motivate. Emotions Do.

The logic behind promoting healthy living is easy to understand: “If my patients or employees make healthier choices, they will be healthier and use fewer health care dollars, so let’s promote healthy living.” And exercising and eating well for your health definitely sounds logical. The problem is that logic doesn’t motivate. Emotions do.

Most successful businesses (think Apple) know this. They conduct extensive market research and use their target customers’ needs, wants, and worries as the hooks in their marketing campaigns and social media initiatives. Successful businesses want to make a profit. And this means repeat customers, not one-time buyers.

We don’t find the same repeat customer mentality when it comes to promoting lifestyle changes. Health promotion counseling, programs, and services tend to feature the desired medical outcomes that health promoters hope for1, 2 instead of appealing to what individuals actually want and worry about every day. This has been a strategic error that has expensive consequences for everyone.

To be successful in achieving these outcomes (such as less stress and better health, weight maintenance), people have to sustain the lifestyle behaviors that they start. Yet the sad truth is that the majority of people who try to change health-related behaviors eventually drop out.3,4,5 Isn’t it curious that people who deeply want to make changes don’t generally sustain them?

The Vague Promise of Future “Health” Is Too Abstract to Be Compelling

University of Michigan research published in fall 2011 showed a surprising gap between what people say they value and what they actually do when it comes to exercising.6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1 shows how much study participants said they “valued” their reason or goal for exercising, and Figure 2 shows the average exercise participation by type of goal. The difference between these two graphs illuminates the important gapbetween what people say they value and their actual behavior.

When researchers followed these participants over one year to track their actual activity, participants with goals to improve their “daily quality of life” were more motivated and exercised about 20% more over one year compared to those with purely “health-related” goals.

It’s easy to say being healthy is “important”; but it’s another matter entirely to make health-related behaviors a daily must-do activity.

Behavioral economists have taught us that people have a present-focus bias: we choose things that will reward us now over selecting future rewards.8,9,10 Larger distant rewards such as “better health” are simply not as motivating as smaller, more immediate rewards such as increased energy, stress release, and lifted mood. In other words, if it makes us feel good, we want to do it again and again

 “Health” Is Just a Proxy for the Goal People Really Want: Living Daily Life Well

Health sounds like great goal, but health is only valuable to us because it helps us live our daily lives well.

Without health, we lack energy. And lack of vitality challenges our happiness, sense of well- being, and ability to fulfill the daily roles and responsibilities that make life meaningful. Health is really just a proxy for the experiences we desire and that make our life worth living.

Research on goal striving and behavioral self-regulation (how we manage and negotiate goals in our busy lives) clearly shows that if people are to continue to strive towards their goals, they need feedback that they are approximating them.11 Without evidence that they are making progress people quit.

Yes, biomarkers (such as improved blood pressure and lowered cholesterol levels) can show people that they are progressing toward their health and disease prevention goals. But research suggests that this type of feedback is not compelling enough to motivate the numerous decisionsthat most people have to make every day that are necessary for sustaining healthy lifestyles.

In contrast, when individuals make decisions to practice self-care behaviors as ways to feel good, increase well-being, and have more energy, they get feedback immediately that they have achieved their goal. An article in the Wall Street Journal reported that having a “focus on quality of life helps medical providers see the big picture – and makes for healthier, happier patients.”12 Even people who have lost their “health,” those living with a chronic illness, are more motivated by feeling and living better. This article quoted the late Noreen Clark, internationally renowned chronic disease management researcher, as saying that improving daily feeling and functioning is the real hook for motivating patients to manage their illnesses.

To Motivate the Consistent Decisions that Favor Health, Let’s Rebrand Health as Well-Being

I propose a simple strategy: Let’s rebrand “health” as “well-being.” In addition to the interdisciplinary science that supports this suggestion, I’ve been using this tactic in my private health coaching practice for twenty years and have seen how this simple change in framing revolutionizes people’s relationships with healthy behaviors by making them relevant and compelling to what matters most – to them, today.

