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The Secret Ingredient For Successful Habit Change

Secret Ingredient of Habit Change

So you had a habit change you wanted to tackle, you set a SMART goal – you were very specific in your goals, they were measurable and achievable, you had a specific time-frame – and you still weren’t able to achieve your desired outcome.  What went wrong?

Of course there are many different answers.  But firstly I want to ‘zoom out’ a little in answering this question – widen the perspective and look at some essential ‘pre-steps’ to habit change.  And contrary to the catchy headline, there may be more than one ‘secret ingredient’!

Firstly, the biggest ‘zoom-out’ question

Are you trying to achieve a goal or change a habit?  Mistake number one that many people make is to use the strategies you would use for achieving goals to achieve habit change.  When you think about it, you can see that habit change is a whole lot more complex and harder than achieving a goal.  For example, imagine you have a goal of saving $2000 for a big holiday you have planned.  Let’s say you have 50 weeks to do this.  All you need to do to achieve your goal is to save $40 per week, starting today, right? And hey presto! You have achieved your goal.  If you are already a good saver, it will be that easy and straight forward.  But if the real issue is that you need to be less impulsive with your spending and be more disciplined in how you use your money, a habit change is required.  And that means making good choices multiple times every day.  Which requires a robust strategy, because there are so many things that can cause us to ‘fall off the wagon’ when we resolve to change a habit.

Dike Drummond, in his book ‘Stop Physician Burnout’ talks about the difference between a ‘problem’ and a ‘dilemma’ – a problem is something that has a simple solution of one or two steps, and applying that simple solution fixes the problem.  But many difficult issues in our lives are more-so ‘dilemmas’ than ‘problems’.

So what is a dilemma? A dilemma is a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two alternatives, especially when both alternatives are either undesirable or mutually incompatible.  Issues like ‘work-life balance’ are more-so dilemmas than problems.  And consequently require a ‘strategy’ rather than a ‘solution’.  Resolutions (such as “From now on I’m going to make healthier food choices”) usually require habit change.

The dangers of treating a dilemma as if it is a problem

When we treat issues that are more-so dilemmas as if they are problems, what tends to happen is that we analyse the situation (‘problem’), come up with a solution we think will work and try to implement it, sometimes with some short-term success.  And soon we find that our solution isn’t working or feels too hard to continue to implement.  We feel despondent and may well beat ourselves up and think the we are the problem e.g. “I just don’t have the will-power required” or “I’m not committed enough” or “I’m too lazy.”  Or we start to ‘play victim’ to justify to ourselves why this change is not possible – e.g it’s some-one else’s fault, or it’s the fault of our genes.  And then we might start looking out for a ‘magic bullet’ – the ‘fool-proof solution’ that will fix our problem – the magic diet or exercise programme, the magic time-management system, the magic app or gadget or product.  Which makes us vulnerable to hard-sell marketing for all the ‘new’ (and “simple”) solutions being offered.

And to make matters worse, each time we set goals and don’t achieve them, we start to erode our belief in our own ability.  So the next time we may be a bit half-hearted about our goal because in our heart-of-hearts we don’t actually believe we can achieve it.  Which of course means we are less likely to succeed.

Strategies for Habit Change

Dilemmas require Strategies, not ‘Solutions’

A dilemma requires a longer term approach.  With a dilemma we need to identify the various things we could do that might make a difference to the situation, then choose a place to start.  And when we choose the place to start we choose an action that seems ‘do-able’ and that we think will make a significant difference to the situation.  Then we try implementing this new action.  And we continuously review and ‘tweak’ the plan.  And ideally, schedule a regular time to review our over-all strategy, taking time to problem-solve the things that aren’t working with our first action, and when we have this first step embedded in our life, we then choose the next action which will contribute to the situation  improving.

And a further really important step, when we are ‘in for the long-haul’ is celebrating every small success and tracking our progress towards our desired outcome.

It can be very helpful to have an ‘accountability partner’ or ‘change partner’ when we are tackling big changes – some-one who you share your goals and strategies with, some-one who will be a cheer-leader for you, encouraging you and acknowledging your successes, while also challenging you to persevere when you might be tempted to give up.

This is not a ‘quick-fix’ approach.  But it is an approach that is more likely to succeed.

Creating a robust strategy

And perhaps the most important part of successfully moving towards an outcome that requires habit change is building in strategies for dealing with temptations, doubts, impulses, unhelpful thoughts and those times of the day when your will-power might be low and you are more vulnerable to ‘falling off the wagon’.  And it is this part of the plan that requires special attention in our ‘ongoing maintenance’ – our regular tweaking and reviewing.  Often we are not conscious of what these challenges will be until they happen.  So we may fall off the wagon when these challenges first occur.  But we can learn from each of these experiences and for each challenge we can identify a mini-strategy that will help us to deal with that challenge the next time around.

So What is the Secret Ingredient?

In addition to changing your approach from ‘problem-solving’ to ‘strategy-building’, what if there was an approach or method that enabled you to improve your ‘foundation skills’ for habit change?  What if it was possible to learn the skills that help you stick to your resolutions and not ‘fall off the wagon’ as often, and not ‘give up on yourself’ when the going gets tough?

