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Can CBT make healthy habits stick? Whether you want to sleep better or get more exercise, the solution may be all in your head Written by SYDNEY LONEY Illustration by VÉRONIQUE BUIST
s the pandemic tested our mental health, it also pre- and sleep are what Amaria calls “the trifecta of self-care,” and vented us from visiting the very professionals who CBT can help you establish better habits around all three. might have mitigated that strain. Small wonder that A first step toward better habit building is to set goals, says tech has stepped in: In 2021, it was estimated Dr. Randy Paterson, a psychologist in Vancouver that there were somewhere between 10,000 and author of How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies and 20,000 mental-health-related apps on You Already Use. He recommends setting ultiTHREE APPS TO the market. Many of those apps use cognitive mate goals (exercising three times a week for BUILD BETTER behavioural therapy to tackle everything from one hour) and immediate goals (what’s actuHABITS anxiety to insomnia—but CBT, in app form or ally going to happen this week—like walking Streaks otherwise, can likely do even more. once around the block). “You think, ‘Of course A to-do list that helps The underlying principle of CBT is that thoughts, I can do that,’ and then you gradually ramp it you track up to 24 goals feelings and behaviour are all connected, and up,” says Paterson. Hitting these manageable and tasks each day, when you change one, you can change the othincrements essentially tricks your brain into whether it’s not smoking ers. “If you look at your running shoes and think, reaching your ultimate goal. or eating more veggies. ‘Well, these were a waste of money,’ it makes you Another way to use what he calls “self-directed feel bad about yourself and skip the gym,” says CBT” is to monitor what you’re doing in the area Calm This award-winning app Dr. Khush Amaria, a psychologist and senior clinwhere you want to build healthier habits. For incan help you develop ical director at MindBeacon in Toronto. “Instead, stance, rate the quality of your sleep from zero to healthy sleep habits, when you look at your shoes, think, ‘The last time 10 for a week to get a sense of what’s going on. reduce stress or learn I felt like this but still made it to the gym, I felt bet“Habit change is a journey from an origin to a desto meditate. ter afterward.’” A little positive reinforcement can tination, which means you have to know what the make a big difference. origin is,” says Paterson. Next, pick the healthy Ate Food Diary Psychologists have used CBT to treat mental habit you’re going to adopt, whether it’s sticking to Build healthier health issues for 50 years, and much of that treata standard bedtime, looking at a book instead of food habits through ment is based on developing healthier habits. “Its your phone or investing in a white noise machine. mindfulness (without use as a stand-alone treatment for things like exerIn the end, it’s not about getting rid of bad habits, counting calories or restricting foods). cise is more recent,” says Amaria, “but the connecadds Amaria, but building new, better ones. And, tion has always been there.” Exercise, nutrition as luck would have it, there’s an app for that.
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