Consider this: Many of the behaviors that improve health (getting more sleep, moving more, making better eating choices) also lead to feel-good experiences (reduced stress, feeling strong, lifted mood) that help us better succeed in our roles and responsibilities, all of which contribute to happier and more meaningful lives. So it is more strategic to rebrand these behaviors in ways that are more likely to hook patients: as direct routes to daily success, well-being, and meaning, which is what they truly are.

It’s counterintuitive, but true: To help patients achieve the consistent decisions and sustainable healthy behaviors that underlie disease management and prevention, we must stop promoting health within health care. Instead, we can embrace and promote an outcome that patients will both notice and want: well-being. And, in the process, we will make our clinic- and community-based interventions more patient-centered, long lasting, and value-based.13

References

1. American College of Sports Medicine. Exercise is medicine. 2008; http://www.exerciseismedicine.org/public.htm Accessed January 22, 2008.

2. American Cancer Society. Choose you. 2010; http://www.cancer.org/healthy/index Accessed November, 2010.

3. Dishman R. The problem of exercise adherence: Fighting sloth in nations with market economies. QUEST. 2001;53:279-294.

4. Berlant NE, Pruitt SD. Adherence to medical recommendations. In: Cohen LM, MCChargue DE, Collins FL, eds. The health psychology handbook. London: Sage; 2003:208-222.

5. Dunbar-Jacobe J, Mortimer-Stephens MK. Treatment adherence in chronic disease. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2001;54:S57-S60.

6. Segar M, Eccles J, Richardson C. Rebranding exercise: closing the gap between values and behavior. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 2011;8:94:1-14.

7. DiMatteo MR. Variations in patients’ adherence to medical recommendations – A quantitative review of 50 years of research. Medical Care. Mar 2004;42(3):200-209.

8. Hariri AR, Brown SM, Williamson DE, Flory JD, de Wit H, Manuck SB. Preference for immediate over delayed rewards is associated with magnitude of ventral striatal activity. Journal of Neuroscience. Dec 2006;26(51):13213-13217.

9. Rath T, Harter J. Well-being: The Five Essential Elements. New York: Gallup Press; 2010.

10. Ariely D. Predictably Irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York: Harper Perennial; 2009.

11. Carver C, Scheier M. On the self-regulation of behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1998.

12.  Landro L. The simple idea that is transforming health care: A focus on quality of life helps medical providers see the big picture—and makes for healthier, happier patients. The Wall Street Journal. 2012. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001... Accessed August, 2012.

13. Segar, M. No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness. New York: Amacom; 2015.

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A New Spring in My (Next) Steps!

Do you know what happens after someone publishes a book that represents their last 20 years of Purpose? I’ve been trying to answer that question myself ever since No Sweat was published last summer. I wondered if I would ever have this sort of energizing passion in my life again.

Researching what fosters lasting motivation and sustainable behavior change has been my North Star, and being able to share my discoveries with all of you in No Sweat has been the culmination of this two-decade quest. During this time, I discovered myself and my passion, and experienced deep creativity and intellectual stimulation. It drove and delighted me beyond belief.

So what happens now that my book has been launched into the world?

I mourn the loss of having that singular purpose, but I also appreciate that life is a process of learning and change. I’d be in denial if I said I didn’t want another Profound Purpose to pursue. But when I really thought about it, I recognized that my larger, more audacious goal has always been to "change the culture" around physical activity and self-care more generally. And from that perspective, I realized, No Sweat marked the beginning of my work, not the end at all – a seed from which to grow the needed changes for creating sustainable behavior change across society.

New insights and opportunities suddenly came flooding in, shifting me from a sense of loss to curiosity and enthusiasm.  I’ve shifted from focusing on how to create a method of sustainable behavior change for individuals to being fascinated by creating complex, integrated systems that can support sustainable behavior change on organizational and population-wide levels.  I'm now excited to help solve more complicated multi-level puzzles through identifying how to scale and weave the most potent scientific principles into redesigning systems within health care as well as the wellness and fitness industries.