What ‘foundation skills’ are we talking about here?

How about these for starters …

  • The ability to be aware of unhelpful thoughts, let them go and not take them seriously?  For example, you are tired and hungry and a thought pops up – something like “I never manage to stick to my goals, I might as well give up now because I’m going to end up giving up anyway.” Or “Right now I need a break so I’ll skip going to the gym today” or “I deserve a reward for being so good, so it’s O.K. if I blob in front of tele tonight with a tub of icecream” – or that really seductive thought “just this once won’t really matter”.
  • The ability to be with uncomfortable feelings in a way that enables you to be aware of the feelings and can accept them compassionately and not be over-whelmed by them, and so not have them jump into the driver’s seat of your life.  For example you have a goal of spending less time at home by yourself and going out and doing more things socially.  You are getting ready to go out to meet some friends but you feel anxious, shy, self-conscious and even a bit nauseous.  Imagine if you could calm down that feeling to the extent that you were able to remain committed to your intention to go out, and thus achieve your goal.
  • The ability to notice an urge and be able to ‘surf’ urges without giving in to them.
  • The ability to spend less time ‘dwelling’ on mistakes, regrets and guilt about the past or worrying and feeling anxious about the future or daydreaming about the future.  And therefore spending more time being in the present moment.  Daydreaming and worrying don’t help us to make the changes we want to make.  And dwelling on our imperfections and mistakes take our focus away from enjoying the present. In fact, the only place we can make a difference to the quality of our lives for the future is in the present moment – we can’t change the past or ‘magic’ the future inside our heads.
  • The ability to be less judgmental towards ourselves, to not be constantly putting ourselves down or noticing what we’re doing wrong more than we notice what we’re doing well.
  • The ability to be compassionate towards ourselves and to forgive ourselves and move on when we slip up.
  • The ability to feel gratitude and appreciation, and to pat ourselves on the back for our small achievements.
  • The ability to ‘get perspective’ – to step out of the detail and to step back and see the ‘bigger picture’.  That is, the ability to step into the ‘observer stance’ where we can make wiser decisions, the ability to not be ‘in’ the issue but an observer outside the issue, so being able to be the ‘manager’ of the issue.

Without these abilities, tackling a challenging habit change and persevering over the ‘long-haul’ will be difficult.  These abilities are, I believe, some of the most essential ingredients for habit change and the achievement of challenging goals.  They are not ‘magic bullets’, but they are powerful ‘secret’ or not so secret ingredients.  They take time to learn and develop.  But they are skills that make a difference in so many aspects of our lives, both in solving problems and dilemmas, and in enhancing our wellbeing and happiness.

If you have read my previous blogs you probably already know that I am a big fan of Mindfulness, and you may recognise that all of the things listed above are aspects of Mindfulness.  I can’t emphasise enough how practical and useful Mindfulness skills are in our everyday lives.  If you haven’t already looked into learning Mindfulness, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Mindfulness for Habit Change

But Wait – There’s More: Another Secret Ingredient

Another really important skill, which I see as critical to any goal achievement or habit change is that of using ‘Implementation Intentions’.  Peter Gollwitzer (American Psychologist, July 1999) makes the distinction between ‘goal intentions’ and ‘implementation intentions’ – goal intentions are what we want to achieve, and implementation intentions are ‘pre-decisions’ about the when, where and how of achieving a goal.  They have the structure of ‘When situation x arises, then I will perform response y”.  These are particularly helpful for things that might tempt us away from persevering with our new habit.

And if we don’t ‘pre-decide’ what we will do in these situations it is much more likely that we will ‘fall off the wagon’ (of progress on our new habit).  For example let’s suppose that you are establishing a new habit of avoiding sugary foods.  It is 3.00 p.m. and you have been making healthy food choices so far today.  But right now you are hungry and tired and would love a little bit of added energy.  And you have had a habit of visiting the confectionary bar in your workplace at about this time whenever you felt the need for a bit of added energy.  If you have ‘pre-decided’ how you will handle this situation, having identified it as a potential challenge point, you will have prepared, for example, making some healthy sugar-free snacks and packed them in your lunch box –  in which case you are more easily able to stick to your resolution.  You have an implementation intention for this situation – that is “When I feel the need for a sugary snack, I will eat a healthy snack from my lunch box”.

Implementation intentions that involve a mental rather than a practical response are even more important.  For example “When I have the urge to eat a sugary snack (even when I have a healthy alternative in my lunchbox) I will employ the ‘urge surfing’ steps, and will make sure I have my laminated card with these steps on, in my pocket.  And while I am waiting for the urge to subside I will go to the water-cooler, get a glass of water and sip my water each time I notice this urge.”  If you are not familiar with urge surfing you will find plenty of info on the web.  For example, you will find a good clear description of the process on here

Compass

So let’s look at an example of putting together a robust habit change strategy.

