Why does it work?

Without knowing it, everyone has all sorts of habits that determine our daily behaviour, year after year. Most of these habits were learned from childhood—good or bad. They can be split into two types. The first type of habits are those where you do something, finish it, and then move on to doing the next habit, for example brushing your teeth, cleaning the house or putting on your coat. This type of habit is automatic, and not linked to another habit.

The second type of habits are very different. They develop over a long time, do not end with simple behaviour and are linked to all sorts of thinking and doing. Watching the television in the same spot day after day, for example, is often linked to things such as eating and drinking as well as other thinking and doing habits. Another example could be the way you deal with a child’s temper tantrum—your way of dealing with it may not be just telling off your child for bad behaviour, you will also shout, slap, swear, call names etc. You will also repeat this behaviour everytime the child misbehaves, because that is how you have done it in the past. So a whole range of behaviours form a habitweb and this web will determine how you react in certain situations. It will also give you the same outcome as you have had before. So watching TV and gorging on crisps etc. will lead to the same weight gain and lack of activity. If shouting, swearing, slapping etc. your child everytime they have a tantrum leads to the child calming down, but repeating the same tantrums tomorrow, then your way of dealing with the problem, gives you the same outcome and your child has not learned how to behave better.

Many years of research has shown that by Doing Something Different, changing one habit in the long chain of habits, will lead to more habit changes in the chain, until your behaviour changes for the better, permanently—and this will off course give you a better result as well! So by changing the spot in which you sit when watching TV, you could also change what you do whilst watching TV, which could also lead to you watching less TV, which will lead to you becoming in control of your weight. The same goes for the naughty child—by dealing with the tantrum in a different way from how you have done it in the past by talking in a whispering voice for instance, you will certainly get a different response from your child, usually more positive.

In the DSD-programme, we help people to become more flexible in how they do things, by trying other ways of doing things, which will help the person to break those habits that cause unhappiness, depression, anxiety and overweight. .