A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
—IRISH PROVERB
When we aren’t taking care of ourselves physically, we tend to feel more stressed. Poor nutrition, inadequate sleep, and a sedentary lifestyle can exacerbate reactivity to stressors. This chapter will provide you with research supporting the importance of proper nutrition, adequate and consistent sleep, and regular physical activity, as well as easy techniques that promote the maintenance of self-care and a healthy lifestyle. Here is how you can feel better emotionally by working on staying healthier physically!
A Downward Spiral of Stress and Self-Neglect
Janice found herself working harder than she had been before. When her company downsized, she found herself feeling so lucky to still have a job that she gladly accepted the extra responsibilities left by the co-workers who had been let go. As she struggled to find a new equilibrium, she found that she was too busy for the healthy meals she had previously made herself after work, and she often just picked something up on her way home. (And the most convenient stops on the way from work to home were fast food restaurants.) She also found that her sleep schedule suffered as she spent more time at work—she had less time for everything else, and that extra time had to come from somewhere. She also stopped going to the gym: When deciding whether to sleep or work out, she discovered that sleep would win out every time.
Over the next few weeks, she found herself more and more stressed. She had trouble concentrating, she was short-tempered, and she felt less and less able to cope. At first, she thought the stress was coming from the fear of losing her job, or even from the challenge of taking on new responsibilities. However, when we looked at the different factors that went into her rising stress levels, Janice was surprised to observe how her self-care was plummeting, and she realized that it was contributing to her stress. She understood that it went beyond the stressors at work. She was no longer taking care of herself, and the results were surprising. The combination of sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, and lack of exercise seemed to feed off itself.
When she recognized what was going on, she took a hard look at her schedule, cut out some activities, and worked at restoring self-care in her schedule. Within a matter of days, she felt happier, more energetic, mentally sharper, more patient, and better able to take on the stresses of her new job responsibilities. She was amazed at what a difference a little sleep, food, and movement could make!
Stress and the Importance of Self-Care
When we find ourselves working hard to meet heavy deadlines, dealing with difficult people, and facing more than we feel we can handle, we tend to let a few things go. Operating from what feels like crisis mode, we may try to handle the most pressing concerns first and let other things slip—we may get a little less sleep, may skip a few workouts, and may grab the closest thing there is to eat, in an effort to save time and give 110% to the demands we face. Unfortunately, such short-term sacrifice can hinder our ability to face demands long term. Just as a perpetually triggered stress response can create an escalating pattern of stress, operating from a place of being overwhelmed can tempt us to make choices that will only make things more difficult for ourselves over time.
If you face a short-term challenge that requires you to put in your all for a few hours, or even a few days, you may find yourself cutting corners on how you take care of yourself physically. As days stretch into weeks, however, you risk putting yourself into a much more stressful, unhealthy situation that can affect you for much longer. And, perhaps worse, you may not realize that your self-neglect is fueling your stress, or you may not know how to get out from under its effects. It is important to know the risks of short-term and long-term neglect of self-care and see what you can do to continue to take care of yourself, even (especially!) when you are under heavy levels of stress.
Optimal Functioning
It’s no secret that we function at our best when we’re feeling at our healthiest and happiest. And we naturally feel the urge to do what’s healthy because it just feels right. In this way, we set ourselves up for success by doing what feels good naturally—eating well, sleeping when we’re tired, getting together with friends when we’re lonely, and doing things that we enjoy in order to maintain balance. We’re designed to intrinsically sense when something is out of balance and feel compelled to correct it.
This system hits a roadblock when our environment throws us too many curveballs or when we don’t listen to our inner voice that tells us we’re headed in the wrong direction. When we feel overly stressed, we tend to crave things that may give us a temporary lift but that don’t support our long-term health and functioning. There are several reasons why this happens and there are steps we can take to counteract the effects, but if we don’t stop the negative progression of things, we could be headed for trouble.
Downward Stress Spiral
When we are under stress, a number of things happen. We may be too busy to heed our body’s signals. We may find ourselves staying up all night to work on a pressing project rather than going to sleep when we’re tired, or grabbing a quick (and less-than-healthy) meal because we can’t take the time to cook more nutritious food. These trade-offs may seem to be small shifts and can be tolerated in small doses. However, they set us on a self-perpetuating path that can cause us to feel more stressed, and this stress can actually make it more difficult to pull ourselves back into our naturally healthy behaviors.
