Guthrie's Theory And Overeating

Guthrie’s theory has several applications that can be implemented in real life. Within his theory, there are three methods mentioned, the fatigue, incompatible response and threshold method, which can be used to teach individuals how to get rid of habits in particular bad ones. This paper will demonstrate how Guthrie’s theory can be utilized in real life by depicting how my personal habit of stress eating, or overeating, that is triggered by exams in particular finals and midterms, can be overcome through its use. Additionally, it will explain how engaging in Guthrie’s aspect of sidetracking can lead to a failure when trying to break a habit.
In order to implant each one of the methods, there must be understanding of the basics of each one …show more content…
In my case, the food that is ingested when stressed is generally considered junk food; in particular chips and ice-cream. The fatigue method could be used in the situation by allowing myself to indulge in overeating ice-cream and chips. This will then cause fatigue and frustration that will result from being sick. This will create a new association regarding ice-cream and chips since they will now be perceived as causes of illness. Similarly, the incompatible response method can be employed to get rid of the stress eating habit. That is when I feel the urge to stress eat junk food instead of actually indulging I should actually perform a behavior such as running that is incompatible with the undesired response. Instead of the stimulus of midterms and finals cuing me to overeat junk food, it will be associated with running. On the other hand, the threshold method can be used to get rid of them by slowly exposing myself to a weaker stimulus that does not entirely trigger the bad habit. I could try to manage the stress that is created through discussion once this has been achieved, then progress to stress created by quizzes. After being able to handle the stress created thereby quizzes I will try to deal with the stress felt when a regular test is coming up. This …show more content…
Sidetracking refers to an individual avoiding the cues that provoke the undesired behavior and, in actuality, not breaking the habit (Galle, 2018). In my situation, I cannot actually avoid the cues that make me stress eat since that would require me to drop out of university. Even if decide not to continue with my studies there would be other situations that would create other stressful situations that will also cue my stress eating