Progress

This week was excellent! I stayed on target all but one of the days. Changing the availability of coffee beverages has really helped decrease the amount off mistakes. I am also drinking less cups of tea a day (about two on average). I think maybe next week I might decrease the amount off caffeine that is actually in my tea. I started getting caffeine headaches but the vanished over the course of the week.

And the trend is catching on at work. Some of the other managers are starting to drink one or two cups of coffee in the morning and tea rest of the day. I am also finding that I have more cash during the week because I am not spending four dollars a day at some coffee shop.

I hope next week will be just as pleasant!

Progress

This first week did not go well at all. I managed only to say on the target behavior once this entire week. I continued using the punishment/reward system and I can see its working. After four days of the completely black decaf coffee at night, the coffee I drink during the day I find myself needed more milk than I would normally add. I think I need to make some major adjustments to the program.

I find myself slipping up the most when I am at work and at home. At work coffee is so readily available and completely social. To remedy this I have purchased four boxes of tea. One for my office, the break-room, the conference room, and my bosses office. I simply placed the boxes of tea right next to the coffee pots in all these location and I am hoping it will encourage me to stay on the proper path.

I also find myself drinking coffee outside of the home quiet often. It is next to impossible to get my house quiet or sustain an internet connection so I do a bulk of my homework at a local coffee shop. I seem to enter the coffee shop and almost like muscle memory order the exact same thing (a coffee beverage of course). I think if I made a conscious effort to drink more tea based items, and actually found a few that I liked. I would be encouraged to order them again in the future.

Hopefully next week will be a little smoother!

Program Design

After examining my scary baseline readings it now falls on to me to design a program to eradicate that behavior. I am however not alone. Along with the helpful suggestions of classmates I have also found some internet resources to help me design a program.

 

I found this site to be the most helpful . The author literally created a step-by-step program to curb this behavior. She suggests slowing decreasing the amount of coffee that you drink.  She advises going from a venti to a grande to a tall and eventually you will kick the habit. I think that this method has merits, but I do not think it is a drastic enough of a change from what I already consume. I understand with something like caffeine I need to ease off slowly if I want to sustain and actual change but I think that if I continue to drink coffee in smaller doses I will just fall back into bad habits. I need more of a drastic change than that.

 

After coming to that conclusion I found this site which seemed to be a good compromise. This site suggested (like many of you fellow students did) switch from coffee to herbal tea. Herbal tea has a distinct caffeine element without the jitters that coffee has. Herbal tea also works to relax the mind and body rather than stimulating it. I think this is a better alternative that I am more likely to stick with.

 

I think it would be advantageous for me to set up a program that is step like in structure. For the first week I will switch to highly caffeinated coffee. It is made by this company called coffee bean. This way I will not be tempted to venture back to coffee because I will avoid the dreaded caffeine withdraw headaches. As the weeks progress I will decrease the amount of caffeine in my tea until it is at the lowest amount possible.

 

Knowing that I am not perfect I have set up positive reinforcers and punishments to help keep me on the right tract. My postive reinforcement after a day well done will be a cup of decaffeinated coffee at night. I really enjoy the taste of coffee. I think this is another reason why I have continued to drink it for as long as I have. I would look forward to drinking a cup of decaffeinated coffee after a day well spent. I spent a long time trying to derive a punishment. At first I thought it would be a good idea to spend the rest of the day drinking tea with no sugar however I thought that would be counter productive.  It would associated a negative ( bitter tea) with a positive action (drinking tea instead of coffee). I have instead decided that my punishment will be no cream or sugar in my nightly decaffeinated coffee. I really hate the taste of black coffee. I think then I would associate the bitterness of coffee with a punishment thus helping the general cause. I think the most clear-cut schedule for reinforcement would be on a daily basis. My reward or punishment shall be administer every night at nine p.m.

I read some of your blogs and your programs and they sound amazing and unique! as always good luck everyone! 

Base Line Behavior

I observed my behavior for one week in order to derive a base line reading, the detailed results are listed below:

Tuesday: 4 cups 

Wednesday:1 cup

Thursday: 4 cups 

Friday: 6 cups 

Saturday: 2 cups 

Sunday: no coffee

Monday:  3 cups 

Tuesday: no coffee

As you can see from the baseline reading above I drink a great deal of coffee. I think I continue this obviously unhealthy habit for a wide range of reasons. I noticed that the days I drink the most coffee are tuesday, thursday and friday. This could have to do with the fact that I work on those days. I noticed this week at work I find myself drinking coffee more often because the others around me are doing the same. It is available so I drink it. Not perhaps the best idea or habit I have ever acquired. Also I find myself drinking much more coffee on Mondays. Mondays are the hardest day for me. I do almost all of my homework for the upcoming week on Sunday night. That means I am severely lacking sleep on Monday, and since staying in bed all Monday is not exactly an option, I compensate with coffee to help me survive the day. I think these two cases listed above serve in a way as operant conditioning. They help direct my behavior towards that particular negative direction.

I honestly think if I were to curb or eliminate those two factors I think I could effectively make positive changes. I could for instance make sure my work offers tea in the same places that they offer coffee, so I would be more inclined to choose the tea option. I could also space my homework out better over the weekend, so I could end the weekly struggle known as Monday. These concepts will be enumerated in greater depth in the next post where I lay out my plan.

 Have an awesome time!!!!! And good luck to all

Week One Set up Blog & introduction & Target Behavior & Rational

My name is Rachele F and I am a psychology 1A honors student. This semester (spring 2009) I am working on a behavioral modification project for my class. For this project we were all asked to identify a behavior to modify, create a program, and monitor the results. I have decided to give up coffee for my behavioral modification. As it stands I probably on average drink about three cups of coffee a day, two at home and usually one from a speciality coffee shop. Coffee is not exactly the healthiest option nor is it the cheapest. I am also almost positive coffee is at least partly to blame for my erratic sleep schedule. For my first week I will create some baseline readings (subject of next post) and researching methods that have been effective for modifying this behavior. In my preliminary research it seems as though weaning and substitutions might be viable options (concrete plan of option will be denoted in future posts). Good Luck to all those participating!