1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,080
Speaker 1: Oh hello, welcome to healthy Ish and a happy new year.

2
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:06,000
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on the podcast from Body

3
00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:08,280
Speaker 1: and Soul. I am your host, Felicity Halle. Yes, the

4
00:00:08,280 --> 00:00:11,720
Speaker 1: healthy Ish team is ooo out of office. So to

5
00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:14,680
Speaker 1: celebrate the new year, we're dropping our top Healthish episodes

6
00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:18,040
Speaker 1: from last year. Now, this one we did drop a

7
00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:20,520
Speaker 1: long time ago, well, the beginning of last year. And

8
00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:23,360
Speaker 1: here's the scenario. You've got two people, same health goal,

9
00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:26,200
Speaker 1: so why does one hit it and the other doesn't? Well,

10
00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:30,480
Speaker 1: joining me was doctor Amantha Imba to tell us why.

11
00:00:30,520 --> 00:00:35,080
Speaker 1: The organizational psychologist, author and podcaster joined us from Melbourne

12
00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:38,160
Speaker 1: now listening to our sister podcast Extra healthy Ish, where

13
00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:40,960
Speaker 1: she talked about how to make health habits a little

14
00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:43,400
Speaker 1: bit easier, perfect for this time of year. You can

15
00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:57,960
Speaker 1: grab that one where we get your podcasts now the

16
00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:03,640
Speaker 1: perfect book to kickstart and year making habits stick. Before

17
00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:06,360
Speaker 1: we get to that, talk us through how habits work,

18
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:09,360
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on with us in our brains.

19
00:01:09,959 --> 00:01:11,160
Speaker 2: Well, it's pretty simple.

20
00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:14,479
Speaker 3: I mean, a habit is simply where a behavior becomes automatic.

21
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:18,120
Speaker 3: But why it becomes automatic is the easiest way to

22
00:01:18,160 --> 00:01:18,840
Speaker 3: think about it is.

23
00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:21,120
Speaker 2: There's some kind of a queue or a trigger in

24
00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:21,920
Speaker 2: your environment.

25
00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:24,839
Speaker 3: Like let's just say you're in the middle of a workday,

26
00:01:24,959 --> 00:01:28,120
Speaker 3: it's got to three o'clock and you're starting to feel

27
00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:30,000
Speaker 3: that three o'clock slump of energy.

28
00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:32,399
Speaker 2: So that might be the trigger out for the habit

29
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:32,840
Speaker 2: for me.

30
00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,240
Speaker 3: Then there is the behavior, or is some people say,

31
00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:40,640
Speaker 3: there's a craving for the behavior, and then the response

32
00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,520
Speaker 3: to the craving, which might be reaching for.

33
00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:45,120
Speaker 2: The chocolate at three o'clock.

34
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,320
Speaker 3: And the reason why that becomes a habit is because

35
00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 3: there's a reward for doing that behavior, and in the

36
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:54,800
Speaker 3: case of chocolate, the reward is about a twenty minute

37
00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:57,560
Speaker 3: boost of energy, and then of course youre slump again.

38
00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:00,520
Speaker 3: But we don't think about that when we're feeling really

39
00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:02,080
Speaker 3: exhausted in the middle of the afternoon.

40
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:07,720
Speaker 1: No, So, in terms of New Year health goals, you've

41
00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:09,480
Speaker 1: got two different people. I mean, let's say me and

42
00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:12,640
Speaker 1: you we've got the same health goal. Let's carry on

43
00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:15,200
Speaker 1: with that great example of three pm reaching for the chocolate,

44
00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:17,000
Speaker 1: which happens to be me, although I'm not chocolate and

45
00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:19,280
Speaker 1: I'm more sugar. You know, you kind of get that deep,

46
00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:22,560
Speaker 1: don't you. I want some sugar. We have this health

47
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:24,600
Speaker 1: goal that we want to achieve. Stop eating so much

48
00:02:24,639 --> 00:02:29,640
Speaker 1: sugar at three pm. You achieve it. I don't what's

49
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:30,440
Speaker 1: going on here?

50
00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:33,359
Speaker 2: Well, this is the thing because there are a lot

51
00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:35,160
Speaker 2: of books about.

52
00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:39,120
Speaker 3: Habit change and the kind of assume that there's this

53
00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:43,120
Speaker 3: formula to change a habit. But what I discovered when

54
00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:45,560
Speaker 3: I was doing my research for the health habit is

55
00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:49,919
Speaker 3: that there are actually four different barriers that can get

56
00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:52,880
Speaker 3: in the way of when we're trying to change a

57
00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:56,200
Speaker 3: habit or form something new. And one of the things

58
00:02:56,200 --> 00:02:59,080
Speaker 3: that happened to me when I was going through the

59
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:01,919
Speaker 3: Melbourne lockdown, which were I think. I think we took

60
00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:03,360
Speaker 3: the prize for worst in the world.

