SIX TIPS FOR MAKING CHANGES THAT STICK

All of us have made short-term changes before. But how do you get them to last for longer? Here are six of my top tips from the latest science in behavior change.

1START EASY

It’s important to kick off with snacks that last for only five minutes because the latest science of successful behavior change tells us that if we want to create new habits it’s essential to start easy. One of the world’s leading behavior-change scientists, the Stanford University psychologist B. J. Fogg, often tells an amazing story about how he turned the chore of flossing his teeth into a habit by starting with just one tooth. He turned it into a task that took hardly any effort. Very little willpower or motivation was required. And then what happened? After finishing one tooth, he found he just naturally wanted to do another. And then another. And then another. After a month he found that he was automatically flossing all of his teeth twice a day. It had become a new habit.

Decades of research into behavior change has found that if we want behaviors to become habitual and automatic, they should take little mental or physical effort. The easier you make a behavior, the less motivation you require to do it. This is important as motivation naturally goes up and down over time. If you’ve ever wondered why your smartphone is so addictive, it’s because Silicon Valley uses these very same psychological techniques to keep you glued to their apps. But I want to use these powerful techniques for good—to create habits that help you rather than harm you. The Feel Better in 5 program has been designed to give you a balance between ease and simplicity and effectiveness. Each snack should be easy enough for you to complete without much effort or cost, while being powerful enough that you should start feeling the benefits quickly.

2CONNECT EACH SNACK TO AN EXISTING HABIT

Here’s another tremendously helpful trick for turning new activities into habits. All the best researchers into behavior change recommend connecting them to existing habits. Take Fogg and his flossing, for example. He started by giving himself a new rule: “After I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth.” He found one daily automatic behavior that was already well established—brushing his teeth—and simply hooked this new habit up to it. I’d also recommend that you do this. We’re all extremely busy these days, so if you don’t need to find extra time in your daily routine to fit in new activities you’re much more likely to succeed.

So what are some daily routines that are already in place that you could hitch a health snack to? Most of us have a hot drink in the morning. That’s a perfect place to stick on a habit. I get my own five-minute workout done when the kettle’s on and my morning cup of tea is brewing. Before I’ve even started the day I’ve given myself a victory, and it feels amazing. You might also want to think about the various transition points in your day. What about when you walk into the house after work or just after you have dropped the kids off at school? Do you commute on the train? Could you get into the habit of doing a Heart health snack like writing in your gratitude journal for the first five minutes of your journey home? The important thing is that you try to stick your health snacks on to a habit that’s already there. When you do this, you make it much more likely that this new behavior will become a regular part of your daily routine.

Importantly, if you try to stick your habit onto a part of your daily routine and you find it doesn’t work, don’t beat yourself up about it. Simply try a different slot in your day instead. Be pleased that you are learning more about what works for you and what doesn’t.

3RESPECT YOUR RHYTHM

It’s also well worth thinking about whereabouts in the day you’ll place each kind of snack. This is because we all have natural daily rhythms and will feel more inclined to do certain things at certain times. For example, we tend to have peak muscular strength at three or four p.m. If that sounds like you, you might want to root your daily Body health snack onto something that you already do during that period. For example, as you “transition” from the stresses of the work day to the relaxation of being at home, you could stick on a habit here. You could walk through the front door in your work clothes, change into your workout gear, and, before you do anything else (like mindlessly scroll through Instagram for twenty minutes!), you could do a five-minute yoga sequence to help you unwind both physically and mentally.

Or what about before breakfast, when your system is full of the hormone cortisol that helps you get up and attack the day? For most people, motivation is high at this time. If you do a five-minute Body health snack before your meal, your blood sugar won’t rise as much. The short burst of exercise will leave your body hungry for that sugar. So you’re changing the way your body processes your breakfast. In the evening, levels of the sleep hormone melatonin are usually high. Melatonin is what helps you get to sleep. You might find it helpful to work with that natural slowdown by getting into the habit of doing a thoughtful and calming Heart health snack in the evening. This will help you reframe all that negative chatter that’s built up over the stresses of the day and give yourself a moment of healing, which will benefit the quality of your sleep.

The important thing is that you do what feels right for you when it feels right. Feel Better in 5 is a program that doesn’t force you to bend your life around its demands. It bends around your life.

4DESIGN YOUR ENVIRONMENT

The fact is, we humans are massively influenced by our environments. By designing your environment for success, you will go a long way to making your Feel Better in 5 journey successful. Here are some hacks and tips you might want to consider.

IN THE KITCHEN

•Leave a step by the kitchen counter that you can use for exercise.

•Leave a dumbbell by the kettle that you can work out with whenever you’re waiting for the kettle to boil.

•Go through your cupboards and remove all the sugary snacks—you'll find it very hard to resist them if they’re there.

•Stock up on healthy snacks: fruits, nuts, olives, hummus, etc.

•Use your freezer as a behavior barrier. If you’ve had one glass of wine and don’t want to be tempted to have another, put the bottle in the freezer. If you’re going to be tempted to go back for second helpings of the delicious dinner you’ve just cooked, put the leftovers in the freezer before you sit down to eat.

