Creating Habits for a Healthy Body and Mind
We all have a desire to form good habits for a healthy body and mind. One thing is certain, forming good habits takes some work. Whether that is exercising more, getting organized or eating more healthy. Breaking your old habits and forming new ones is critical if you want to improve yourself.
You will need to understand how your habits are formed for you to be successful at creating habits for a healthy body and mind.
The Science Behind How Habits are Formed
In this article on NPR on Habits: How they Form And How To Break Them, according to New York Times best selling author Charles Duhigg, “every habit starts with a psychological pattern called a “habit loop,” which is a three-part process.” These three parts consist of a cue, a routine and a reward. Let’s start with the cue…
The Cue
This is your trigger, the driving force behind your habit. Cues fall into five categories
- Emotional State
- Time of Day
- Sight
- Location
- Another Person
Your subconscious mind will automatically respond to this trigger and most of the time you are completely oblivious to it. Because of this reaction, the cue is the most important part of your habit loop. This is also the reason it is so difficult to change our habits. You need to put in a lot of effort to counteract this response. Continue reading to learn the secret on how to counteract this response.
The Routine
The action you do when the cue has been triggered. This is the part you want to replace, you cannot just break a bad habit. You need to replace it with a new and better one. You will have a heck of an easier time replacing a habit than just breaking the bad habit with nothing to replace it.
The Reward
This is the end feeling you get when the action has been carried out to the end. Much like the feeling you get after you eat the pint of ice cream, when you buy that new pair of shoes or when that Amazon box is at your doorstep. Your mind will remember the habit when the outcome is a positive reward. This can be a something you achieved, a physical item or most commonly an emotion or feeling.
The Craving
It might seem odd that we are covering a fourth step even though we said there would only be three. However, the craving, this is the fuel behind the driving force that makes your habit stick for life. After you repeat the habit enough times, your brain becomes addicted to the feeling and your subconscious will find ways for you to satisfy that craving. Starve the craving and the easier it will be for you to make a change for the better.
Three Phases of Habit Formation
If you search on the internet for how to break a habit, you will find hundreds if not thousands, maybe more, ways to break a habit. Many state it takes 21 days while others might tell you something different. The most important thing to remember is that you need to find what works for you. Use this post as a guide to help you understand how your habits work so you can make the necessary changes in your life.
There are three distinct phases of a habit.
The Honeymoon Phase
Much like that of your relationship, the honeymoon phase is the new and exciting part. You are excited and the change is coming easy at this point. You may have been recently inspired after watching that free webinar on how to start your side hustle and the next few days that follow the energy is flowing.
The Fight Through Phase
This is usually when reality starts to set in. You find that you are struggling, overwhelmed and no longer inspired to make the change. You can feel the old habit sliding back in like that crazy ex who just can’t get our of your DMs. To help you get through this phase, you need to overcome the “fight through’s.” Use the following methods to help you win at the fight through phase.
- Recognize and acknowledge that you have entered the fight through phase
- Ask better questions – what are your emotions telling you?
- Imagine you didn’t change and you are at your funeral. Your best friend is giving your eulogy, what are they saying? How does that make you feel?
The Second Nature Phase
Your new habit is coming more natural to you, you feel like you are getting the hang of things. After you have reached this phase, you will need to be careful. You have not crossed the finish line of breaking your new habit. Be wary of the following interruptions, if you get stuck, you could end up back in phase two.
- Discouragement-The nay-sayers, the people around you or even you who tell you negative things about you making change.
- Disruptions-This could be oh so many things, watch out for anything that might knock you off your path.
- Seduction of Success-Don’t let the new feelings of change stop you from continuing on your journey.
How to Develop Good Habits and Make Them Stick
Now that you know how your habits are formed, let’s take a look at how to develop good habits and make them stick. Developing new and better habits can become incredibly frustrating. You might find that you lose your motivation, eventually quitting, and you find yourself back to your old bad habits.
Here are a few easy tips on how to develop and stick with better habits for a healthy body and mind.
Start Small
When you want to make a change, the fastest way to get there is by starting small. Use the momentum you gain from all the little wins to get the big wins. Your willpower is like a muscle, and if you overuse it, you become tired and stop. You don’t go from sitting on your couch to running a marathon never having run a day in your life. First you start by maybe walking for 20 minutes, then the next day you do 30 and so on. Then overtime your body is accustomed to the exercise and you are able to run 26.2 miles without stopping.
Keep It Simple
Build your momentum, you won’t be able to complete change your life overnight. The saying goes, “The roman empire wasn’t built in a day.” And the same goes for your life. It is easy to get in over your head and take on too much. Don’t do it! Keep it simple and make it easy for you to achieve. Progress=Happiness!
