Change your health behaviour by reflecting on your values

Changing behaviour is not easy.  Often we fall into bad habits such as skipping exercise and eating unhealthy food.
For people at high risk of neglecting their health, often hearing messages about healthy eating and exercise falls on deaf ears, and instead can lead to a fear or avoidance response.  It's all too easy to think "I'll start tomorrow," no matter how often we hear about the benefits of healthy behaviours.

A new study by Falk et al. (2015) showed that focusing on values that are personally important to an individual can help people to then act on health advice which they previously perceived as threatening.

Participants were given typical advice about health behaviour like they would receive from a doctor, and underwent neurological scans.  Prior to receiving advice, half of the participants were lead through a self affirmation exercise where they reflected on what's important to them, such as work or family.  Those who did the self affirmations showed more behaviour change, in a follow up one month after the initial study.

The authors of the study state:

"Neural responses associated with self-related processing and value in response to an otherwise threatening health communication intervention can be changed using self affiramaton....

These findings suggest that affirmation of core values may exert its effects by allowing at-risk individuals to see the self-reference and value in otherwise-threatening messages."

So what does this mean for you?  Are you sitting on the fence of change?  Before you seek out information, why don't you think about your values around the change.  For example - you know exercise is a good thing, but just can't be bothered....why not think about what matters to you first.  Do you value looking after your family?  Think about how change may make you a better parent/sister/etc.  Would better health impact your value of looking after your family?

Think about your values - they might just help you to acheive some serious goals!!

Diary Free Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

Recently I've gone on a dairy and soy elimination diet - never did I realise it would be so hard!!  Diary and soy are in practically everything, even bread!!  I've been on the hunt for some diary and soy free recipes to satisfy my chocolate cravings - these Hazelnut Chocolate Biscotti sure are a winner!!  

They're the perfect treat to have with a morning coffee and were fairly easy to make too.  I think these will become part of my regular baking rotation!!  

 Because these babies are double baked, they can be stored in an airtight container for up to two weeks, and make a great gift.  They'll also be great to have on hand for when friends pop by for coffee!!


I modified the recipe based on this one, from taste.com.  Based on the original recipe, I also added in some coffee (because everything is better with coffee!) and doubled the original amount of cocoa to make them extra chocolatey!!

Ingredients

• 1 cup raw hazelnuts
• 1 and 2/3 cup plain flower
• 4 tablespoons dutch cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• Finely grated rind of 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon espresso coffee disolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water

Method 

Preheat oven to 200C. Roast nuts on an oven tray for 10 minutes or until golden and skins are flaking. Rub well in a clean tea towel to remove skins. Chop coarsely.

Sift flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl. Combine eggs, orange rind, coffee and nuts in a separate bowl. Gradually add egg mixture to dry ingredients, stirring to form a dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured surface. Knead briefly then halve. Shape into two 25cm-long logs. Place logs on a baking paper-lined oven tray. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Stand for 5 minutes.

Slice logs diagonally into 5mm-thick slices. Place slices on oven trays and return to oven for 10 minutes or until dry. Cool on a wire rack.

Early parental behaviours that can predict academic success decades later!

A new study by Raby et al (2014) has found that sensitive parenting, including responding to a child's signals quickly and appropriately during the first three years of their life can lead to increased academic performance and better outcomes, even into the child's 20's and 30's.

Researcher's observed parents and babies during the first three years of the babies' lives.  Following this, standardised academic tests were administered.  Results showed that the children who received sensitive parenting, showed increased academic performance.

This highlights the importance of interactions between parents and babies in the early years of their childhood!!

What's your parenting style?

Set goals, not resolutions!!

It's the new year which means new year's resolutions.  How many years have you found yourself setting resolution after resolution to lose weight, make more money, give up junk food etc, only to find that it's February and you haven't been to the gym in weeks, and have just eaten a chocolate brownie!!

Why is it that new year's resolutions don't work?  Simply put, they are often overly generalised or vague, and don't have the specificity and planning which is needed to help us succeed.

My advice - set goals (and make them good ones!!).

Here are some simple principles to put in to play which have been demonstrated to help people achieve their goals.

1)  Goals must be specific!!  Want to lose weight?  How much do you want to lose?  In what time frame do you want to achieve it?  How will you measure it?  
 Goals that are both specific and difficult lead to the highest performance (Locke, 1996).  Making a goal specific helps us direct our action clearly and makes us more likely to achieve a difficult goal.

2)  We need to be committed to our goals, particularly when they are difficult.  Our commitment to goals comes through our belief that the goal is important (Locke, 1996).  When setting your goals, reflect on how important you feel it is that you achieve it.  Did you set the goal yourself, or are you trying to please someone else?

3)  Self efficacy and our feeling of competence to achieve a goal fosters goal achievement.  Do you feel that you have the skills or abilities to achieve your goal?  If not, what will help you to feel more confident?  Do you need a mentor, or perhaps additional resources like materials or information.  The more empowered you feel, the more likely you are to achieve your goal!  

4)  Set implementation intentions.  Implementation intentions are the small situational cues we set in line with our goals, which prompt us to take action.  For example, your goal is to spend one hour each day studying.  Your implementation intentions may include the exact time you plan on studying (6pm each night), where you will do it (the desk in your room, with the TV off), the materials you need to do it (notepad, textbook, highlighters).  Setting implementation intentions has been shown to increase goal attainment on difficult tasks (Gollwitzer, 1999).