Your goal is to get up earlier in the morning, perhaps so that you can be less rushed in the mornings, not be late for work, fit in some exercise or have leisurely breakfasts with your partner or friends.  If you treat this habit change exercise simply as a goal or as a problem, there is a good chance you may fail to achieve your objective.  The obvious ‘solutions’ if we treat this as simply a ‘problem’ are things like set your alarm clock an hour earlier in the morning.  And for some people, it is this simple.  But for many others a series of habit changes are required to achieve this goal.

So, if, instead, you come up with a ‘strategy’, it might look something like the following.  And this is much more likely to achieve success.

Goal:  To get up at 6.15 a.m.

1.        Identify possible steps to solve the problem e.g. Set two alarms instead of 1, have a friend phone me in the morning, go to bed earlier … etc.

2.       Choose one ‘do-able’ step that you feel you could achieve and that might have a significant impact on the problem.  Let’s say I chose ‘go to bed earlier’

3.       Identify as many of the likely challenges that you might experience as possible, and for each, work out how you will address them i.e. set an ‘implementation intention’ for each.  For example:

a.       I get busy doing something and don’t realise the time – “Half an hour before I need to go to bed, I will set an alarm to ring, then even if I am in the middle of something I will remind myself that I can come back to it tomorrow, and remind myself of my goal and will pack up and go to bed”.

b.      I have a habit of not having everything ready for the morning, so I end up staying up late to get things ready for the morning and then going to bed late. “(When) An hour before bed time (then) I will do everything on my checklist for getting things ready in the morning”

c.       You get the idea.  Identify the potential challenge and put an implementation intention / plan  in place that covers how, when and where.

4.       Identify some of the practical issues that might come up and work out strategies for them

a.       There’s something really good on T.V. (I’ll record it)

b.      I’m so tired that I’m sitting in front of T.V. mindlessly and just ignore my alarm  (put your T.V. on a timer so it turns itself off)

c.       You get the idea.  Again – more ‘Implementation Intentions’.

5.       Identify some of the thoughts, feelings, temptations and urges that might lead you to give up on your goal, and work out ‘Implementation Intentions’ for them

a.        Potential sabotaging thought “I’m not feeling tired and I feel like I don’t need as much sleep tonight”.   Implementation intention:  “When the thought comes up that I don’t need as much sleep tonight, then I will remind myself that sleep works best when we keep routine sleep hours, and that if I don’t keep routine hours I will keep struggling with not feeling sleepy at bedtime and feeling tired when I wake up and wanting to sleep in.  I will remind myself of ‘the big picture’ and will make a choice to go to bed on time, even if I am not feeling tired”.

b.      You get the idea – Again – more ‘Implementation Intentions’ for other potential sabotaging thoughts or feelings you think might trip you up.

6.       Each time you slip up, identify what led to the slip up and what you will do in that situation next time.  That is, create an ‘Implementation Intention’ that will cover this situation.  Then let it go and move on.  Forgive yourself for the slip-up.

7.       At the end of each day, as you lie in bed, pat yourself on the back for all the things that you did that in any way contributed to you making progress on establishing and maintaining your new habit.

8.       Regularly review your strategy e.g. each Sunday evening read over your strategy, identify times you slipped up and create ‘implementation intentions’ for these situations.

I wish you all the very best with any habit changes you are tackling at the moment. I hope that, by employing these not-so-secret “secret ingredients” you have not only greater success, but that you get to enjoy the journey of change that you are on.

Image credit: Dollarphotoclub.com

Please comment:

A penny for your thoughts … (not literally, but you know what we mean – we’d love to hear your opinion and learn about your experiences).

Have you found Mindfulness strategies to be important to you when engaging in changing your habits or achieving challenging goals?  If so we’d love to hear about your example/s.  Or do you use ‘Implementation Intentions’ (even if you don’t call them that)?  Or do you have other useful tips to share.  We’d love to hear about this too on the Comments Board below.

Any and all comments welcome – whether or not you agree with what I’ve written.

 

 

 

 

 

“Just” – The Enemy of Time Management

Time management, Awareness of time and Procrastination

Just.  It’s a word that can get us into a lot of trouble, stress and disappointment.  Beware of “just” if you want to improve your time management and reduce your procrastination.

I first became aware of the significance of the ‘just’ word when I was a teenager.  I heard some-one talking about how it can be used to reduce the significance of a request by a farmer to his wife (in the days before couples were partners in farm work).  A request like “Honey, while you are in town can you just pick up the six 20 kg bags of grass seed I ordered this morning”.  Or “Honey, could you just nip down to the back paddock and let the sheet into the next paddock (and this was in the era when you didn’t just hop onto your quad bike or ute).  Both jobs required a lot of extra time, and likely a change of clothes for the latter.

So over the years I have been very aware of the dangers of “just”-ing.

Dangers That Arise When We “Just” Ourselves

1.        “I will just knock out a blog post before breakfast”.  Yes, it may be do-able, especially if you’re only thinking about the writing – but all the ‘extra bits’ such as proof-reading, sourcing suitable graphics, loading it onto the website, sorting out formatting glitches etc. may make this an unrealistic goal.

