Tidbit Tuesday - Old Habits Die Hard
Hello,
Welcome to another Tidbit Tuesday where we aim to teach you something new about health, nutrition, lifestyle, training, and so much more, every week!
Today we are talking about starting a new routine!
Why is changing your daily routine so tough?
It all boils down to our small daily habits. Humans are habitual, meaning to do something constantly.
Once we have a routine in place it can be hard for us to make changes to that routine.
You probably drive the same way to and from work each day, eat around similar times each day, and have go-to items on any given menu!
You might not even notice your habits because they are so ingrained in your daily routine.
Humans developed habits as a survival tool. This is why old habits die hard.
When we discovered where we could find life-sustaining food, we continued to go there again, and again.
When we were attacked by a predator we remembered that predator and where it attacked us so that we could avoid it in the future.
By remembering where we could find food, and avoid death, we continue to thrive over time.
Eventually we could farm our food. Remembering where we planted crops, when to harvest them, and how to store food so that it lasted longer allowed us our populations to grow and thrive even more!
Building routine and daily, weekly, and seasonal habits are the reason we have made it this far as a species.
No wonder we have a hard time changing our habits. Our brain doesn't know if the new habit will be able to sustain us like our old habit did.
To make it even more difficult, if that new habit involves eating less Calories than we are used to, our body has a momentary panic attack and thinks food may be scarce!
This triggers old habits of returning to where we know food is.
The difference though, today food is everywhere!
As long as you can afford said food, there is food available on almost every corner and at the click of a few buttons. So we really don't have to worry about running out of food or not being able to find any.
Alas, we have not fully adapted to this yet!
So, how do we go about making lasting changes to our habits?
There is a relatively simple system in place to help trigger change. But simple does not mean easy.
A habit must be triggered or cued by something. That cue activates a craving. You then must respond to the cue. Finally there is a reward based on your response.
An example could be seeing an ad for a certain food on TV, let's say pizza. The intelligently designed ad makes you CRAVE that pizza. You, now, must decide to fulfill that craving and get pizza, fight through the crazing, or have something else to replace the craving. And finally, the reward is either having the delicious pizza you saw, or overcoming that craving and making a better choice, improving your health one craving at a time.
In order to change a habit we must first change the trigger, or cue.
The best option is just to remove that cue from your view. Hide it, don't have it accessible, make it tough to get too, whatever you have to do to not see it!
Next is to remove that craving, even if you do see it. You have to remove the temptation by making it an unattractive option.
If you make that option difficult to fulfill you are, also, less likely to want to proceed with that option. We like it easy!
And finally you need to make that option unsatisfying. If you do end up giving in to your cued habit, if it isn't satisfying then you remove the desire for it next time.
We can mitigate our bad habits with 3 R's.
Reminder. Routine. Reward.
Plan a routine for specific triggers or set a reminder to perform your routine, even without the trigger. Pick your most common trigger and make a routine to accomplish before giving in. This will help you create new, healthier habits.
Say you see that pizza again. You aren't even hungry, but it looked good so now you want it. My routine for craving unnecessary food is to go chug a glass of water, 500ml to 1L, and then wait about 15 minutes to decide.
Often, our thirst can be masked as hunger. By drinking water first it may mitigate our craving all together!
Create a simple routine that you can easily accomplish when you first experience your trigger.
It won't be easy, at first. But keep at it, and each time will get easier!
Eventually you will completely replace your trigger - response - reward cycle and it will no longer be an issue.
Again, this isn't easy. But, the concept is simple and it just takes time and practice!
You got this!
Your friend in health & fitness,
Coach Sean