Complex Issues that Have My Attention

1.Creating systems that foster patient engagement, empowerment and behavioral sustainability: As a frequent physical therapy consumer, I’ve been astounded by the systematic lack of attention to fostering patient adherence, when adherence determines not only healing trajectories but preventing the need to return. Our health care system is also currently not set up to help patients succeed at sustaining foundational self-care behaviors like sleep and physical activity. In general, clinicians have not been trained to cultivate the drivers of autonomous motivation and ongoing self-regulation (e.g., self-management) systematically and effectively.

I’m very curious about how we can transform this situation, and I see at least three connected approaches: a) updated curriculum in medical school and other types of clinician training; b) new simple protocols that clinicians can use with patients that ask the right questions in order to leverage decision making science; and c) integrating these new counseling protocols with EMRs and personal mobile devises to create an integrated, comprehensive high-touch, high-tech system.

I’ve been collaborating on research in a primary care clinic to explore the use of new lifestyle counseling protocols that are based on science from decision making and motivation science in addition to working with organizations that want to improve their telephonic lifestyle and chronic disease management counseling protocols.

2.Teaching clinicians how to better prioritize their own self-care in order to foster their well-being, reduce burnout, but also because then they can become better self-care ambassadors to patients: My colleagues and I are investigating how to enhance thriving in clinicians and their units. I also have a Thriving through Self-Care™ curriculum that I am excited to deliver within health care contexts. This is a new area of work that I believe will reap rewards for professionals, patients, and organizations.

3.Understanding the core concepts that foster engagement with self-care that can be used across marketing, social media, apps, and others behavioral interventions. I’m delighted to be working with a health system to leverage ideas from No Sweat to create new approaches to employee wellness, including a strategic comprehensive social media campaign for their employees, patients, and greater community. And I couldn’t be prouder that key ideas from No Sweat have been included in the North Carolina’s Department of Public Health’s new CDC-approved Diabetes Prevention Program called “Eat Smart, Move More, Prevent Diabetes.”

For the last five years, I've been delivering keynotes and sustainble-behavior-change trainings around the country teaching professionals and organizations out how they can learn to apply these principles wherever they need them.

4.Leveraging the science of motivation in redesigning marketing, products, and services to  help niche businesses, like fitness clubs, learn to help their members love and stick with exercise inside and outside of the club. There are great ideas to explore that can connect apps with high-touch situations in many industries. However, many health clubs are operating within outdated models and paradigms - they think that they will lose members if they help them learn how to feel successful outside of their clubs. But I believe and have experienced the opposite. This is a new time for gyms/clubs, and just like health care, those who choose to align with, instead of reject, behavioral science to improve retention and sustainability will lead the way.

5.Helping large organizations develop new wellness philosophies/paradigms and approaches that can engage not only employees but their greater communities. It has been a privilege to consult with a leading integrated managed care organization on these issues as well as be on the advisory committee that is helping our university’s employee wellness program enter its next generation. The key? Not only do the overarching paradigms need to be rebranded "from health to well-being," but every part of these initiatives have to be aligned and integrated, from the traditional “Health Risk Appraisal” (an unfortunate term) through to the programming employees participate in. There are key pillars of communication based on the science of what drives people's decisions that should be used consistently.

In this new era of employee well-being, the consumer experience is paramount. The behavioral programming offered to employees (both high-tech and high-touch) will be considered the lever of success for both individual and business-level outcomes.  Because of that, we are in the midst of a revolution in the behavioral programming vendors offer.  However, while most are rushing to create the coolest technology-based solutions, the leading vendors will actually also overhaul their health coaching protocols too. They will 1) move beyond traditional Motivational Interviewing and nice-sounding but outdated “wellness” frameworks to ones that more systemically target and move key scientific principles; and 2) be accompanied by and integrated with aligned apps. (I’ll write more details about this in the future.)

Stay tuned! In the upcoming months I'll share findings from new research related to achieving these goals.

 

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