This danger occurs when we fail to take account of the amount of time that the many necessary small tasks take, as part of a bigger whole.  Another example – preparing my ‘Everyday Mindfulness for Peace, Perspective and Productivity’ course.  Yesterday I told myself that I “just” needed to record the script I had prepared for one of the lessons, and then that lesson would be finished.  And when I actually went to do it, I ‘remembered’ or again became consciously aware of the steps – record it, with pen in hand, in order to edit the parts of the script that don’t flow, then record it again, and often again and again.  Then listen through to the recording while following the document in ‘review’ mode in MS Word and notating each ‘bloop’ that needs to be edited out, to send to my tech guy who does my editing for me.  Then when he sends it back to me, reviewing the work one final time.  All in all, quite a lengthy process.

This meant that the list of tasks I’d thought I’d get done yesterday was quite unrealistic which potentially sets me up for a day of feeling rushed and stressed trying to get these tasks done anyway, and disappointed at what I didn’t get done, rather than fully acknowledging and appreciating what I did get done.

2.       Unfortunately, this unhelpful little ‘mind trick’ can also go hand in hand with not having a very realistic sense of passing time.  I also have had the tendency to think “Oh, I need to be in town by 2.00 pm and so as long as I leave by 1.30 pm that will be fine”.  And I get absorbed in my work and keep on working until minutes before 1.30 pm without being very aware of the passing of time, and also having taken no account of the many small ‘just jobs’ related to getting ready for my meeting in town – which again leads to the potential for lots of wild rushing around in a ‘headless chook’ fashion, and lots of stress and self-berating.

3.       When “Just” leads into non-intentional activity, time-wasting and procrastination

Equally dangerous to good time-management is when we get unintentionally caught into activities that waste a lot of time, or that take us away from a more important task for long periods of time.  Prime suspects include “I’ll ‘just’ check my email” or “I’ll ‘just’ check Facebook (or substitute your preferred social media sites) or “I’ll ‘just’ spend a moment on my favourite computer game of the moment”.

Imagine if you had a friend and every time you made an arrangement to spend time with her, as soon as her phone rang, she’d say “I’ll just answer that, I won’t be a moment” and then spend as long on that call as you tend to spend on checking email, facebook or games, unintentionally.  You would probably have worked out pretty quickly that you can’t trust that friend’s word when they use that “just” word.  So how is it that each time we say “I’ll just” do one of these tasks, we still believe ourselves.  Derr…  Time to become very suspicious of that word, and of ourselves when we notice that word is operating!


A brilliant tip for “justing” and unrealistic estimates of how long things will take: Substitute smaller units of time

Daphne Oyserman of the University of Southern California, in her research, found that it is helpful to substitute smaller units of time – for example instead of thinking “I have 2 hours to get this task done” think “I have 120 minutes to get this task done”.  It is easy to see how this could be helpful – a 10 minute distraction that I let myself get caught up in within 120 minutes seems more significant than ‘just this little 10 minutes’ feels within 2 hours.  I’ve started to experiment with this and am finding it helpful – would love to hear about your experience if you decide to try it out.


When others “Just” us

It is also helpful to be on the lookout for when others “just” us.  “Could you just mind my children for the morning” (when you know that his or her ‘morning’ often stretches into the afternoon, or you know that his or her children are little terrors or very demanding).  Or, “Could you just help me to sort out this computer problem” (a real gamble – may be simple, but may take ages).

Of course there are many other skills that are necessary here, when others “just” us, such as being able to feel comfortable to say ‘no’, reflecting back the request with more of the details specified to more accurately reflect the scope of the request, and  being comfortable with negotiating quite specific parameters around our ‘yes’ when this is warranted.  But even ‘just’ being aware of our ‘justs’ can make a big difference.

So, you have been warned!  Beware the ‘just word’ and improve your time management.

Image credit: Dollarphotoclub.com

Please comment:

A penny for your thoughts … (not literally, but you know what we mean – we’d love to hear your opinion and learn about your experiences).

Are there other instances where the ‘just’ word causes problems in your life?  If so we’d love it if you would share your examples.  And we’d also love to hear what you notice if you start to experiment with substituting smaller units of time, if you have a tendency to ‘just’.

Any and all comments welcome – whether or not you agree with what I’ve written.

The Annual Tease of New Year’s Resolutions

The Annual Tease of New Year’s Resolutions

New Years Resolutions written on a note pad.

Do you, like myself and many others do a bit of a mental review of your year (or your life)at New Year and come up with some ‘resolutions’ for the coming year? Some big goals for personal change?  If so, to what extent do you achieve those goals?  I read yesterday that 25% of people abandon their New Year’s Resolutions after one week, and 60% do so within six months.  I didn’t check if there is any research backing up these statements, but they were food for thought, all the same.

I think there are many reasons that their New Year’s Resolutions don’t work for many people, but I will list just three that I think are particularly important.  Hopefully this list might help you to identify some of the thing/s that trip you up if you are unable to persevere with your resolutions.  Or they may even allow you to give yourself permission not to engage in this annual tease, if the time is not right for you.

