Forming a Physical Activity Habit
Date: July 26, 2022
Scientists in the fields of psychology and neuroscience agree that behaviours are a result of both conscious and non-conscious processes1,2. We know that someone’s intention to be physically active (a conscious process) doesn’t fully predict their resulting behaviour and therefore it is presumable that non-conscious processes, like a physical activity habit and/or physical activity identity, can help to explain the missing piece3. Non-conscious processes can also contribute to preserving time that may have been allocated to self-regulatory strategies, such as planning and self-monitoring. In this blog, we will dive a bit deeper into what exactly a physical activity habit is.
Monitoring Your Progress Part 2
Date: February 14, 2022
Moving right along to our second blog of feedback and monitoring! In our last blog post, we talked a bit about self-regulation and two strategies to enhance our self-control and the likelihood of meeting our physical activity goals. In this blog post, as previously mentioned, we will describe the proceeding two strategies.
Monitoring Your Progress Part 1
Date: December 6, 2021
As promised, today we will be discussing the importance of reflecting on and assessing your progress towards your physical activity goals. Basically, now that you have a plan and have started executing your plan, after a period of time you will want to check in with yourself to see how that plan is going. This process is known as self-regulation, which is broadly defined as taking action in moving towards a goal and monitoring your progress along the way1. Monitoring your progress is one of the most important strategies you can perform to stay on course2.
Want to be a Master Planner?
Date: December 9, 2019
Hey hard worker! If you’ve been following along on the M-PAC journey, you know that we’ve entered what we like to call the “endeavour” layer, which is all about doing the hard work to translate our intentions into behaviours. Ideally you’ve set a goal and now you want to start working towards that goal. One way to endeavour is to actively plan for how you will incorporate your target behaviour. Today we will get into the nitty-gritty about how to do so!
How to Set Stellar Goals
Date: November 5, 2019
Have you officially decided you’re going to try to get more active? Congrats! Now that you’ve formed an intention, you can start getting strategic about how to incorporate more physical activity. The next series of posts are going to be dedicated to helping you form a kind of “toolkit”. We’re going to provide tangible and tactical advice to support you as you take charge of your physical activity behaviour.
The Importance of Social Support for Physical Activity
Date: July 12, 2019
How do our social lives impact our health? While we all have an innate need to belong and social interaction is no doubt a necessity, it can also have complex consequences. I think we can all agree that those we surround ourselves with greatly influence what we do and how we act. I for one recognize that those around me affect what I eat, how much I move, and also how much I sit. In other words, the people in our lives impact our behaviours, both unhealthy and healthy. We will be focusing on the latter of course…
How to Create Opportunities for Physical Activity
Date: May 24, 2019
For this month’s topic, I immediately thought who better to seek advice from than our very own Alison Quinlan. She is a long-standing member of our research team and I can quite honestly say I can’t think of anyone who finds more ways to incorporate physical activity into their daily routine. While I’m sure her dedication to an active lifestyle is a combination of several factors, I truly believe she is a master at creating opportunities for physical activity. Below is an interview with the amazing and always inspiring Alison…
Don’t Forget the Fun! How to Foster Physical Activity Enjoyment
Date: May 6, 2019
Most of us know physical activity is good for us, yet few of us are engaging in enough of it. One of the reasons we are not always active is that we don’t necessarily enjoy physical activity. First off…it’s hard. It takes us out of our resting state and at our core we are creatures of comfort. Sure there are always some who crave a workout, but for the vast majority of people there are just other things we’d rather be doing. So unless we find physical activity somewhat enjoyable we may not necessarily translate our intentions into behaviours.
Mind the Intention-Behaviour Gap
Date: March 20, 2019
Did you have grand plans to make 2019 the year to embrace physical activity in a big way? Did you shortly thereafter fail to follow through on those shiny new positive intentions? Me too. Don’t be discouraged, as we are certainly not alone. In fact, research shows that about half of physical activity intenders fail to follow through and 2/3rds of intenders fail to follow through when starting a brand new exercise program*. It seems intentions alone are not sufficient to enact behaviour. This physical activity phenomenon has been termed the intention-behaviour gap.
How to Build your Confidence for Physical Activity
Date: Feb 19, 2019
Do you ever avoid something you’re terrible at? I’m going to venture a guess and assume you answered YES. We all have things we’re less than stellar at, and for the most part, we try to avoid doing these things. It’s human nature. It is also one of the most well-established foundations of social psychology*.
Why Physical Activity is Worth It
Date: January 23, 2019
It’s a new year! This January, do you feel like you should get more active? Perhaps you have even committed to a resolution to incorporate physical activity into your life. This would be unsurprising, as most of us understand that physical activity is “good” for us. However, just in case anyone is unclear, we’re kicking off this blog by touching on just how incredibly powerful and beneficial physical activity truly is, for both body and mind.
University of Victoria
Faculty of Education
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Victora, BC, V8W 3N3
Email: bml@uvic.ca