Form a healthy habit | Health Coaching app

Sleep is crucial for optimal health [108] and takes about one third from our time. It affects mental and physical well-being, immune system, hormones, energy levels. When you sleep less than 7 hours a night, you impair your ability to perform daily tasks [81]. Sleeping more than 9 hours a day or less than 6 hours a day increases your risk of cardiovascular disease and related disorders [35]. Better quality sleep on the other side is linked to a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes [36]. Chronic sleep deprivation also has a cumulative effect on mental and physical health and increases your risk of getting chronic diseases [81]. Getting the right amount of sleep is one of the most important qualities for long term health and well-being. Getting a good night's sleep could not be emphasized enough!
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How to form a habit

The goal of Habinator is to be the best health app to teach people how to develop long-lasting healthy habits. The scientific research on behavioral change has given us knowledge about the most important steps to create a habit. Reaching your goals is about repeating daily tasks and developing routines that are repeated often -- daily habits.

It is common knowledge that we should eat healthy and avoid a sedentary lifestyle, so why not just change?

Living a healthy lifestyle is a choice that takes commitment like investing your and learning new things. Functional medicine and lifestyle medicine cure chronic diseases (lifestyle diseases) and help patients reach optimal wellness by introducing lifestyle changes to a patient's life. It's all about habits, little chores, and the choices we make daily.

The best way to get started living the life you want is to install the app and search for the goal: Sleep Restful. The next step is to take advantage of your initial motivation and make immediate action towards your goal! The most important and challenging thing is to get started. If you are able to achieve that, you will have completed step one in achieving your goal!

Below we list some reasons to motivate you and to demonstrate the importance of living a healthy life. Some include references to research in order to make sure the facts are proven by science. You can also find the research papers in the research section.

Benefits and Rewards

We already know the benefits of small lifestyle changes are endless and the evidence is still growing! Here are some of the impacts that reaching the goal Sleep Restful can have on your life.
  • I feel relaxed and full of energy the next day

  • My hormones are in balance, which impacts all areas of my body

  • My body and brain have recovered

  • I have more attention and focus

  • My memory works better

  • I have a better mood

  • I can learn more things and faster

Create a clear plan

The app will help you achieve your goal by providing you with a predefined, customizable plan to successfully form a habit of Sleep Restful. We call each step a "Tasks" (although, some might call them milestones, mini habits, micro habits, tiny habits, tasks, exercises, or just ideas). These are suggestions to give you the information you need and create a step-by-step plan.

You should remove any Task that doesn't suit you or your situation. You know what is best for you! 😊

Research has have shown that habit development is not an easy task and everyone needs to find out what works best for them when developing long-lasting behavioral change.

When you install the Habinator Life and Health Coach, you will get an initial plan for Sleep Restful that includes suggested Tasks. Following the plan, you are able to get closer to your final goal every time you accomplish each step. But remember, the Habinator habit tracker is just a mobile app -- a helper tool -- to guide you to reach your goals. If you decide to follow the plan you will get closer to achieving your final goal after each step. Remember, the Habinator Health Coach is just a mobile app -- a helper tool -- to guide you in reaching your goals. Even if it's the best health app... it's just an app, YOU will need to put in the hard work!

Tasks

  1. Introduction to restful sleep
  2. Cut caffeine in the evening
  3. Darken the bedroom
  4. Keep consistent sleep schedule
  5. Avoid alcohol
  6. Hide the clock
  7. Invest in sleep
  8. Write worries down
  9. Eat lightly
  10. No bright lights
  11. Eliminate noise
  12. Dedicate bed to sleep
  13. Remember my reasons
  14. Go to bed early
  15. Sleep naked
  16. Lower bedroom temperature
  17. Avoid risky situations
  18. Avoid spicy foods
  19. Ventilate the bedroom
  20. Avoid taking naps
  21. Reduce stress
  22. Get sunlight
  23. Take a warm shower
  24. Avoid nicotine
  25. Practice gratitude
  26. Reduce sugar
  27. Consider sleep aid
  28. Exclude sleep apnea
  29. Exercise
Don't worry if you don't understand all the steps. The app will coach you every step of the way.

Why we fail with habit change?

When developing a habit there are proven strategies and models like The Fogg Behavioral Model helps us understand the steps to follow and what to avoid. But, sometimes even taking the smallest step towards your goal seems overwhelming.

The common obstacles most of us face are lack of energy and/or motivation, bad mood, or just being busy and forgetting.

Here are some obstacles you might face on your journey with Sleep Restful.