Your challenging goals – problems or dilemmas?

1.       If it is a challenging enough goal that we need to set a New Year’s Resolution to achieve it, it is most likely not a simple or easy goal to achieve.  Dike Drummond, M.D. in his book ‘Stop Physician Burnout’ writes about the distinction between a problem and a dilemma.  Understandably, we generally  approach challenges with a ‘problem-solving’ mind-set – analyse the problem, identify possible solutions, choose the best solution, implement it and voila!  Problem solved.  This approach works well for straight-forward problems – e.g. there are two people in your house-hold and only one car, but today, you both need the car.  Apply this process and voila!  Problem solved.

But many of our challenges are more of a dilemma than a problem.  A dilemma is a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two alternatives – especially when both alternatives are either undesirable or mutually incompatible.  Or perhaps both alternatives are very desirable – for example “I want to lose weight and I want to keep on enjoying yummy sweet and fatty foods”.  And in the case of the changes we tackle in New Year’s Resolutions, it’s not just one difficult choice, but a choice we need to make over and over and over again, day after day, after day – on days when we’re feeling highly motivated and on days when we are exhausted and don’t have any delicious and easy-to-prepare healthy food in the refrigerator.

A dilemma requires managing, not solving.  And managing requires an ongoing strategy with regular reviews to ‘tweak’ the strategy to find what will work best.  It’s not a quick fix process.  Many people approach their New Year’s Resolutions as if they are problems, when they may in fact be dilemmas.

Maintaining mindfulness, awareness and perspective regarding our goal over the long-haul

2.   When we are working on an issue that requires us to make ‘the good decision’ over and over and over again, we need to be able to maintain a relatively high level of awareness or mindfulness.  Using the weight loss example again – we need to be able to notice the urge to grab a bag of chippies or chocolate bar from the ‘snack box’ at work, before we’ve gone ahead and done it.  We need to be able to resist urges, see the bigger picture – remember our overall goal for better health or losing weight, be aware of the consequences of our actions, be aware of alternatives for healthier choices – to generally maintain a state of awareness, choice and perspective.  These are all mental functions that we can only achieve when we are in a ‘relaxed and focussed’ frame of mind.  When we are stressed out, in the ‘fight-flight’ physiology, we are more likely to be caught in tunnel vision, impatience, impulsiveness, and black-and-white thinking – not a place where we can make wise decisions.

In fact, to have a ‘fighting chance’ of sticking to our New Year’s Resolutions, we need to spend as little time as possible in the ‘fight-flight’ physiology, and know how to change state to the ‘relaxed and focussed’ physiology each time we notice that we are stressed.  In addition to Mindfulness and Diaphragmatic Breathing, Neurolinguistic Programming has some great strategies for accessing and anchoring resourceful states such as being relaxed and focussed.  But first we need to have a good level of awareness of our current state so that we know when we need to change it!  Again, Mindfulness is vital here.

Ironically, at the time when we make our New Year’s Resolutions, we are usually in quite a ‘relaxed and focussed’ place.  We may be on leave from our jobs or on holiday, and are giving ourselves some ‘me-time’ / thinking time where we intentionally choose to enter a place of perspective.  Which is a great place to formulate goals, so long as we stay there long enough to formulate a fairly detailed and grounded strategy that will ensure we are able to achieve those goals.  But many people don’t take the time and effort to formulate a detailed strategy at that time, and then return to a busy life and get caught back into the rut (and ‘tunnel vision’) of being busy, ‘fire-fighting’, and coping or surviving.  It is likely to be almost impossible to stick to resolutions that involve managing dilemmas under these circumstances.

‘New Year’s Resolution’ or ‘New Year’s Wishful Thought’?

3.       Maybe it would help to ‘call a spade a spade’.  We think of these things we set in the new year as ‘resolutions’.  Definitions of ‘resolution’ include: the quality of being resolute, great determination; a mental pledge.  But for many, New Year’s Resolutions could more accurately be thought of as ‘New Year’s Wishful Thoughts’ or perhaps ‘New Year’s Vague Goals’ – if we haven’t developed a long term strategy for implementation which includes supporting our ongoing determination in keeping this ‘mental pledge’ or ‘promise’ that we have made to ourselves.  So my suggestion would be that if we haven’t got the time, or level of commitment to create a good strategy, why not spare ourselves the guilt and disappointment and slight erosion of self-esteem that occurs when we break our promises to ourselves, let ourselves down – again, and just acknowledge the reality of the matter, without judgment – that the time is not right for this particular goal at this time.

So bearing this in mind – choose your ‘thing’.  If not a ‘resolution’, then what?  I do think that setting general intentions without a clear goal can be helpful.  Last year, a friend set her friends the challenge of selecting a quality to focus on for the year.  I chose the quality of ‘spaciousness’ – which I pondered upon many times during the year.  It served as a general sense of direction for the year, and although I didn’t have a specific detailed strategy I frequently revisited this somewhat vague intention, with positive results I wouldn’t have predicted.