Get Hooked
After you have invested time and effort into something it can be hard for you to let it go. Use this to your advantage when you are making a change. When you are on a winning streak it is hard for you to stop. Create a visual reminder showing the effort you have put in, after you see how far you have come, you will not want to quit before reaching the end.
Celebrate Every Win
You are better at beating yourself up than you are at telling yourself how amazing you are. Each and every time you make any type of progress, you need to celebrate. It does not matter how small that progress is, IT’S A WIN! Every time you reward yourself with good feelings, your brain is going to become addicted and then you will crave that achievement and it will be hard for you to stop.
Surround Yourself With Support
You are who you surround yourself with. So if you are in a room full of negative nancy’s I suggest you find yourself a new room. Level up my friend. The people in your life make a significant impact on your behavior. If you want to increase your chances of making successful change you need to make sure you have the right people rooting for you.
Focus on one habit a time
Have you ever decided that you wanted to lose weight? You start going to the gym, you throw out all the old food in your fridge and stock up on all the healthy options. Things are going good and then BAM! You don’t want to eat anything in your fridge, you are exhausted from the two a day workouts you thought was a good idea and you quit. You give up on trying to lose weight and you find some way to rationalize why you need to eat chips and cupcakes.
If you are anything like me, you cannot do all that and think it’s going to work. If you just focus on exercising, commit to walking 15 min a day and then over time add in more exercise and eating healthy, you will find it will be easier for you to change these habits. The same applies for any habit, make it easy and focus on one thing at a time.
Commit to 30 Days
They say it takes 21 or more days to form a new habit. Commit to one month of making easy changes and you will find it much easier to sustain your new habit.
Make It Daily
In the words of Tony Robbins “Repetition is the mother of all skill.” If you want to make you new habit stick. You have to be disciplined to consistently do it every day.
Remind Yourself
Posting something up to help remind you daily of why you started to make this change. If you miss time, you completely defeat the purpose of setting out to make a change in the first place. Make a phone screen saver, post something on your fridge or your computer. Make it juicy to help keep you inspired.
Remove Temptation
If you are trying to be more healthy, throw out all your junk food. If you want to quit drinking, pour all your alcohol down the drain. You need the change your environment to help set you up for success when you are trying to make a change.
Four bad habits you need to break, starting today
You can thank your habits for shaping and defining the person you become today. Your good habits are what make you a better person. And your bad habits? Well, they aren’t making you any better.
Are you ready to give up the habits that are ruining your life? Click here to see how I can help.
You are not alone when I say that everyone wishes they could eliminate their bad habits. Sadly, this is all part of being a human and not something you can eliminate completely. But with some hard work and effort you will be able to acknowledge the bad habit, stop and replace it with a better habit.
Here are four bad habits that you can start to eliminate and replace with more fulfilling ones.
Procrastination
How often do you find yourself saying “Oh, I can do that later!” or “I can do this tomorrow…” and then later and tomorrow come and you continue to do the same thing. The road to later leads to never! Procrastination is hands down the most common bad habit we all deal with on a daily basis. We all put things off now and then, still when you procrastinate on everything you do, it becomes a serious problem. You miss deadlines, bills aren’t paid and your bank account is over drafted. Procrastination can become a chronic problem that will seriously effect your life.
Multitasking
Multitasking will not be an easy habit to break. In today’s over connected world, from social media to your cell phones you are in a world of constant distractions. Your lack of focus and inability to focus can also turn into major issues in your life. When you attempt to work on more than one item at a time you are giving less attention to each task. This means you are not giving your full effort on the job you are doing leaving the impression you are not doing a good job.
Worrying about things beyond your control
Worry, your old friend that you wish you never met. Worry can lead to so many things like suffering or anxiety. Try to only focus on the things in your life that you have control over, everything else does not matter.
Bad sleep habits
- Sleeping too little
- staying up late
- not keeping a consistent sleep schedule (IE going to bed and getting up at the same time)
- sleeping too much
When you go to bed and wake up at significantly different times, you can ruin your circadian rhythm. From a medical study published in 2017 by Davide Gnocchi and Giovannella Bruscalupi, they discuss the circadian rhythm, the connections between the endocrine system, and the consequences of ruining your circadian rhythms.
The endocrine system has five main functions:
- Regulate metabolism
- Maintain salt, water, and nutrient balance
- Control stress responses
- Regulate growth, development and reproduction
- Produce hormones
I don’t know about you, but sleep is at the top of my good habits to-do list! The key to breaking any bad habit and replacing it with a new one is to be patient, consistent, and just keep going then before you know it, your life will be completely changed. And for the Better!
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