The health behavior I would like to change is to reduce my caffeine consumption. I want to change this behavior because it has negative impacts on the quality of life I have, and it causes some gastrointestinal distress for me. Because of my bad habit, I could not have a proper sleep, my acid reflux has gotten worse, I feel lethargic, and I have gained weight. With my goal, it will enhance my sleep quality, increase the duration of my sleep, better concentration, less acid reflux attacks, and alleviate my anxiety. Reducing my caffeine consumption and by practicing good health habits will help me tremendously towards my physical and mental health.
To keep track with my new healthy habit I have started a one-week track on my journal starting 10/29 until 11/04. The first day, I did not have any problems because I was able to fight my urges to drink some caffeinated drinks including soda. My self-efficacy will be 6/10 I know I am confident enough that I will not drink any caffeinated drinks however, I am a bit worried in some days that I will just give in. Urges only happened twice during the day: Morning where my friend and I went to a coffee shop to study and I bought hot chocolate instead of coffee.
During dinner where my whole family was drinking soda, but instead, I ordered pineapple juice. I use the self- acceptance strategy where I know I wanted to drink soda, but I told myself “It may be disappointing, but it’s for the better of my health and I need to make these changes”. For the rest of the day felt good, I am more focused, my concentration is increased, and I went to bed early. For my second day, I must buy coffee because I feel dreadfully tired because I have to wake up at five in the morning, and I know that coffee will keep me up for the rest of the day and will help me change my mood. I will still consider this as a success because despite me drinking coffee I limited myself to only one caffeine drink. The temptations are there: tiredness, feel of lethargic, unmotivated, but one motivation that kept me from drinking caffeine drinks is I don’t want to pay another $700 for a hospital bill.
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Concluding my 2nd day I feel 8/10 success and 9/10 confidence. For the 3rd day, October 31, my unhealthy behavior resurfaces again and I bought coffee in the morning and energy drink at night. One of the predictors I have is my school responsibilities and school work. Because I procrastinated, I feel so obligated to punish myself by staying up to catch up with my papers, tests, and other school works. Due to procrastination and poor time management, I gave in to my temptation because I know I will need caffeine, so I can pull an all-nighter. Surprisingly I feel more stressed and more anxious the whole day. To conclude my 3rd day my success would be 2/10 and my confidence towards my goal is 5/10. For the 4th day, November 01, I did not have any sleep because I was so busy catching up with my school work. There are plenty of barriers this day: my lack of sleep, I am depressed, and tiredness.
Once again I gave up into my temptation and bought a strong energy drink to keep me up and alert. During the afternoon I decided to get a cup of coffee because it was getting harder to stay up and pay attention during my classes. This day is a big failure because I fail to comply into the changes I have set to myself. One big surprise that came up to me was it was very dangerous to not sleep and drink energy drink because no matter how much caffeine I have in my system I was falling asleep while I was driving, and I almost got into an accident. My success this day will be 1/10 and my confidence went down to 4/10.
During my 5th day, November 02, I did not do any unhealthy behavior because I use the reduce exposure to triggers strategy where if I stay at home, I am less likely to get caffeinated drinks. This good behavior continued until the 7th day and the only barrier I experienced in situations where I want to drink like everyone else I just shift my feelings of deprivation to a feeling of pride for making a healthy decision. Motivation stays the same where I want to be healthy and avoid paying expensive hospital bills. One thing that I have learned from this is I don’t necessarily depend on caffeine as much in the past, however, it made me realize without it I feel low and depressed especially on my busy days.
With one week of tracking I have added some strategies such as: how I deal with my emotions in a productive way with coping strategy where I keep myself busy, out of sight- out of mind, and acceptance strategy where I crave caffeine badly, but I just tell that it is bad for me and my choice of not purchasing caffeine is for the better of my health and lifestyle. There are the barriers that I anticipated like tiredness, mood, and peers, but I just used acceptance strategies, practiced being assertive and coping strategies to avoid going back into my bad habit.
Overall my goal was met, I have reduced my caffeine consumption, I feel better mentally and physically. It takes a little step to make changes and that is why I am still in the preparation stage of TTM, however, I have a medium confidence about myself that I can change my bad habits into good ones. My goal for this paper was met because I was able to utilize different strategies to reduce or avoid caffeinated products and I believe changing my behavior is for a better and healthier life.