Compass

Be kind to yourself, and get real

My words of advice on New Year’s Resolutions

–          Be real with yourself – accept what is, because it is – yourself and your circumstances.  Following the advice of the Serenity Prayer – accept the things you can’t change, have the courage (and determination) to choose to change the things you can when the time is right, and use your wisdom to know when and how to effectively tackle those changes you want to make.

–          Be kind to yourself – don’t set yourself up for guilt and disappointment with unrealistic and ungrounded ‘resolutions’.

–          Consider using this year to put some more foundations in place to help you tackle those important goals that the time is not yet right for.  Look out for ways to develop more mindfulness and mental spaciousness this year – and maybe next year you will be in a better place to tackle those goals successfully.

 

Please comment:

A penny for your thoughts … (not literally, but you know what we mean – we’d love to hear your opinion and learn about your experiences).  Please add your comment/s below.

Do New Year’s Resolutions work for you?  What words of advice would you offer regarding setting New Year’s Resolutions?

Any and all comments welcome – whether or not you agree with what I’ve written.

 

Stress … It’s Doing My Head In

Stress ... It's doing my head in

Feeling a bit like you’ve just got too much going on at once?  Too much pressure?  Too many people making demands on your time or your peace of mind?  And feeling like you just can’t think straight, get perspective, work out where to start?

And possibly, as a result of this feeling, saying and doing things that ‘aren’t you’.  Maybe you’re normally relatively calm and organised, but at times you just feel like all this stress is ‘doing your head in’.

Well, maybe it’s not just about you.  Maybe you’re not ‘losing it’, going crazy or whatever.  In fact this is just what our brains do when we end up in the ‘stress response’ (also often known as the fight-flight response).

I personally find it quite reassuring to understand what happens when our brains flick into these particular unhelpful patterns when we are stressed.  Partly I find it helpful because I can remind myself I’m not going crazy, this is exactly how my brain is designed to operate under stress.  And that thought reminds me that focussing on actions that will help my physiology shift from ‘stressed out / freaking out’ to ‘relaxed and focussed’ is the most useful thing to do.  But I’m running ahead … first, here are some ideas that help to explain in simple terms why our minds do what they do when we are stressed.

We’re not as ‘modern’ as we think

In the same way that it is a natural reflex for our bodies to flick into ‘fight-flight’ physiology any time we perceive we are facing a threat (whether that is a real physical threat or a perceived threat, perhaps something that has us feel that our security or wellbeing is under threat) our mind can flick automatically into a ‘fight-flight’ style of thinking.   The ‘fight-flight’ reflex is a very primitive reflex which we have in common with even the most ancient animals.

Unfortunately our minds and bodies are not great at telling the difference between real, physical threats and everyday worries or anxieties.  So most of us flick into the fight-flight response without even knowing we are doing it.  We are then caught in a physiology that would equip us well for a brawl, or to survive in a dangerous world, as if we were surrounded by sabre-tooth tigers.

The ‘logical’ brain goes off-line and ‘emotion brain’ jumps into the driver’s seat

Ironically, the more ‘modern’ or highly evolved, rational, problem-solving part of our brain (the neo-cortex) is less activated when we switch into the fight-flight response, and instead the more ancient ‘emotion brain’ (limbic system) takes over the ‘driver’s seat’.  So when we are facing stressors and most need our problem-solving ability, we have least access to it if the ‘fight-flight’ response has been activated.  And you may have noticed evidence that the ‘emotion brain’ is more activated in times of greater stress – you may find yourself feeling more emotional than usual, perhaps more prone to tearfulness or more ‘short-fused’ than you would normally be, and you may find that you take things more personally than usual.

In addition, the limbic system responds in a very fast, very ‘black or white’, or ‘all or nothing’ way.   You might find that when you are feeling particularly stressed that you find yourself saying things to yourself like “This is a disaster” (as opposed to “This is quite a big setback”),  or using ‘all or nothing language’ such as “I will never be able to …”, or  “They always do this to me”.

And when I say that we see things as very ‘black or white’ I guess I’m really saying we see things as very black – we are not in a state to notice what is going well or the many good things in our lives.  We are in a negative mind-set because of the fight-flight response.  This leads to us to a bit of a ‘siege mentality’ – we can feel that we are surrounded by people who are mean and/or stupid.

Looking out for danger

When we are in ‘stress physiology’ we become ‘hypervigilant – we are on the look-out for what is wrong or what could go wrong.  This makes perfect sense given that your body and mind are acting as if you are living in a very dangerous world.  In a genuinely dangerous world, we need to be on the look-out for danger.  But our tendency to flick into this stress physiology, and the hypervigilance that goes with it when faced with every-day ongoing stress, is very unhelpful.

As you can see, we are hard-wired to think negatively when we are caught in the fight-flight response.  Another way of describing ‘hypervigilance would be to say that we are in a hyper ‘judging’ mode – we are filtering for whether something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (and mostly when we are in the ‘stress’ physiology we are only able to see the ‘bad’) and we are paying particular attention to the size of the gap between how we perceive things to be and how we perceive they ‘should’ be or we wish they would be.