61
00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:08,000
Speaker 2: We I think. So I had a.

62
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,240
Speaker 3: Couple of friends and they were both trying to adopt

63
00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:15,760
Speaker 3: a new healthy habit of walking walking for an hour

64
00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 3: a day. And you know that that seemed pretty realistic

65
00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:23,079
Speaker 3: and achievable as a goal given that as Melbourne and

66
00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:30,520
Speaker 3: we were allowed outside for one hour a day. I thinks, right, exactly, yes,

67
00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:33,559
Speaker 3: but within our five k radius, So you know, achievable.

68
00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:37,320
Speaker 3: And you know, both of my friends they started off strong,

69
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:40,520
Speaker 3: like in that first week they both walked for one

70
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,840
Speaker 3: hour a day, every single day. But then in the

71
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,320
Speaker 3: second week they both began to encounter problems where their

72
00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:51,360
Speaker 3: habit basically got broken. So, for one of my friends,

73
00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:55,040
Speaker 3: what happened is that a major project hit at work

74
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:58,600
Speaker 3: and she had timed her walk for something that she

75
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:00,920
Speaker 3: did in the evening at about six or seven o'clock.

76
00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:03,240
Speaker 3: But what was happening in her life is that she

77
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:06,120
Speaker 3: was she was on Zoom meetings all day and then

78
00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:08,840
Speaker 3: by the time six or seven o'clock was coming around,

79
00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 3: she was still working and trying to feed the family,

80
00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,920
Speaker 3: and the walk just went by the wayside. Then I

81
00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:19,240
Speaker 3: had another friend who was also doing this walk, and

82
00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:21,279
Speaker 3: she had decided to do her walk in the morning.

83
00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,200
Speaker 3: But what happened with her is that in the second week,

84
00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:28,120
Speaker 3: her partner was getting a bit aggravated at her because

85
00:04:28,279 --> 00:04:31,120
Speaker 3: she would wake up early for her walk, but in

86
00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:33,560
Speaker 3: the process of getting ready for the walk, she would

87
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:35,080
Speaker 3: also inadvertently wake.

88
00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:39,920
Speaker 2: Up her partners. Yes, yeah, so he got grumpy and

89
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 2: the walks stopped. And you know, when you're locked down

90
00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:47,000
Speaker 2: with someone, you kind of want to keep the peace.

91
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:51,320
Speaker 3: So very like the same habit, but very different reasons

92
00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 3: as to why they stopped. One stopped really because of

93
00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:58,400
Speaker 3: like complete exhaustion, and the other stopped because of the

94
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:01,120
Speaker 3: social relationships in her environment.

95
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:08,279
Speaker 1: So what were the how did they then? How would

96
00:05:08,279 --> 00:05:10,880
Speaker 1: they work with that and make it more okay? So

97
00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:13,640
Speaker 1: that is obviously the barrier right to the habit. How

98
00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:17,440
Speaker 1: do we overcome this? How do different barriers? How do

99
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:19,560
Speaker 1: we identify our barriers and then overcome it?

100
00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:23,919
Speaker 3: So firstly, it's a matter of identifying which of the

101
00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:28,040
Speaker 3: four main barriers or habit hijackers as I refer to them,

102
00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:28,960
Speaker 3: is going on.

103
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:30,480
Speaker 2: So there are four types.

104
00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:34,120
Speaker 3: One is motivational, where we kind of feel like we

105
00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:37,400
Speaker 3: should do something, but we don't want to do something,

106
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:38,800
Speaker 3: like we know it's good for us, but we're not

107
00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:39,919
Speaker 3: really feeling that pull.

108
00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:43,360
Speaker 2: The second hijacker is relational.

109
00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:46,000
Speaker 3: How I described in that story, the partner of the

110
00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:48,880
Speaker 3: person that was trying to form this habit, it just

111
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,359
Speaker 3: wasn't working well in the relationships in her life and

112
00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,840
Speaker 3: that's why it inevitably stopped. Then there are environmental hijackers,

113
00:05:55,839 --> 00:05:58,400
Speaker 3: where something in our environment is making it really hard

114
00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:00,599
Speaker 3: to change a habit, Like if we're trying to eat

115
00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:05,560
Speaker 3: less chocolate, for example, but our pantry is full of chocolatey.

116
00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:08,880
Speaker 2: Goodness or not goodness. In the case of chocolate, it's

117
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:09,480
Speaker 2: going to be hard.

