Personal Health Behavior Change Project Plan PDF

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Personal Health Behavior Change Project Plan

1. When and where will you do the behavior? I chose the behavior of getting 7-9 hours of sleep every night. For me, this could also be stated as I am choosing to increase my hours of sleep each night. I think the more obvious answer to the question of where I will do the behavior is in my bed. Fortunately, I am blessed to have comfortable warm bed to sleep in. From a different perspective though, the behavior doesn’t just start and end in my bed. It starts in the morning when I wake up and includes how many tasks and assignments I can get done throughout the day. I include those things as part of the behavior because they are all connected. If I don’t accomplish much in the day, I feel the need to stay up late and finish things rather than get to bed early. So it becomes a bit of a cycle of getting behind on tasks and falling behind in my sleep. So I will be preparing throughout the day to get to bed on time. That brings us to the when of this behavior. In order for me to get 7-9 hours of sleep each night, I will have to go to bed between 10pm-12am. I plan to wake up at about 7am each morning in order to be prepared for the day and get to my classes on time. Ideally, my goal is to be in bed between 10pm and 10:30pm so I can get above 8 hours of sleep. 2. When will you record your behavior? I will record my behavior each morning before I leave for the day. This accountability of recording what time I go to bed makes me want to go to bed early because it feels good to report when you do something good. It isn’t fun to feel like you failed and report a late bed time. So hopefully that good report in the morning will inspire me to want to do it again that night and the next day and so on. 3. Who will you do this behavior with or will you do it alone? I will be doing this behavior with my wife, Rachael. Not only because we will literally be sleeping in the same bed,

but she wants to join me in getting to bed early. She is pregnant and so she recognizes that she really needs to start getting some good sleep not only for herself but for our baby. It is possible that we could have our baby in the span of this 6-week activity, so just a heads up if we do, there may be a series of poor results. I think by doing this together, we will be able to motivate and remind each other to get to bed. 4. How will you measure the behavior? I will be using an excel sheet to measure my behavior. I will record the times I go to bed and the times I wake up in the morning. I will also have a space to enter in what may have distracted me that day or what helped me get to bed on time. I also want to record the last time of that day I used electronics and compare it to how I feel the next day. 5. How will you overcome the obstacles identified in your proposal? One of the obstacles I identified is time management. Poor use of my time throughout the day leads to me staying up late and thus getting little sleep. I think the accountability of this activity will remind me throughout the day that I want to go to bed early. If I can remember that in a moment of distraction, it can help me refocus my attention. This goal also helps me prioritize. If there is something that will help me get to bed early, like homework for example, it worth spending time on it. As far as the NBA Playoffs go, well that is really hard. I will try not to stay up watching them. It helps that we don’t have a TV so unless we go over to my parents’ house, I have no way to really watch them. Also, having this goal will help me keep better track of time so I don’t find myself up into the wee hours of the night thinking it is only 8 o’clock. Plus, I will set an alarm for 9:30pm each night as a cue for me to start winding down and getting ready to get ready for bed....