The ‘Relaxed and Focussed’ Physiology

This is the opposite to the ‘fight-flight’ physiology.  When we are relaxed, we much more easily and automatically notice the good things in our lives.  In this physiology we don’t have to give ourselves a ‘pep talk’ to think positively, we are naturally aware of the good things in our lives.  We are also much more compassionate, and much less likely to judge – either others or ourselves.  In this physiology we also have full access to our pre-frontal cortex – the part of the brain that can problem-solve, be rational, be creative, and get perspective on life.  Our concentration is better and our memory works better.  All-in-all this physiology has a lot going for it!

Adopting a ‘bottom up’ approach

There is growing acceptance within psychology today that we can’t easily ‘think’ or ‘work’ our way out of this dynamic.  For many people trying to be ‘rational’ in our thinking when we are caught in stress and anxiety, and trying to be ‘positive’ doesn’t work when we are trying to get out of this nasty cycle. In fact, we can end up feeling worse because we think we ‘should’ be able to ‘just be rational’ or ‘just be positive’ and try as we might, this ability eludes us.  And this leads to more self-judgment and more of that nasty vicious cycle.

Instead of trying harder to think our way out of this physiology, a more effective approach is to ‘use our bodies to change our minds’.  It is helpful to recognise that we are in the stress physiology, remind ourselves that we are hard-wired to think in this negative way when we are in the ‘stress’ physiology, and then choose to take action to change our physiology.  So give yourself a break.  Trying to stop yourself thinking in this negative way when you are in the ‘stress’ physiology is like trying to rake water up hill.  Once we take action which moves us into a more ‘relaxed and focussed’ physiology, then we can ‘go upstairs’ and change the way we are thinking.

‘Bridges’ into the ‘Relaxed and Focussed’ physiology

There are many ‘bridges’ that help us to move from ‘stressed brain’ to ‘relaxed and focused brain’.    Physical exercise is really helpful, as is spending time with people who care about us or whose company helps to uplift us.  Spiritual practices such as prayer or meditation, or being in nature can also be very helpful, as can music, art or other creative activities. Play is very potent also.

But perhaps the most direct and powerful is diaphragmatic breathing.

Learning to gain greater control over your physiology through diaphragmatic breathing will pay dividends.  Imagine how much more calm, enjoyable and productive life would be if you could easily access the ‘Relaxed and Focussed’ physiology, where your brain is more efficient and you can easily get things into perspective.  So if you haven’t already, do explore the simple but powerful process of diaphragmatic breathing.  And make sure you use it as often as you need it to, to help you keep things in perspective and to prevent you from visiting that ‘it’s doing my head in’ territory that detracts so significantly from our quality of life.

Just breathe … diaphragmatically. It can change your life.

A penny for your thoughts … (not literally, but you know what we mean – we’d love to hear from you): I’d love to hear your opinion and learn about your experiences:  Please add your comment/s below.

Can you relate to any of this – have you noticed some of these thought patterns when you’ve been stressed.  And have you been annoyed with yourself for being ‘so negative’ or ‘so grumpy’ but not been able to get out of that frame of mind.  Or maybe you’ve had friends who’ve given you that oh so helpful (not) advice ‘Don’t be so negative’.  I’d love to hear about your experiences of this ‘stress dynamic’.

Any and all comments welcome – whether or not you agree with what I’ve written.

 

 

 

7 Ways The Fight-flight Physiology Is Detrimental To Your Health

7 Ways The Fight-flight Physiology Is Detrimental To Your Health

Understand the Fight-flight physiology and its effect on our heart rate and health

Nothing is likely to improve your quality of life more than understanding how the ‘fight-flight’ response affects your physiology, your brain and how you think and behave.  This is ‘news you can use’.

So firstly, what is the fight-flight response?

This is a very ancient response that we have in common with even the simplest animals.  It is a response that is designed to help save our lives in physically life-threatening situations.  How does it do this?  By ramping up our heart-rate, blood pressure and breathing pattern to ensure enough oxygenated blood flows to our arms and legs so we can run like crazy or fight like crazy, and live to tell the tale.  Along with these three physiological changes there are many other large and small changes that contribute to our survival. This response is designed as a very short-lived response to cope with real, life-threatening situations.  Unfortunately this response is activated whenever we sense a ‘threat’ –– whether it is a physical threat or just a worry about whatever issues are going on in our lives.  And because there are nearly always issues we can get worried about, many of us are living in a constant low, or even high- grade ‘fight-flight’ physiology.

7 Ways The ‘Fight-flight’ Physiology Is Detrimental To Your Health

Our bodies are not designed to cope with prolonged periods of ‘fight-flight’ physiological arousal.  When left unchecked, we can end up experiencing the following:

1.  When we are in an already higher than normal state of arousal in terms of the fight-flight response, with our hearts beating faster than normal, our blood-pressure elevated and our breathing faster and shallower than normal, it only takes relatively small additional stressors to lead us to feeling panicky or overwhelmed.  And potentially, when the stress level gets to a certain level we can be triggered into a full-blown panic attack, perhaps ending up in the Emergency department at the hospital feeling like we are having a heart attack or can’t breathe.