5)  Write it down and share it with others!!  You're much more likely to succeed if you put your goal in writing, and enlist the support of others by sharing it with them!!

I hope this has helped with a touch of motivation to start 2015!!  What are you goals for the new year?  

References

Gollwitzer, P.M.  (1999).  Implementation intentions:  Simple effects of simple plans.  American Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503 

Locke, E.  (1996).  Motivation through conscious goal setting.  Applied and Preventative Psychology, 5(2), 117-124  

Christmas Entertaining

Christmas time is officially here!!  As I get older I have become a sucker for Christmas time and absolutely love decorating the tree, shopping for presents and baking Christmas cookies.

Even though Dash is only 12 weeks old, Christmas time seems so much more magical now we've become a family!!

I wanted to order birth announcement cards for family and friends after Dashiel was born but had missed the boat.  I ordered these fantastic Christmas cards in a gift tag shape from Minted and thought they would make a wonderful substitute.

The wonderful photo of Dash was taken by Victoria Poulton Photography  

I've started an annual tradition with friends - baking cookies!!  This year, we did Vanilla Snap Cookies and Gingerbread Men.  The decorating is the fun part!!

Christmas Tree Decorations - Country Road

String Lights (wall) - Freedom

Gift Cards - Minted.com

Adjusting to Motherhood - Part Two

I still feel so lucky to have such a beautiful baby!  Although, for any new mum, adjusting to the pressures of looking after a newborn is not easy.  In part one of this post, I lamented over some of the challenges I've experienced so far.  I thought I'd quit my whining today and instead write about some of the things that have helped me to feel more in control again.

1)  Exercise - get out and about with the pram
One of the best things you can do for your mental health is a walk every day.  Now that you're attached at the hip to a small child, getting to the gym won't be so easy.  A walk with the pram is wonderful for breaking up the monotony of being house bound, clears the head, helps get bub to sleep and is great for fitness.

2)  Get out of the house every day
Being home all day is incredibly isolating, especially when previously easy tasks like tidying up or popping to the shops are so much more difficult.  I found that making an effort to go out somewhere every day makes a massive difference - whether it be a coffee or lunch with a friend or just going out for a hair appointment, doctor's appointment, trip to the shops or whatever....whilst it might take me a long time to get out the door, I feel so much better for doing so.

3)  Spend some time reconnecting with things you enjoy

I've made a conscious effort to try and do things like pick up my guitar, to try and bake something new and to get back into writing blog posts.  Some days it might take forever to do any one of those things but even 20 minutes of doing something you enjoy while baby is sleeping is truly wonderful.

4) Join a new mothers group

I've actually really enjoyed joining a mothers group - it's fantastic to be able to speak to mothers going through the same things at the same time and to ask all those poop related questions you're too embarrassed to discuss with your non-mother friends.  

5)  Accept that some days things will be out of your control

I think I really struggled with not being able to have control over my day.  There are those days where the baby does not want to stop crying or does not want to go to sleep where you just can't get anything done.  I'm gradually learning that at this point in my life, my priority needs to be Dash.  It all pays off when I see him smile!!

6)  Enlist help!

We've started using a cleaner once a fortnight and I have to say it has been such a big help!  I honestly don't know how I would get to all the housework otherwise.  Two hours a fortnight has made a massive difference.  Otherwise asking for help from friends or family to help out when you're having a rough day is really important!!  A friend recently delivered me some home cooked meals, and it was the best gift I could have been given!!  

Motherhood is a massive adjustment, but like all things in life, it gets easier with time....and the rewards are absolutely wonderful!! 

Lemon Bars

Keeping with my lemon themed baking (see my lemon yoghurt cake here!!), I decided to give these delicious lemon bars a go!!  They're based on the recipe from the Tartine Cookbook, but I saw the recipe on the Late Afternoon Blog and they looked so good I had to give them a go!!

Sometimes I have those days where I get it all wrong!!  I attempted these two nights ago after just getting my little baby to sleep.  After making a beautiful base and having the filling ready to go, I some how managed to burn the hell out of the base, set off the smoke alarm and wake my poor bubba!!   I didn't have enough butter left to try and re-bake the base so had to throw away my filling after hand squeezing so many lemons!! :( Baking fail!! 

My oven seems to be set to overdrive so today I tried again but made a few temperature tweaks.

It was worth the second try!!  They look impressive, but were actually quite easy to make.  They're very sweet, so I'll be having mine with coffee!!  They also keep in the fridge for 4 days.

Ingredients:

Crust 

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cups unsalted butter at room temp

Filling

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 1/4 cups caster sugar

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (approx 5 large lemons)

6 large whole eggs

1 large egg yolk

Directions :

Pre-heat the oven to 175 Degrees Celsius and butter 9 by 13 inch pan.

To make the crust, sift the sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the flour and butter. Beat on low speed until you get a nice soft dough. Evenly spread the dough on the bottom of your buttered pan (I just patted it down with my fingers). 

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Make sure the crust is cooked evenly.

While the crust bakes, prepare the filling. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and mix together. Add the lemon juice and a little bit of lemon zest. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Next add all of the eggs and whisk well. 

When the crust is ready, pull out the oven rack keeping the pan on the rack and pour the filing directly into the hot pan. Drop the temp down to 150 Degrees Celcius  and bake for 25 minutes or until the filling is no longer wobbly. 

Let cool almost all the way through. Cut into rectangles, top with powdered sugar and serve.