Bedrock Habits
The life we are living RIGHT NOW is an accumulation of habits. Look at yesterday and the day before and the day before that, then last week and last month.
Taken all together, you can see you do more or less the same things every day.
Alarm, dress, make (or don’t make) our bed, shower, coffee, etc etc. Notice how you even use the same arm each time to reach into the cupboard to grab your mug.
These aren’t decisions (though at one point each action was a decision) they are now habits. No exertion of will is necessary. No real thought either.
These habits have made your life, they have made our body too. And created (to a large degree) our HEALTH as well.
So if you want to change your health, you change your habits. One at a time.
When working with clients, one of our first steps (after discerning goals and the direction of change) is to establish Bedrock Habits.
The criteria for these?
Smallish habit change is usually connected to a long-standing current habit
Can be built upon
Create high-impact change.
Examples:
Brain fog--Three lifestyle arenas that can impact brain fog.
Diet
Exercise
Sleep
Let’s look at Sleep. You’re waking up with hot flashes. Because you're feeling so foggy you don’t have a routine before bed and sometimes stay up till midnight, or 1 AM then after a few days are so exhausted you’re in bed at 8 PM. You hate your bed because you’re restless in it so often. You drink lots of coffee to try kick-start your brain, sometimes late into the afternoon. You want to exercise more and like it best in the morning but can’t get up because you’re so tired. Besides, you know exercise will help your brain fog as well as help you sleep better. All of this is stressing the heck out of you which makes you toss and turn in bed.
It feels hopeless, WHERE to intervene?
The answer is individual but for this example let’s say that Sue was always someone who liked getting up early, especially when the kids were young because it was HER time.
In looking for a place to start, going where you’ve gone before can be helpful.
If she could get up early and get some exercise she would be less likely to drink so much coffee, helping her sleep. And improved focus is a known benefit of exercise.
What’s the most important condition for getting up earlier?
Setting the habit of going to bed early (at least earlier). This is more complex than one might think. It involves circadian rhythms etc. BUT we are talking small changes, big impact. Is there something Sue already does in the evening to anchor another habit to??? She walks her dog every evening. When the kids were still home she did it right after dinner while they did the dishes. Now it’s all over the place but generally around 8 PM.
New bedrock habit? Start sleep routine after walking the dog. Brush teeth. Get into PJs. Turn down the lights. Read or do other quiet tasks. Go to bed by 10.
Practiced over time, this can be the new Sue. Focus on: Walk to Dog. Begin Sleep Routine. (to help this solidify it’s useful to get out into the early morning sun for 10-20 minutes to fully shift your circadian clock to early rising)
This new habit is now a bedrock upon which getting up early rests, and a new habit of morning exercise becomes more likely. Begin that new habit once the PM one is solid.
