A Healthy Habits App Wins Surgeon General's Challenge

Healthy Habits iPhone App Wins 

Surgeon General's Healthy Apps Challenge

Healthy Habits, an iPhone app by 2Morrow Mobile, has been chosen as the winner of the U.S. Surgeon General's Healthy App Challenge.The free wellness app focuses on helping people live healthier, happier lives by changing their habits. Healthy Habits won in the category of integrative health and well being. 

"I strongly believe in the importance of empowering individuals to make healthy choices", said Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD. "Readily accessible tools like social media and mobile apps can help people manage everything from dietary choices to physical activity, stress management and relaxation techniques."

Habits are an acquired pattern of behavior that often occurs automatically and without conscious thought. Poor habits can make it hard to create lasting change by sabotaging good intentions with unconscious behaviors. The Surgeon General's Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation states that: "Change starts with the individual choices Americans make each day." Healthy Habits is an app that helps people reach their goals by changing their habits or default behaviors. Over 75,000 people have downloaded the Healthy Habits apps since launch in April 2011.

"We are honored to be recognized as a winner in the Surgeon General's Healthy Apps Challenge," said Brandon Masterson, President of 2Morrow Mobile. "Despite good intentions, many of today's health issues are caused by our own unhealthy habits and changing them is hard to do. With Healthy Habits we set out to create an app that helps people turns their good intentions into action."

Masterson said he also wanted to congratulate the other winners of the Surgeon General's Healthy Apps Challenge. "There are some great apps being created in the field of health and wellness, and we are excited to be part of the industry."

Surgeon General's Healthy Apps Challenge Winners:
- Healthy Habits (2Morrow Mobile) in the category of integrative health
- Lose it! In the category of fitness/ physical activity
- GoodGuide and Fooducate in the category of nutrition / healthy eating

"I've been delighted with the response to this challenge. The winning apps will help many Americans to have fun while getting fit and healthy," said Surgeon General, Dr. Benjamin.

The challenge judges included: Michelle Kwan, Wayne Jonas, Cornell McClellan, Farzad Mostashari, Todd Park, Shellie Pfohl .

About 2Morrow Mobile:
2Morrow Mobile, LLC is a Seattle area mobile start-up, specializing in creating behavior change and wellness apps that focus on helping people improve their lives by changing their habits.

Links:
Surgeon General’s Healthy Apps Challenge: Winners Announced | Public Health
US Surgeon General's Healthy App Challenge:
Surgeon General's Announcement:

Create Healthy Habits With iPhone App From 2Morrow Mobile

Create Healthy Habits With iPhone App From 2Morrow Mobile

 

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) May 24, 2011 

Habits are those little things that we do automatically without thinking. That is why it is so important to create healthy habits, not unhealthy ones. According to the CHIC, 79% of smartphone users want interactive health apps that provide feedback. To meet this need, 2Morrow Mobile announces the release of their 3rd generation iPhone app, “Healthy Habits”, which provides a fun, effective way to support behavior change. “Healthy Habits” is a free iPhone app now available on the iTunes App Store.

Feeling Tempted? Create a Habit of Distracting Yourself.

According to Scientific American, "The scientific community is increasingly coming to realize how central self-control is to many important life outcomes. We have always known about the impact of socioeconomic status and IQ, but these are factors that are highly resistant to interventions. In contrast, self-control may be something that we can tap into to make sweeping improvements life outcomes."  

The article goes on to identity that there are a couple good ways to increase your chance of success when feeling tempted. These include of these include:

• Physically stop yourself - If you know you will be tempted, create a habit that stops you from acting on that temptation. Learn to walk away, sit on your hands, or in the case of Ulysses and the sirens.... lash yourself to the mast of the ship! Find a way to prevent yourself from being able to give in. You might even need to throw those leftover donuts in a sink full of water... if you truly want to be successful, look for ways to stop yourself from acting on temptation.

• Distract Yourself - The more you focus on a temptation the harder it is to resist.  Create the habit of distracting yourself when you feel tempered. Take a walk, call a friend, sign a song, read a book, paint your nails, etc. Once you create this habit, you find that you can and do resist temptation... out of habit.

Looking for a tool to help create positive habits?   Check out mobile app Habit Maker, Habit Breaker!  It is a FREE app listed in the iTunes app store.

Living Automatically, by Choice

Living Automatically, by Choice

"This way or that way? 

All in all, if you want to form a new habit, you can! Acquiring a new habit tends to take just over two months until it is automatically cemented into your brain’s neural pathways. Use the willpower inside yourself to commit to repeating the behavior so that you can form a new and positive habit. Sooner than you may anticipate, you will no longer need to think about doing the behavior. It will become automatic."

Emily vanSonnenberg, MAPP '10, is a psychology therapist, writer, researcher, and teacher. 
http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/emily-vansonnenberg/2011020116315

Habits & Traditions

Habits & Traditions

As I finish the holiday weekend, I started thinking about how alike habits and traditions are.  I watched my daughter in her twenties truly appreciated the traditions of family, playing games, and cooking/eating our favorite foods on Thanksgiving.  I also talked to my other daughter (who spent the holidays with some friends and could not be with us this year) as she voiced her regret at missing the festivities.   There is often comfort in tradition as there is in our habits… both are behaviors that seem to happened naturally and are part of who we are.  Both can be changed, but the process of change often feels foreign and uncomfortable even if it is positive… much like attending some other family's holiday with traditions that may be wonderful but are different than our own.

It's just like riding a bike.... you never really forget a habit .

