Psychological Factors Influencing Health Behavior: A Wellness Plan

This report defines health behavior and explores its connection to anxiety, examining the harmful impacts and psychological influences on health. It discusses the Health Beliefs Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, stress, motivation, and personality in relation to a wellness plan designed to mitigate anxiety. The report also covers operant conditioning strategies and trans-theoretical models for behavior change, highlighting the importance of addressing psychological factors such as stress, abuse, isolation, and family conflicts to improve overall health and well-being. The wellness plan emphasizes healthy eating habits and proactive coping mechanisms to manage anxiety and promote positive health behaviors. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Health and health behavior

1 | P a g e
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Health behaviour...............................................................................................................................2
Health Behaviour for Anxiety.............................................................................................................2
Harmful impact on health......................................................................................................................3
Psychological influences on health behaviour.......................................................................................3
Some of the models and strategies used for psychological influences..............................................4
Wellness plan....................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

2 | P a g e
Introduction
Health behaviour is defined as an activity undertaken by an individual to
improve the health status of an individual by promoting and protecting the
behaviours related to their health. In this report, the first section focuses on the term
health behaviour and the specific behaviour on health and various reasons why it
has impacted the health. The second section focuses on some psychology factors
which engage an individual in health behaviour. A brief explanation of concepts such
as the Health Beliefs Model, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Stress, Motivation, and
Personality are related to the wellness plan. In this report we would be focusing on
the health issue of anxiety that leads to frequent panic attacks due to depression or
stress.
Health behaviour
Health behaviour is generally defined as an action that is taken to detect and
prevent the disease for improving the health status of wellbeing. It can be also be
defined as a change in a behavioural pattern of an individual that relates to
improvement of health by restoring it to normal condition (Hollands, et. al, 2016). In
terms of this assignment when a person is suffering from anxiety disorder has some
mental stress which changes the normal way of living in an individual. In this way, if
appropriate care designs are composed, this could assist a person with recovering
from the typical condition. Wellbeing conduct consolidates the physical and
additionally social prosperity of an individual ensuring that there is no ailment.
Wellbeing conduct can likewise be characterized as an individual wellbeing status
which is conveyed by each person and endeavours are been made for ensuring and
looking after it. Health behaviour can also be defined as an individual health status
which is carried by every individual and efforts are been made for protecting and
maintaining it. Health behaviour can be improved by an individual by motivating
themselves to stay healthy. In this report, the issue of anxiety disorder is discussed
as it has adverse effect on their health. Thus proper steps need to be taken to
maintain good health this could be done by undertaken ways that will relieve stress
among an individual (Giles, et. al, 2014).

3 | P a g e
Health Behaviour for Anxiety
Anxiety is seen among youngsters these days and it has harmful effect on
their health. The reason why people are suffering from this disorder is due to
stressful environment or some mental health problems like depression, shortness of
breath or feeling of dizziness (Head and Noar, 2014). But it has an adverse effect on
the health condition of an individual as it leads to negative affect on a person’s body.
Instead of relieving the stress they tend to increase more problems in the body.
Anxiety disorder also causes psychological dependence as it has direct effect on the
nerve system. Anxiety have various stages, if it is at its peak it leads to various
problems like severe headaches, imbalance of blood pressure, heart disease,
asthma, lungs disease or diabetes (Andrew, Tiggemann and Clark, 2016).
Harmful impact on health
Anxiety has adverse effect on human health as it affects the brain cells which
may lead to memory loss and also increases the risk of other disease like dementia
(Chavira, 2017). When a person suffers from this disorder he/she indulge
themselves in negative talks about themselves. This deadly condition weakens
the heart muscles and can also cause blood clots that can cause issue in the heart
chamber. Thus wide range of mechanisms is available for coping with this disorder.
The impact can be reduced by using medication drugs or cognitive-Behaviour
therapy which highly recommended for long term treatment.
Psychological influences on health behaviour
Psychological factors influences the health behaviour in various ways like it
helps in removing the inequalities among the population. Psychosocial factors deals
with the social context with respect to parents, schools and the peer in the
surrounding (Green and Murphy, 2014). Thus psychosocial hardships have
increased the risk of disease which is majorly associated with anxiety or fear. The
psychosocial hypothesis states that the reason associated with social disadvantage
and physical health is a key to improve the adverse effects on health (Scruggs, et. al,
2018). There are various psychological factors that affect the health status directly or
indirectly. Therefore it is necessary to keep track of the entire psychological factor so
that they cope up with health issues. There are various theories linked with this
health behaviour. Some of the theories used are operant conditioning strategy, the