118
00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:14,000
Speaker 3: And the fourth hijacker is cognitive hijackers, where we're just

119
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:18,520
Speaker 3: feeling so tired and exhausted it becomes really hard to

120
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:21,960
Speaker 3: have any mental reserves to have the energy to create

121
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,920
Speaker 3: a change. So we need to identify that hijacker. And

122
00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:28,880
Speaker 3: then in the book, I talk about different habit heroes

123
00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:32,080
Speaker 3: that you can apply depending on your specific barrier.

124
00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:35,239
Speaker 2: And really what it is is it's like changing a habit.

125
00:06:35,279 --> 00:06:36,840
Speaker 2: It's not a one size fits all thing.

126
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 3: It's about identifying this is my barrier and so for

127
00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:42,440
Speaker 3: therefore this is how I need to change it. So

128
00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:44,760
Speaker 3: in the case of motivational, we need to make the

129
00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:47,359
Speaker 3: habit desirable something that we want to do. In the

130
00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:49,440
Speaker 3: case of relation or we need to make it social,

131
00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 3: you know, engage to people around us to.

132
00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:54,239
Speaker 1: Help us make that out of the bed and then okay,

133
00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:55,479
Speaker 1: let's go together and walk.

134
00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:58,039
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah.

135
00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:00,480
Speaker 3: In the case of environmental things, we want toe our

136
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:04,440
Speaker 3: physical environment so that it's just natural to perform the habit.

137
00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:07,200
Speaker 3: And in the case of cognitive barriers, like my friend

138
00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:09,840
Speaker 3: that was overworked, we just need to make it easy

139
00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:11,080
Speaker 3: to engage in that habit.

140
00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:14,040
Speaker 1: So do you have a habit that you're hoping to

141
00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 1: implement this year and how are you going to stick

142
00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:17,680
Speaker 1: to it?

143
00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:20,000
Speaker 2: I do, I do.

144
00:07:20,280 --> 00:07:24,000
Speaker 3: So something I learned when I was researching the book

145
00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:28,160
Speaker 3: is the importance of probiotics. And when we think of probiotics,

146
00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:30,040
Speaker 3: we think of going to the chemist, and we think

147
00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:34,240
Speaker 3: of that special exclusive fridge that sits behind the desk

148
00:07:34,360 --> 00:07:37,600
Speaker 3: and getting some really expensive tablets that are apparently going

149
00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:41,880
Speaker 3: to transform our gut But when I interviewed professor Tim Specter,

150
00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:46,720
Speaker 3: who's at King's College London, he's amazing, so he's one

151
00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:49,760
Speaker 3: of the world's experts on gut health. And when I

152
00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:53,040
Speaker 3: interviewed him, he said, eat your probiotics.

153
00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:54,880
Speaker 2: I thought, what is it? What does he mean like

154
00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:56,600
Speaker 2: crush up the tablets and.

155
00:07:56,560 --> 00:08:00,400
Speaker 3: He said, no, fermented foods. If you can eat small

156
00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:03,880
Speaker 3: amounts of fermented foods throughout your day, So this might

157
00:08:03,880 --> 00:08:09,560
Speaker 3: be things like yogurt or kefer or fermented vegetables or kimchi,

158
00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:12,680
Speaker 3: that is going to do wonders for your gut health.

159
00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:15,480
Speaker 3: So for me, I don't have many of those things

160
00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:18,520
Speaker 3: in my diet, but one of the things that I'm

161
00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,200
Speaker 3: trying to do this year is to regularly have fermented

162
00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:25,200
Speaker 3: foods in my diet. So that is a habit that

163
00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:26,320
Speaker 3: I am trying to change.

164
00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:28,760
Speaker 1: Oh, good luck with that. Well, we'll check in perhaps

165
00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:30,480
Speaker 1: in a couple of months and see how you're going

166
00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:33,599
Speaker 1: me that. Thank you for coming on healthy Ish thgs.

167
00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:38,080
Speaker 1: Amantha's new book is called The Health Habit and it

168
00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:42,200
Speaker 1: is out now, perfect for January reading. If you did

169
00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:44,360
Speaker 1: enjoy this chat, make sure you rate and review it

170
00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 1: or New Year's resolution. You must subscribe to this a

171
00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: podcast or share it with a friend. For more info,

172
00:08:50,880 --> 00:08:52,440
Speaker 1: head to body and sooul dot com dot you follow

173
00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:54,319
Speaker 1: us on socials. Grab our print edition, which is out

174
00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:57,240
Speaker 1: in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrowtay healthy Ish