2.       When we are in the fight-flight response, a more ancient part of the brain, the Limbic system or Emotion brain becomes more highly activated and the logical, rational, creative, perspective-giving, problem-solving part of the brain becomes less activated.  Why?  We survive best in emergencies if we don’t stop to ponder, strategise or philosophise.  Instead our impulse to run or fight kicks in and takes over.  Which is perfect when we are in a physical emergency situation, but not so great when in a conflict with our boss or partner, for example.  So if you have noticed that you can’t think very clearly, or that you become more emotional than usual when you are stressed, now you know why!   And when ‘Emotion Brain’ is in the driver’s seat of our lives, we tend to make poor health choices – to grab that chocolate bar or alcohol to drown our sorrows, or to decide ‘to heck with it, why should I bother going to the gym’.

3.       Bodily functions that are not immediately needed for our survival partially close down.  This includes our digestive systems.  You don’t need to digest your most recent meal to fight the tiger.  In modern times, this may help to explain why there is a very high incidence of digestive system disorders such as heartburn or reflux and irritable bowel syndrome.  Of course things like not eating enough natural healthy foods and not getting enough exercise are also a part of this – and often these things occur because we feel too busy or stressed to fit in exercise and cook healthy meals.

4.       Our immune systems also undergo significant change during the fight-flight response.  To begin with, they become ‘ramped up’ which puts us in a good position if we were wounded in the process of fighting and fleeing.  But when we remain in the fight-flight physiology for longer periods of time than is healthy, our immune system then becomes less effective, leading to a diverse range of problems which suggest an underactive immune system (eg getting every cold or flu that is going around) or an overactive immune system (e.g. hayfever or other allergies).

5.       Our muscles tighten, ready for action when we are in the fight-flight physiology.  Whether it’s our arms and shoulders tensing, preparing us for a fight, or whether we are ‘bracing’ our core muscles, it is not good for us!  The fight-flight response is designed to be of short duration.  Our bodies are not designed to stay in this ‘stress mode’ for longer periods of time.  People often notice this effect as tight or even rock-hard shoulder muscles.  This can lead to shoulder, neck, and back pain, and in particular, to headaches.  And if you do a job that requires repetitive arm or hand movements, this creates the perfect situation to develop Occupational Overuse Syndrome.

6.       Our eyes focus in a way that changes the rate of our blinking.  This can lead to eye discomfort.

7.       And perhaps one of the most important physical effects of being chronically caught in fight-flight physiology, with high levels of circulating stress chemicals (e.g. adrenalin and cortisol), a racing heart and fast breathing is that it is very difficult to get good quality, refreshing sleep.  And poor quality sleep makes every aspect of life harder to cope with, which increases our stress, which makes it harder to sleep …  And given that sleep is when healing occurs – both physical healing and refreshing our brains – this further impacts on our health.

And these are just the most obvious physical affects.  The affects of the fight-flight response on our mood and thinking patterns also take a heavy toll.

If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have looked after myself better…

You may be thinking, well, I know I’m stressed, but none of these apply to me.  YET.  I would suggest that if you experience a relatively high level of stress and have done so for a relatively long period, and do not have effective ways of lowering your base-line of arousal or stress each day, then it is a matter of YET.  Our bodies are a bit like Planet Earth.  For decades the human occupants have been burning fossil fuels, pouring toxic waste into the air or soil, felling large forests, over-fishing and de-spoiling the oceans and waterways etc.  And for a long time we had almost no awareness of the consequences of this.  Until relatively recently.  And now we are so far down that path that saving our planet is not going to be an easy task.  Our bodies are like that.  We can be, without realizing it, swimming in a sea of stress chemicals, until, perhaps in our forties or fifties, or sometimes sooner with some symptoms, we find that we have some ‘disorders’’ or ‘syndromes’ that are having a significant effect on our quality of life.
So, whatever your age, now is a good time to gain mastery over your stress physiology.

The sooner the better.  And a good place to start is to learn Diaphragmatic Breathing.

 

A penny for your thoughts … (not literally, but you know what we mean – we’d love to hear from you): 

I’d love to hear your opinion and learn about your experiences:  Please add your comment/s below.  

Am I being a bit over-dramatic here?  Or do you think there is some truth in my ‘doomsday’ comment that if you are in a constant state of stress and are not experiencing any symptoms yet, it is a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ unless you make some changes?  If you’ve already heard your own ‘wake-up call’ what was that defining moment, or insight or stress symptom that moved you to action?  If you’ve helped some-one else make important changes related to reducing their stress, what do you think convinced them to start on their journey of change?  (Please respect their confidentiality and do not include any details of their situation, just what the ‘light-bulb moment’ was for them, the key thing that helped them to start making some changes).

Any and all comments welcome – whether or not you agree with what I’ve written.