4 | P a g e
health belief model, trans-theoretical model and various social practice theories
(Macinko, et. al, 2015).
Some of the models and strategies used for psychological influences
 Operant conditioning strategy- It is the process through which behaviour is
analysed and by modifying and reinforcing the outcome for betterment. In this
steps are undertaken for an individual to control the root causes of anxiety by
using the ways by which an individual can adapt to correct behaviour
(Prestwich, et. al, 2014). This convention helps in changing the human
conduct by defining the reasonable objectives and observing the conduct of
an individual so legitimate move could be made to evacuate the unwanted
conduct.
 Health belief model- It is a model used to identify the threats of an individual
by perceiving the severity and suspecting the issues so that barriers could be
removed to attaining maximizing benefits by undertaking proper actions
(Glanz, 2015). This model helps in predicating the health behaviour among
students and understanding their concerns so that proper actions could be
taken. It is just a kind of fear that a person experience.
 Trans-theoretical model- Anxiety has several stages and affects the health
behaviour of an individual in variety of ways. This method includes designing
changes at various stages, then processing the change to maintain a balance
of health behaviour. Like in this case, individual can be at initial stage in which
they are not aware about the disorder (Otto, et. al, 2016). Thus, preparation
is done regarding the symptoms and action is taken at an appropriate time.
Once the action plan is decided it keeps track of maintenance policy.
Wellness plan
According to the, designed wellness plan for removing anxiety would help an
individual to control the decision making power. Also the wellness plan includes the
eating habits that suggest eating sufficient amount of protein that will improve the
digestive system of human (Breda, et. al, 2014). Apart from the original plan a
backup plan is designed so that it could be used if an original plan doesn’t work. The
plan has helped in overcoming the health issue of anxiety apart from that there are
various treatment programs that focuses on prevention by identifying the root cause

5 | P a g e
of anxiety and help in coping with the issues (Sheeran, et. al, 2016). There are
various psychological factors due to anxiety which is seen among children’s as well
as adults. Some of the reason is abuse or felling of isolation or family conflicts. Such
psychological consequences lead to stress and have adverse effect on proactive
behaviours of an individual. Anxiety can somewhere lead to poor performance
among children’s and cause depression in their life. Lack of social connections is
also one of the psychological reasons of anxiety. In the research it was addressed
that some psychological factors leads to intense exposure to crime. This exposure
can lead affect the neurobiological system as well as can cause aggressive
problems (De et. al, 2015). This disorder leads to excessive difficult condition, the
problem starts with a simple trigger and later on it grows day by day as worries keep
on increasing. The wellness plan is defined for those people who worry a lot, the
result of this disorder leads to metal disorder. To control the mental illness plan
includes suggestion to sleep for good amount of time. The wellness plan is helpful as
it keeps the individual busy in some or other thing so that there is no time to worry
(Hall, 2015).

6 | P a g e
Conclusion
It can be concluded that from this assignment that health behaviour is an
important accepts in everyone’s life. In this report we have discussed about various
methods and strategies that would help an individual to overcome anxiety by
avoiding various things. These strategies focus on improving the psychological
factors by enlightening the positive aspects and improving the behaviour. In this
report we have focused that health is an essential part and have to be taken into
priority. In this report we have researched that how anxiety have affected the life
span of an individual, what are the adverse effects on human health and what steps
need to be undertaken to avoid future consequences.