It's just like riding a bike.... you never really forget a habit (good or bad.) 

According to a 2009 MIT study, "Habits help us through the day, eliminating the need to strategize about each tiny step involved in making a frothy latte, driving to work and other complex routines. Bad habits, though, can have a vise grip on both mind and behavior. Notoriously hard to break, they are devilishly easy to resume, as many reformed smokers discover. ... Important neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain change when habits are formed, change again when habits are broken, but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles an extinguished habit -- routines that originally took great effort to learn."

The study also suggests that a learned pattern remains in the brain after the behavior is stopped, and that is why it may be so hard to change a habit.

Habit is overcome by habit.

"A nail is driven out by another nail. 

Habit is overcome by habit."
Desiderius Erasmus

 

What is the best way to break a bad habit?  Focus on creating new good behaviors (habits) that replace the bad habits.  It feels much better to focus on doing something good then it does to focus on trying not to do something that you like to do or that you are used to doing.

For example: If you want to stop eating so many sweets, instead of focusing on NOT eating sweets... try focusing on eating more fruit & veggies - regardless of how many sweets you eat. As you start filling your hunger with other type of foods, your desire for sweets will decrease. 

Will's Wisdom

I found this video inspiring and great to watch if you start to doubt your ability to change your world.

Habit is what keeps you going.

"Motivation is what gets you started.  

Habit is what keeps you going."  ~Jim Ryun 

If I had a nickel for every time I started something... well never-mind I don't have those nickels and I also fully agree with the quote above. Excitement and motivation are great, but if you don't apply the persistence and commitment needed to make something a habit, when the excitement wears off, all your great plans and efforts can fade away.

First we make our habits ...

"First we make our habits, 

then our habits make us." 

-Charles C. Noble

This quote makes me think about how really hard it is to change established bad habits. I don't think this means that we can't change - I have known a few people who truly made lasting and impressive changes.  However, from my experience it is much more common to see people who need/want to make a change but have a difficult time making changes that last.

Sometimes seemingly small bad habits can have huge effects on people's lives.  I have some "little" bad habits that I know I need to change, I want to change, they seem easy to change and I periodically make an effort to change...but I still find myself slipping into these old habits whenever I am not diligent. I think the fact that they seem like fairly "minor" bad habits makes it easier to excuse my own behavior, but I beleive these "little"  habits add up and are keeping me from reaching some of my goals. 

This issue is really the reason I decided to blog. I hope the attention needed will keep me focused on creating habits that make my life better... not worse.

Making permanent changes ... one habit at a time.

I always get excited when I decide to make a change.  I can't wait to get started and one good idea sparks another. Before I know it I am trying to change multiple habits at once.  For example, if I want to lose weight I might decide to; eat breakfast every day, walk for 30 minutes 4 times a week, cutout all sugar, count calories and journal daily. In my excitement, all of the items seem very doable, but a therapist friend of mine explains that people have much better success if they focus on changing just one habit at a time.  I did some additional research online and find a common theme... if you really want to make a change that lasts, focus on one behavior/habit at a time.  Once the first habit has a foothold you can add another.

.

Making permanent changes ... one habit at a time. 

•  Pick only one new habit to focus on each week.  
• Give yourself a real chance at success. Don't add a new habit until you are feeling successful with the first one... if it take 2-3 weeks per habit, that's OK.  
• Once you are ready, add the next habit... but don't stop working on the first one until it is ingrained (at least 2 months.)    In this manner, you could form 26+  real, lasting habit changes each year.
• Don't overwhelm yourself. Limit the total number of active habits you are working on to 3-5 at any one time.

•  Record your efforts.
• Logging your progress will help you succeed.  Track your efforts daily for at least a month.  This is an easy way to keep yourself accountable. The longer consciously work on making or breaking a habit, the better your chances at a long term success.   Some common ways to track your progress include journalism, making notes on a calendar or using a online tool or mobile app.

•  Reward your success. 
• Set a reward for yourself when you reach the 21 day & 60 day mark.  There is a saying that it takes 21 days to create a new habit  however, newer studies report that it is more like 60 days.  Either way I say reward yourself!  Setting a reward can help provide motivation to keep you going after the excitement wears off.
  

When doing this research, I was excited to realize that in just one year, I could make (or break) dozens of habits.  This concept sounds very doable and I think it could be life changing for me. -metoday

I will push you onward or drag you down...

I must admit... I feel best when my actions match my intentions. I am determined to be the person I hoped to be. -JM

Who am I? 

I am your constant companion,
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am at your command.

Half of the tasks that you do,
you might just as well turn over to me
and I will do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed,
but you must be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done;
after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great people
and alas of all failures as well.
Those who are great I have made great,
those who are failures I have made failures.

I am not a machine,
but I work with all the precision of a machine,
plus the intelligence of a person.

Now you may run me for profit or
you may run me for ruin.
It makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me,
and I will lay the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I? I am called Habit.

- Author Unknown

I found this poem on the web at www.inspirational-e-quotes.com

"Habit" according to Wikipedia

"Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously, without one being conscious about them. Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habituation is an extremely simple form of learning, in which an organism, after a period of exposure to a stimulus, stops responding to that stimulus in varied manners. Habits are sometimes compulsory." Wikipedia

I have realized .....

I have realized that am a bundle of habits. So much of what makes me me, are those thing I do with out having to think about it. Some habits make my life better like brushing my teeth everyday, others like interrupting or eating when I feel stressed get in the way of who I want to be.