To make healthy changes, change your thinking

In 2009, two British moms lifted a 1.1-ton truck off a boy who was run over in the street; he survived. In 2012, a 22year-old woman lifted a car off her father after it fell off a jack while he was underneath, rendering him unconscious; she saved his life. In 2016, a 19year-old girl lifted a burning truck off her dad, freeing him, before jumping in the blazing vehicle and driving it out of the garage to save their house too.

Clearly, when you’re doing something for someone else, you can find unknown powers to change the future, for them. That fact intrigued researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. They were trying to figure out how altering the way health messages are delivered might help people adopt healthy habits, and change their own futures.

Fact: When it comes to hearing wellmeaning good advice about your health, most folks reject it, become defensive or have trouble acting on it consistently. One study found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new habit to become ingrained and automatic.

The technique: The researchers wondered what would happen if people were encouraged to change bad habits for good ones AFTER they spent a few minutes thinking about something beyond or outside themselves. Maybe the same surge of altruistic energy that lets a person lift a car could prime the brain to help folks lift a bad habit off their own back.

So, according to their study published in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers divided 202 participants who were sedentary and overweight or obese into three groups:

❚ The first group reflected on things, such as friends and family or spirituality, that mattered a great deal to them.

❚ The second group was directed to think of good wishes for folks they knew and for strangers.

❚ The control group had to think about whatever values were least important to them.

They then gave all participants direct health tips about how to lose weight and protect their heart health. Turns out, those folks who thought about others and wished them well or contemplated spiritual realms actually adopted the suggested changes and were significantly more active the following month.

By monitoring participants’ brain activity, researchers confirmed that those who thought about people and realms outside themselves had greater activity in brain regions involved in reward and positive-valuation.

Start every day with a 10-minute session of meditation and think about your best wishes for those near and dear and those around the world who you know are struggling.

Then write down one healthy-habit goal for your day. Then discover just how motivated you can become. Every day, take a minute whenever you can to remember your good wishes for others.