Self Check-ins: HALT Revisited and Revised

What is HALT?

Per­haps you may have heard of the term H.A.L.T., which stands for Hun­gry – Angry – Lone­ly – Tired. HALT was a con­cept that was intro­duced by pro­fes­sion­als who treat­ed addic­tion to help peo­ple become more aware of their emo­tion­al state as well as to be aware of how these emo­tions neg­a­tive­ly affect deci­sion-mak­ing.

Although HALT was first used with addic­tion, this prin­ci­ple can real­ly assist any­one who wants to increase their emo­tion­al aware­ness. That said, I think an expan­sion of the cur­rent HALT idea is war­rant­ed. Through­out my clin­i­cal work, there seem to be emo­tion­al trends of anx­i­ety and thirst affect­ing peo­ple in their deci­sion mak­ing, in addi­tion to the orig­i­nal four. When expand­ed to include these, HAALTT is a bet­ter way to help peo­ple stop and think about where they are emo­tion­al­ly.

Hungry

You may have heard the cau­tion­ary advice of “Don’t go to the store hun­gry.” If you have had expe­ri­ence with this, you’ll know that you will often end up with more things in your shop­ping cart than was ini­tial­ly on your list. In a research study done by Dr. MacAskill and his team in 2023, they found a link between hunger hor­mones affect­ing deci­sion-mak­ing in the brains of mice. Although this study was done with mice, it rais­es inter­est­ing ques­tions about the par­al­lels for humans.

What to do?

When you find your­self feel­ing hun­gry, grab some pro­tein, such as nuts or peanut but­ter and apples to give both your brain and body some nour­ish­ment. You may even save a dol­lar or two if a shop­ping trip is in your future! You can also keep snacks by tran­si­tion areas, such as a des­ig­nat­ed draw­er in the kitchen, if you have young kids at home, or a spot in your car, so you have easy access to meet your needs.

Angry

Whether you believe anger is a pri­ma­ry emo­tion (an emo­tion that is a reac­tion to an action or sit­u­a­tion) or a sec­ondary emo­tion (an emo­tion that exists to cov­er or pro­tect anoth­er emo­tion, such as anger cov­er­ing hurt), when you feel anger, your body is send­ing you a sig­nal that some­thing has occurred and you feel wronged or that a sit­u­a­tion has wronged you.

What to do?

When anger shows up, take a pause. Check and see if you’re hun­gry (cue the “hangry” expe­ri­ence), then see above. If you’re not hun­gry, take a break from the sit­u­a­tion. Giv­ing in to anger and say­ing what you’re real­ly think­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, can like­ly cause more regret than relief. Go some­where or do some­thing that replen­ish­es your mood and feel­ings. You may need more time than you think. HAALTT. Give your­self per­mis­sion to take the pause and then respond appro­pri­ate­ly.

Anxious

Everyone’s body has a built-in, ready-to-go stress response sys­tem, allow­ing you to be aware of dan­gers to your­self or dan­gers in your envi­ron­ment and then take steps to pro­tect your­self. In some cas­es, how­ev­er, anx­i­ety can be an over­re­ac­tion of this response sys­tem. Anx­i­ety can also come from child­hood abuse or neglect, loss, feel­ing aban­doned, feel­ing reject­ed, or matur­ing too quick­ly (i.e., hav­ing to be the miss­ing par­ent or care for younger sib­lings).

What to do?

When you’re feel­ing anx­ious, con­sid­er the direc­tion that your thoughts are com­ing from. Are they past focused? Future focused? Chances are that these thoughts are either one. Check the sto­ry you are telling your­self and ask, “What are the facts and what can I dis­card?”

Lonely

It’s back to the research rodents with this one. You may’ve heard of the “rat park” study, where sci­en­tists were inter­est­ed in whether rats would use drugs if they had unfet­tered access to them. These sci­en­tists test­ed their hypoth­e­sis by putting rats in a cage, with a num­ber of stim­u­lat­ing things that rats enjoy: sex, drugs, oth­er rats, and inter­est­ing toys. How­ev­er, the sci­en­tists found that con­trary to their expec­ta­tions, the rats chose to inter­act with each oth­er more than use the drugs. This would sug­gest that social inter­ac­tion, at least for rats, is an excel­lent way to mit­i­gate drug use. Now, I’m not sug­gest­ing that humans are rats; how­ev­er, this find­ing pro­vides an inter­est­ing insight into the pow­er of con­nec­tion. You are built for con­nec­tion and can great­ly ben­e­fit from it, such as not mak­ing rash deci­sions in the moment, such as when you’re feel­ing lone­ly.

What to do?

What if you’re read­ing this and feel­ing lone­ly? Grab your phone and go to your “favorites” tab and choose some­one from that list to call. Don’t have a phone? Go find anoth­er human to talk to, even if it is just say­ing “hi.” Stay away from screens and social media, as this doesn’t pro­vide the same lev­el of con­nec­tion as face-to-face, or phone call inter­ac­tions do.

Thirsty

Just like hunger, thirst can affect not only your mood but also deci­sion-mak­ing.

What to do?

Grab a water bot­tle and bring it with you – on car rides, to the office, or around your home. Not only will it be a reminder to hydrate your­self, but you will also like­ly reduce the chances of decid­ing out of thirst.

Tired

Being tired is a com­mon occur­rence for many adults and is, there­fore, a com­mon impact fac­tor for deci­sion mak­ing while tired. The adage of “sleep on it,” has new mean­ing when applied to this con­text. In addi­tion, the act of mak­ing deci­sions can tire out your brain—also known as “deci­sion fatigue.” When your brain is fatigued, you’re less like­ly to be able to think things through (i.e., poor deci­sion mak­ing), but also have trou­ble com­mu­ni­cat­ing as well as man­ag­ing emo­tions such as anger or annoy­ance.

What to do?

Make sleep a pri­or­i­ty. Estab­lish a healthy bed­time rou­tine and be inten­tion­al about keep­ing your phone out of sight as you are prepar­ing to go to sleep. There is some research that sug­gests blue light is linked to reduced nat­ur­al mela­tonin – the nat­ur­al stuff that makes it pos­si­ble for you to fall asleep. If you can, set aside 25 min­utes for a nap dur­ing the day, whether at work or at home. This amount of time allows you to rest, but not go into deep sleep—where you would be even more tired upon wak­ing up than you were going to sleep.

The next time you have a deci­sion to make, HAALTT, do a self-check in, and see if there is an emo­tion­al or phys­i­cal need that needs to be addressed before mak­ing that deci­sion. Chances are that doing so will yield bet­ter results.

Local Provo Therapist

Hav­ing trou­ble with HAALTT? Give me, your local Pro­vo ther­a­pist, a call. As a Utah ther­a­pist, I spe­cial­ize in work­ing in both anx­i­ety ther­a­py and trau­ma ther­a­py. (Trau­ma can often be a source of where anx­i­ety is com­ing from). Let’s talk about your sit­u­a­tion and how you can find relief!

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