What are Healthy Habits

You Know Habits are hard to break right? That's why the sooner in life we build good, healthy habits, the easier it is to keep them and stay as healthy as possible. And when good habits are in place, it's easier to resist bad ones. In this article, you will study about the biological reasons behind the habits that we all have.

Eating
Hunger is analyzed by three different components

Biological
Learned
Cognitive
Biological
Stomach Contraction Theory - This was given by Cannon and Washburn. It states that we are hungry when our stomach contracts.
Washburn trained himself to swallow a balloon which was attached to a tube then the balloon was inflated inside of his stomach. When the balloon was inflated he did not feel hungry. Later this theory was opposed by fact that people whose stomachs were removed still felt hungry.

Glucose Theory - It states that we feel hungry when our blood glucose level is low.

Insulin Theory - It states that we feel hungry when our insulin level increases suddenly in our bodies. This theory indicates that we have to increase our insulin level in order to feel hungry.

Heat Production Theory - It states that we feel hungry when our body temperature drops and when it rises hunger decreases.This theory indicates that we eat more during winters.

Learned
As human beings, we cannot ignore psychological part, the learned and cognitive components of hunger. Hunger depends on the external time also. For eg. At 12 PM we feel hungry because it is lunch time. This is because of learned behavior. There are four basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. People keep feeling hungry until these four tastes are satisfied.

Cognition
Satiety is the absence of hunger. There are two mechanisms: at brain level and at gastrointestinal level.

At brain level: There are two places in the hypothalamus: gives Ventromedial nuclei and Lateral hypothalamus. Ventromedial Nivea signal when to stop eating. Lateral hypothalamus gives a signal to start eating.

At gastrointestinal level: Satiety signals come from stomach which controls short term eating.

Sleeping
Two Process Model of Sleep Regulation

The sleep-wake cycle is regulated by two separate biological mechanisms. It was proposed by Alexander Borbely. There are two processes:

Circadian rhythm
Sleep-wake homeostasis
Circadian rhythm -
A daily cycle of biological activity. It is also known as Process. The regulation of body's internal processes and alertness levels is governed by the internal biological or circadian clock.
Body's built in circadian clock is centered in the hypothalamus in the brain. It is the main mechanism that controls the timing of sleep and is independent of the amount of preceding sleep or wakefulness. This internal clock is coordinated with day-night (light-dark cycle) over 24 hour period and regulate body's sleep patterns.

Sleep-wake homeostasis -
It is the accumulation of hypogenic ( sleep-inducing ) substances in the brain which generates a homeostatic sleep drive. It is also known as Process. External factors eg. Food, drugs, meal times, naps, stress, exercise.

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