The best way to improve eating habits is to create an action plan to do so and visualize yourself carrying that plan out, McGill researchers report in their study recently published in Psychology and Health. In the study, 177 students aimed to consume more fruit over the next week than they had before.
Although all of the participants consumed more fruit that week than they had before, those who planned and visualized were significantly more successful. Those students who wrote down an action plan and visualized in their minds how they were going to carry out that plan – where, how, and when they would buy, prepare and eat more fruit – wound up consuming twice as much fruit as those who simply decided to eat more fruit without visualizing and planning how they would do so.
Researchers borrowed the visualization techniques used in the study from sports psychology.
“Athletes do lots of work mentally rehearsing their performances before competing and it’s often very successful,” said researcher, Bärbel Knäuper of McGill’s Department of Psychology. “So we thought having people mentally rehearse how they were going to buy and eat their fruit should make it more likely that they would actually do it and this is exactly what happened.”
The researchers conclude that their study has pointed to a simple, yet effective method of making healthier choices.
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