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Knowing your stage of change can help you discover what you need to do to move forward. The questions in Assessing My Stage of Change will help you gauge where you are on the spectrum between precontemplation and maintenance. section on pages 155-156 contains advice for people in the precontemplation stage, including many reasons to become active.
In addition to increasing the amount of time you are active, you can also increase your daily physical activity by cranking up the intensity. Light-intensity activity is any physical activity more strenuous than sleeping and less strenuous than a brisk walk. In the following space, write down two light-intensity activities that you are willing to crank up into moderate-intensity activities simply by picking up the pace.
For the participants in our study, obstacles to being active came in all shapes and sizes. One way to motivate yourself is to remember the important benefits that physical activity can provide. Benefits that our participants often listed included feeling productive, enjoying improved communication with a spouse, and feeling good about their bodies.
Peter Tripp’s experiences are a fairly accurate case study of the consequences of sleep deprivation. A 2005 National Sleep Foundation poll investigated the relationship between sleep and the emotional health of teenagers (National Sleep Foundation, 2005). In a study of 44 college students, where half had 8 hours of sleep and half pulled an “all-nighter,” those without sleep performed statistically worse than those with a full night of sleep.
