Can you TRICK your brain into HEALTH?

From putting off that 5k to eating junk food and failing to floss our teeth, we sabotage our health at every turn. But there is a way to change...

IT’S a tale that will be familiar to most of us — you want to change your life but something inevitably gets in the way. You plan to start that countdown to your 5K, write your blockbusting novel or start eating healthily but come 9pm you’re tucking into a packet of crisps on the sofa.

But what you may not realise is you are actually indulging in self-sabotage — and the thing that’s stopping you is your own brain.

And there is a very easy route to success — if you want to make big changes, then think small. That’s according to life coach Neil O’Brien.

‘Most of us would like to create a bit of change in our lives, and much of it is centred around our health and wellbeing, and less stress in our life. That is going to involve some kind of change,’ he explains. ‘You might want to lose weight to feel a bit better, or have less stress in your life. But when it comes to change, human beings don’t have a great track record in this.

‘Coaching of any kind is when someone is holding another person accountable and encouraging them so it is that hands on.

‘And generally you have the answers to your own problems but you just aren’t getting round to doing anything about them and that is what a life coach can do for you,’ says Neil.

A recent survey by Irish Life Health to launch their new BeneFit plan showed that more than a third of us (39 per cent) say we are too busy to get fit or exercise.

BUT Neil believes this is a modern way of self-sabotage.

‘I think generally we hide and we have places we can hide where we avoid trying to do something a bit different or a bit tricky,’ he explains.

‘And in Ireland today most of us are hiding in ‘busy’ or ‘mad busy’ — we say we are too busy to do things. At lunchtime, if you listen to people queuing for lunch I will bet they are talking about how busy they are or how busy they have got.

‘People often ask me if I am busy. No-one has ever asked me if I am happy or making loads of money or anything like that. We seem to be consumed in Ireland with how busy we all are or how important it is to be engaged.’

Being so ‘busy’, Neil says, allows us to abandon our projects without any guilt.

‘We say: “Well I didn’t go for a walk today because I was too occupied with other things. I will do it another time because I didn’t have a minute.”

‘And the fact that we didn’t have a minute helps us live with ourselves a little but longer and avoid the guilt of not doing what we are supposed to do.

‘Being so constantly engaged in projects also creates a sense of value for us as we feel “in demand” so therefore there is almost a trap of needing to be busy.’

And while our couch-to-5K intentions might be at their best in the morning, by evening time, all too often it becomes just couch. But there is a really simple way to turn this around.

‘With the best intentions some- times, we probably start too big,’ Neil says. ‘We have some new insights into habits, bad habit management and how to change old habits and replace them with new ones. It’s a new hot topic in all the book stores now.

‘For example, if someone decided they wanted to make 2018 a year of eating healthy that is not a bad idea to have. But the problem with it is that it is woolly and it is very big. Trying to change everything at once is difficult.

‘We rely too heavily on willpower and we don’t have an endless supply of it, we just have a limited amount of this to get us through the day. And as the hours go on, we use up more of those precious willpower reserves, which is why we are more likely to slump on the sofa, watching the soaps instead of heading to the gym.

‘If we have a difficult day in work or college or at home, by the time we get to the evening we have no

willpower left,’ Neil explains. ‘So come the evening time it’s actually quite difficult to find the willpower to go for a walk, to eat a bit better or whatever it is that you want to do. Instead, you tend to reach for the nearby things like crisps and chocolate and think: ‘I know that this is bad for me but it is handy.’

‘And for this reason, your starting point should be micro. You have to start small.’

With a small start you won’t need to rely on your willpower to get you through — instead something almost miraculous happens.

‘This is based on the idea that if you start really small you are always going to do more than you intended,’ Neil says. ‘Floss one tooth, do one squat while the ads are on television, learn one sentence of a language, write one line of your book, or have one bit of a piece of fruit.

‘So the idea of these things is that when someone tells themselves they are going for a one-minute walk it means they don’t have to dress up, they don’t have to buy any special walking gear, they can do it when the ads are on.

‘But the reality is that nobody flosses one tooth — if you do one you will do them all.

‘And you won’t walk for just one minute — once you are out you will do 20 minutes. And you will do ten squats when the ads are on. But you weren’t asked to do that.

‘By starting really small it is almost like you bypass willpower and motivation,’ Neil adds. ‘It is almost like you don’t need it.’

And the reason for the change is that you are tricking the part of your brain that tells you the tasks you are setting for yourself are not achievable.

‘This is the science bit, in that our brains are prehistoric in design and are programmed for survival,’ Neil says.

‘So the subconscious part of our brain tends to treat every change as a threat to us. Change is treated as something of danger rather than something that is good for us.’

‘Let’s say someone is feeling fantastic — the danger is they might decide to sign up for a 5k or change their diet completely or write a book.

All of these things completely freak out the brain. It is like we have triggered our own resistance and the subconscious part of our brain says this can’t happen because it is too much change for us to cope with.’

Our own brains, it seems, are plotting against us, and stopping us from achieving what we want.

Basically we have triggered and mobilised our own resistance so we become our own worst enemy without even realising it,’ Neil says. ‘Here’s the ridiculous thing and it shows you how mad this actually is. If we tell ourselves we are going to walk for one minute, you trick your brain.

‘It is important to repeat that to ourselves a good few times during the day, ‘I am going for my oneminute walk’. What happens then is that the subconscious part of our brains hear ‘one-minute walk’ and treats it with contempt. It kind of thinks ‘ah that’s a bit pathetic, we’ll let her do the one-minute walk as that’s not going to change anything. It’s grand, we will let that happen.’

‘So we have gone under the brain’s radar, if you like. Before you know it you will be out of the house and walking for 20 minutes at least.’

Neil says: ‘We need to make sure that the starting point for our hopes for 2018 doesn’t trigger our own inner resistance. A micro start is smarter than planning big, as you will immobilise an army of resistance in your head.

‘This is mental fitness as it is about building our capacity to cope with whatever is coming next. We should be doing this all the time, even when things are good.

‘People think stress management is reducing the stress in our lives but that is really hard to do.

‘It is much better to constantly build yourself up and therefore you cope much better. Doing it this way builds people’s capacity to be stronger.’ ÷THE new Irish Life Health BeneFit plan allows members to claim back up to €250 on gym memberships and classes, sports massage, fitness wearables, dietitian visits and more. For more information see irishlifehealth.ie.