7 | P a g e
References
Andrew, R., Tiggemann, M. and Clark, L., (2016). Positive body image and young
women’s health: Implications for sun protection, cancer screening, weight loss and
alcohol consumption behaviours. Journal of health psychology, 21(1), pp.28-39.
Breda, J.J., Whiting, S.H., Encarnação, R., Norberg, S., Jones, R., Reinap, M. and
Jewell, J., (2014). Energy drink consumption in Europe: a review of the risks,
adverse health effects, and policy options to respond. Frontiers in public health, 2,
p.134.
Chavira, V.T., (2017). Insider Threats and the Effects of Operant
Conditioning (Doctoral dissertation, Utica College), p.45-78.
De Goeij, M.C., Suhrcke, M., Toffolutti, V., van de Mheen, D., Schoenmakers, T.M.
and Kunst, A.E., (2015). How economic crises affect alcohol consumption and
alcohol-related health problems: a realist systematic review. Social Science &
Medicine, 131, pp.131-146.
Giles, E. L., Robalino, S., McColl, E., Sniehotta, F. F., & Adams, J. (2014). The
effectiveness of financial incentives for health behaviour change: systematic review
and meta-analysis. PloS one, 9(3).
Glanz, K., (2015). Health behavior: Theory, research, and practice. John Wiley &
Sons.
Green, E.C. and Murphy, E., (2014). Health belief model. The Wiley Blackwell
encyclopedia of health, illness, behavior, and society, p. 130-180.
Hall, W., (2015). What has research over the past two decades revealed about the
adverse health effects of recreational cannabis use?. Addiction, 110(1), pp.19-35.
Head, K.J. and Noar, S.M., (2014). Facilitating progress in health behaviour theory
development and modification: The reasoned action approach as a case
study. Health Psychology Review, 8(1), pp.34-52.

8 | P a g e
Hollands, G.J., French, D.P., Griffin, S.J., Prevost, A.T., Sutton, S., King, S. and
Marteau, T.M., (2016). The impact of communicating genetic risks of disease on risk-
reducing health behaviour: systematic review with meta-analysis. 352(3), pp. 76-90.
Macinko, J., Mullachery, P., Silver, D., Jimenez, G. and Neto, O.L.M., (2015).
Patterns of alcohol consumption and related behaviors in Brazil: Evidence from the
2013 National Health Survey (PNS 2013). PLoS one, 10(7), p.e0134153.
Otto, M.W., Eastman, A., Lo, S., Hearon, B.A., Bickel, W.K., Zvolensky, M., Smits,
J.A. and Doan, S.N., (2016). Anxiety sensitivity and working memory capacity: Risk
factors and targets for health behavior promotion. Clinical psychology review, 49,
pp.67-78.
Prestwich, A., Sniehotta, F.F., Whittington, C., Dombrowski, S.U., Rogers, L. and
Michie, S., 2014. Does theory influence the effectiveness of health behavior
interventions? Meta-analysis. Health Psychology, 33(5), p.465.
Scruggs, S., Mama, S.K., Carmack, C.L., Douglas, T., Diamond, P. and Basen-
Engquist, K., (2018). Randomized Trial of a Lifestyle Physical Activity Intervention for
Breast Cancer Survivors: Effects on Transtheoretical Model Variables. Health
promotion practice, 19(1), pp.134-144.
Sheeran, P., Maki, A., Montanaro, E., Avishai-Yitshak, A., Bryan, A., Klein, W.M.,
Miles, E. and Rothman, A.J., (2016). The impact of changing attitudes, norms, and
self-efficacy on health-related intentions and behavior: A meta-analysis. Health
Psychology, 35(11), p.1178.

9 | P a g e