•If you find yourself making unhealthy food choices in the supermarket, consider ordering your groceries online.

•Brush your teeth after you’ve eaten your evening meal so you’re less likely to snack before bed.

To hear more about how much our environment influences our behavior, listen to my eye-opening Feel Better, Live More podcast with Dan Buettner at drchatterjee.com/bluezones

IN THE BEDROOM

•Minimize light from blinds and curtains. Consider buying blackout curtains if you can.

•Cover any LED lights from electronic gadgets. Special stickers designed for this purpose can be bought cheaply online, or you can just use some gaffer tape.

•Consider removing the television from your bedroom.

•Don’t bring your phone into the bedroom. Charge it in another room.

•Consider sleeping with earplugs and an eye mask.

•Make your bed in the morning so you have an inviting and restful space to return to at the end of the day.

ON YOUR PHONE

•Change your phone to grayscale. Many of my patients report that simply removing the colors from their home screen is hugely effective in nudging them to pick it up less often.

•Leave it in another room while you are relaxing.

•Remove your social media apps so you can only access them through the browser.

•Sign out of your social media accounts and disable the auto-sign-in setting so you have to log in manually each time.

•Turn off fingerprint reader or face scanner so that you have to enter your PIN number.

5USE POSITIVE SELF-TALK

If many of us talked to other people the way we talk to ourselves, we wouldn’t be able to get through a single day without being slapped or shouted at. It’s a sad fact that we’re often our own most harsh and unforgiving judges. By making a few adjustments in the way we talk to ourselves, we can massively increase our sense of wellbeing and chances of success.

•When you’re craving unhealthy food, the self-talk you choose can be critical. Don’t say, “I don’t eat chocolate bars anymore”; tell yourself, “Not now. I can have a chocolate bar over the weekend if I want one.” By saying “not now,” you’re practicing healthy, journey-focused thinking, controlling what’s happening in the moment, rather than what might happen in the future.

•When reminding yourself that you have a health snack coming up, don’t tell yourself, “I have to do my Body health snack.” Break the activity down into its very first easy step. Say, “I’m going to unroll my yoga mat.”

•Don’t use words and phrases like “should,” “need,” or “I have to.” Instead say, “It would be great to . . . ,” “I’ll feel more energetic when I . . . ,” “I’ll feel calmer after I . . .”

•If you’re the kind of person who feels guilty about taking me-time, reframe it. Say something like, “I’m going to be a better mom today if I do my five-minute health snack.”

•Be your own best friend. When you have completed a health snack, don’t be afraid to pat yourself on the back and feel great about your victory. You could try saying, “Yes!”, “Excellent!”, or “Good for me.” You could even try singing a quick celebratory song in your head. Although this may feel a bit silly at first, please don’t underestimate its impact.

Celebrating in this manner every time you complete a health snack is highly effective. In fact, the more intense the positive emotion you feel alongside your new behavior, the quicker you will turn it into an automatic habit. Just think, when you are feeling low and eat a chocolate bar, you immediately feel happy. This helps to lock in this behavior, so every time you are feeling low you have a craving to reach for that chocolate bar. We can use the same psychology to help us install healthy behaviors.

6CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESS

We often imagine that the right time to celebrate success is when we finally reach our distant goal. But if we only allow ourselves to feel good when we get there, we’re dooming ourselves to failure. The latest science tells us that it is essential to celebrate every single time you make another step on your journey. Health isn’t some distant goal. It’s not something you become. Health is something you do. And every time you do it you’re being the person you want to be.

A fantastic tip for allowing yourself to experience a little hit of pleasure every time you complete a health snack is to make it visual. Part of the problem with lifestyle choice is that you don’t always see instant results. If we could actually see the damage that each double cheeseburger does to us, the cheeseburger business would collapse overnight. Likewise, if we could see the benefits that each healthy workout does to our minds and bodies, we would be doing them every day without fail.

Here’s a simple trick that’s worked incredibly well for a huge number of my patients. Take an old glass jar or mason jar and, every time you complete a snack, drop a single coffee bean (or any other bean!) into it. This might sound crazy, but there’s just something about this action that reinforces your health habit. You can’t drop the bean into the jar without feeling your victory in a really palpable way. As you see the beans collect over the weeks and months, you start to build a powerful representation of just how much all your good work is piling up.

Some people prefer a different approach. One of my patients uses a wall chart and stickers to track his workouts. Seeing all the days he's managed to get in some exercise provides him with all the motivation he needs to keep going. He has a visual record of his success and doesn’t want to see his streak being broken.

At the back of this book (pages 262–63), I’ve created a wall chart for you to use, if you wish. Once you have ticked off your health snacks for a few days in a row, you will start to build momentum and you won’t want to stop. In my experience, celebrating every single little success is just so important. We start to crave those small moments of victory. We feel bad if we miss them. When this happens to you, you’ll know the program is working. You’re changing your journey . . . and that’s going to change everything.

Don’t miss out on the power of celebrating each health snack. It will hugely increase your chances of success!