Visualise as Your First Step To Health
August 4, 2008. Want to go to the gym but never even set off? The best first
step might be to close your eyes and imagine yourself on the journey.
A new study, published today (4 August 2008) in the British Journal of
Health Psychology, found that people who visualised themselves going
through the actions involved in a specific health behaviour were then more
likely to intend to carry out the behaviour.
In the first study of its kind, Christopher Armitage from the University of
Sheffield and John Reidy from Sheffield Hallam University, looked at the
effects of mental simulation on subsequent intentions, in this case, the
intention to give blood. They found that people who were asked to visualise
themselves going through the actions involved in giving blood - making an
appointment, taking the route, preparing to donate - were subsequently more
likely to intend to donate blood than people who did not do this
visualisation, or only visualised the outcome.
Christopher Armitage said: 'Once people have a specific and fixed intention
like going to a fitness class, or eating a healthy breakfast, then they're
really likely to go through with it, so finding a way to help people to
change or fix their intentions is a vital step in improving their health
behaviour.
'There is evidence that shows that mental simulation may link thought and
action. Our study suggests that closing your eyes and imagining the process
you would go through to give blood, or carry out another health behaviour
could take you one step closer to actually doing it.
'Each of the 146 participants in the study directed their own two minute
long mental simulation after brief instructions, which also suggests that
this process may be a quick way that people can successfully alter their own
intentions and health behaviour,' Christopher Armitage concludes.
The British Psychological Society
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