BUILD POSITIVE HABITS THAT CAN SAVE LIVES
A good habit needs willpower, repetition, and reinforcement
HABITS. They come in various forms and shapes. I will categorise them in two categories — the good and the bad. Psychologists are saying that habit formation is the process by which new behaviours become automatic. Here is an interesting fact, apparently nearly 50 per cent of our actions are derived from habits.
theWorldCounts.com says: “Forty per cent of your actions are not conscious decisions but habits. So, habits are a big part of your life — and a lot of the time you don’t even notice it!”
I bet all of us have gone through moments without having any recollection of the whole process taken to complete a task.
The best example will be driving. I have been driving since the early 90s. When I was engrossed in my thoughts while driving, I would occasionally be taken by surprise upon reaching my destination because I cannot recall the turns, the signals and the stops made to reach the place.
When this happens, I always count my blessings because I reached my destination safely and did not harm anyone. It looks like my driving habit kicks in and I am on auto-drive mode when I am behind the wheel.
You may be wondering why am I harping on habit. It caught my interest after reading a news report about a three-year-old toddler who died after she was accidentally left inside a locked school van under the blazing sun. The poor child died from vehicular heatstroke.
My instant thought was that if the van driver had developed the habit of peeking inside his vehicle before locking up, the tragedy could have been avoided.
Perhaps, it is time to make it compulsory for all registered school van drivers to develop that habit of checking before we allow our children to take a ride in their vans. it is wise to reinforce the same habit among parents as well to check their vehicles before locking them up. We have often read of how parents have left their children in cars and usually the outcome ends with injuries or death.
In the United States, CNN has reported that an average of 37 children die each year in hot cars based on data provided by KidsAndCars.org, a child-safety advocacy group.
Children are more at risk to suffer from vehicular heatstroke because they are not built for heat as their body temperature rises three to five times faster than adults, and the temperature of a car can spike 20 degrees in 20 minutes.
NoHeatStroke.org, a data site run by Jan Null from the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science at San Jose State University, has shared jaw-dropping statistics about child vehicular heatstroke death with 781 fatalities recorded since 1998 in the US alone.
Based on media reports, NoHeatStroke.org has discovered that 54 per cent of the 700 vehicular heatstroke death from 1998 to 2017 were due to child forgotten by caregiver; 27 per cent involved children playing in an unattended vehicle, 18 per cent involved children intentionally left in a vehicle by an adult, and one per cent due to unknown circumstances.
Since Malaysia is a tropical country, the mercury reading is quite high mostly throughout the year and the Meteorological Department recently reported that the current hot spell could still occur during the southwest monsoon period which is expected to come to an end by the end of September.
The department said during the monsoon period, the maximum temperature in the peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak was forecast to range between 34 degrees Celsius and 37 degrees Celsius. In this respect, all of us should make it a habit to check the back seat to make sure there is no child left behind.
The danger of vehicular heatstroke especially on children has prompted several car makers to come up with a system that will alert drivers to check for occupants in the back seat. Kudos to these car makers. Similar safety features should be installed in our locally-made cars too.
In some countries, their school and day care centre operators are using notification tools to alert families when a child is absent. One of the tools is Tadpoles, an app used annually by more than 3,000 child-care centres, which recently has launched its “Unexpected Absence” feature.
A recent incident happening here in Malaysia involving a three-year-old boy who was unintentionally left behind at a seafood restaurant in Melaka by his large family of 30 is another reason why we should develop a habit of doing a head count after every outing.
How to develop a habit? Experts are saying with enough repetition and reinforcement.
A group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers were reported in the 1990s to have discovered a neurological process that is at the core of every habit, involving cue, routine and reward. The cue and the reward apparently have a very strong influence in creating habits.
To develop habits, it will also require willpower. And, willpower is said to be a muscle and not a skill which all of us have. The more you use this “muscle”, the stronger it will become.
On this note, I will crank up my willpower to develop more positive habits, especially those that can save lives.
The danger of vehicular heatstroke especially on children has prompted several car makers to come up with a system that will alert drivers to check for occupants in the back seat. Kudos to these car makers.
With more than 20 years in journalism and a masters in Counselling Psychology, the writer is always drawn to the mystery of the human mind and behaviours.