Do you want to feel healthier and happier this year? According to new research, visualising how you want to be could help to make that New Year’s resolution become a long-term reality.
New Year is typically a time when many of us feel over-due for a life-review; whether it be to improve our eating habits, cut down on the booze, become more active or change our lifestyle in general. Yet as many of us already know, many New Year resolutions will be long-forgotten by the time February arrives. Often this is because our willpower is constantly being tested to the point of exhaustion.
According to research from the University of Plymouth and Queensland University in Australia, however, using our imaginations to visualise how we want to be — whatever our goal — could make all the difference.
In a study published in the International Journal of Obesity, specifically looking at weight-loss, it was found that overweight people who used a motivational intervention called Functional Imagery Training (FIT) lost an average of five times more weight than those using talking therapy alone. In addition, FIT users lost 4.3 cm (nearly two inches) more around their waist circumference in six months and continued to lose weight after the intervention had finished.
The study allocated 141 participants either to FIT or Motivational Interviewing (MI). Whilst MI involves working with a counsellor to develop, highlight and verbalise the need or motivation for change, FIT makes use of multi-sensory imagery to explore these changes by teaching clients how to elicit and practise motivational imagery themselves. The idea is to use imagery practice until it becomes a cognitive habit.
We asked lead researcher Dr Linda Solbrig from the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth about FIT and how we could try it out for ourselves.
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