Acknowledge what makes it challenging to show up, and then prepare well. Only then will you be on your way to conquering these setbacks:

How to succeed

The basic rule is that success breeds success -- at least in habit development. Set your daily goal so low that there is no way you can fail. Start small and succeed. After a week or so, after you have gotten used to getting started then and you can raise the stakes -- to make it more challenging for yourself.

The second important thing is to be prepared. That is what psychologists and therapists do: They coach the client to cope with a situation when it arrives. The setbacks and tough moments will come, but the question is: Are you prepared to handle those?

To successfully achieve meaningful lifestyle changes one should look to the future. What do you want to achieve in the long run? One failure does not break a habit. Usually we know exactly what to do, but we don't do it. This is called the intention–behavior gap. It happens when we don't go through with the things we want like weight loss or saving money; we know what we should do, but we don't do it.

That is why this coaching app exists. It teaches you how to execute your plan and achieve your goals. And most importantly you learn about yourself and how you behave!

Sometimes you lack the motivation, have no energy, or are in a bad mood. When this happens, you will already have a plan in place so that all you’ll need is a simple "nudge" to get started.

Reasons for change

Sleep Restful is proven to improve health in the long term and increase well-being. Here are some of the reasons why to get started and make it a habit.
  • Too little sleep increases the risk of obesity [34]

  • Too much or too little sleep is associated with death from coronary heart disease [35]

  • The quantity and quality of sleep predicts the risk of developing of type 2 diabetes [37]

  • I need at least 7 hours of sleep to perform optimally

  • Sleep deprivation drops down attention and impacts negatively on cognitive performance [s75]

  • Sleep deprivation affects mood [s75]

  • Low quality sleep affects mood, focus, attention, and memory and therefore the capacity to learn gets reduced

  • Poor sleep is associated with impairments in motivation, emotion, and cognitive functioning as well as increased risk for serious medical conditions (e.g. diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer) [102]

  • Sleep quality negatively relates to procrastination and productivity [s110]

Replace a habit or make it stick

You should bind the goal or the repeatable task to an existing habit -- another already established daily routine.

Another way to integrate a new behavior into your life is to replace an old habit with a new one. It will be more challenging because you are getting completely rid of a current habit, but it will be the best for you in the long run. The gap needs to be filled.

Don't forget to you learn how to create routines.

What habits are suitable for you to reach your final goal?

Making health habitual

It's no longer a secret that you can prevent, treat, and cure chronic diseases. It's all about making healthy choices that will improve your quality of life. Even if you don't immediately notice the changes, know that they are happening. If you want lasting results, you will need to be more patient with the process.

Sleep Restful is just one of hundreds of habits that keep the body healthy. Maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, avoiding excessive stress and alcohol, getting enough sleep, staying physically active, and eating a healthy diet are all important factors, and all contribute to the energy levels that enable you to enjoy life. You can create a complete lifestyle medicine plan and begin developing habits that fit your needs.

Understand the big picture: A healthy lifestyle is about lasting change. Successful weight loss is not about short-term dieting and restrictive eating, although this is why most fad diets fail.

Improved health is about better daily choices combined with long-term behavior change -- it's about your daily habits.

Routines are the key to success

We all have our own daily routines and changing them is hard.

Below you will find a few habits that every one of us can do, but usually don't. All of them have an impact on our hormones, energy, focus, health, and how you will feel the next day.

  • Drink water
  • Sleep eight hours
  • Keep moving

All of them help to burn calories and lose weight. All of them help improve the skin's quality and prevent diseases. All of them are relatively easy to repeat daily. Many people have figured out ways to integrate the routines into their lives and you can too!

If you hire a coach or get an app now, you can change your routines in the coming weeks and begin to see results in the next couple of months. There are hundreds of habits in the app and most of them are so easy to do that you can begin immediately. You don't even need a coach, the app will provide you with instructions to get started.

First, decide what you want and then get busy achieving it. The life you want starts with positive daily routines.

Book a health coach

Developing healthy habits is a challenge. The Habinator platform supports habit formation by implementing all the science-based tools to support the behavior change process: The Habinator Health Coach mobile app and the Coaching Platform for professional coaches.

Installing the app gives you access to the Habinator behavior change platform, where you can book a health coach specializing in longevity, nutrition, performance, physical and mental health, stress and wellness.

You can find a coach that fits your needs. The remote coaching platform that the coaches use is integrated into the Health Coach app. A human health coach, remote coaching tool, and mobile app are the best combination to support a healthy lifestyle. After booking a coach, you can work with the health coach to develop a lifestyle change plan based on lifestyle medicine for your personalized treatment plan.