This is because we behave differently when we are coming from a place of chronic stress. Just as we think differently (see Key 4) and react differently (see Key 2) when experiencing life’s stressors, we tend to handle self-care differently when we are operating from a place of already feeling stressed. We may crave different foods, may have a more challenging time getting to sleep and staying asleep, and may even have a harder time relating to others. This can put us into a place of being more stressed, because we may be coming from a nutritionally deprived, sleep deprived state and have less social support to help us through it. Of course, this can lead to greater stress, more cravings for the wrong things, more conflict, and a continued downward spiral.
Health and Wellness
Ultimately, stress management is not just about feeling at ease (though this is important); stress management is important because it leads to greater overall health and longevity. Managing stress isn’t just a luxury; it’s a necessity for proper functioning. Taking care of ourselves physically, a practice known as self-care, is important for two reasons. It is important for our health not only because of the direct positive effects we gain from a healthy diet, adequate exercise, and supportive relationships, but also because having these things in place can help us to avoid the additional stress (and resulting threats to our health) that can come from unhealthy habits and poor self-care. Moreover, when you are less stressed and living a healthier life, those around you benefit as well, so in making these types of changes, you can have an impact on those people while making improvements in your own life. The following sections delve deeper into what specific changes bring the greatest benefits and are the most necessary to make.
Important Aspects of Self-Care
There are many behaviors that can fall under the umbrella of self-care, such as brushing teeth, getting monthly massages, and practicing stress management in general. Because certain habits bring the greatest benefits, we’ll focus on those. The following three main areas of self-care have been included because focusing on them can significantly alter your experience of stress. Sleep deprivation and poor nutrition can exacerbate stress and lead to poor health consequences, and shifting from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one can promote long-term resilience to stress. Let’s look more in depth at each of these, how they affect us, and the shifts that can help the most with the management of stress.
Proper Nutrition
Providing your body with the right kind of fuel is perhaps more important than we realize. Of course, we have all heard the motto “You are what you eat” and similar truisms, and the reality is that what we put into our bodies has an immediate impact not only on how we feel physically days from now, but also on how we feel emotionally minutes from now. A diet that contains too much sugar can make us more reactive to stress, as well as making us more vulnerable to disease and premature aging. A solid balance of protein and carbohydrates, found in a mix of healthy food that does not contain an abundance of sugar, starch, fats, or artificial ingredients can set you up to function at your best, with less stress.
Effects of a Poor Diet
Diets that contain empty calories can leave us without the mental and physical energy we need to face the challenges in our lives. (Remember that when we feel that the demands of a situation exceed our resources for coping, we feel stressed.) Foods that contain excess amounts of sugar and caffeine can give us a jolt of energy and a quick boost to our mood, but this is followed by a “crash,” which can leave us feeling lethargic, depressed, and craving more. And because these stimulants are addictive, we tend to continue the cycle of poor eating habits and increased stress.
Long-term effects of an unhealthy diet include such health risks as obesity and diabetes. Obesity increases your risk of many other health conditions, among them high blood pressure, sleep apnea, heart conditions, and diabetes. These are serious health conditions that can be highly stressful and even life threatening. Altering your diet is not easy during times of stress, but it is necessary for your health.
Diet Saboteurs
When we are in a stressed state, we often find it more difficult to maintain a healthy diet. There are a few reasons for this, some of which are related to our reactions to stress and some of which originate in the reasons we are stressed in the first place. Here are the main stumbling blocks to watch and some corresponding tips that can help with each one:
• Busy schedules. When we are especially busy, we tend to grab whatever food is quick to obtain. Unfortunately, the most convenient foods are often the least healthy. Grabbing junk food on the run can keep you from getting too hungry if you have a few busy hours, but it comes at a cost to your overall health and emotional state. If you keep a few healthy options close by and opt for them instead, you can avoid the fast food trap.
• Bad influences. Studies show that weight gain is contagious—if you spend a lot of time with people who are overweight and have unhealthy eating habits, there is a likelihood that you yourself will adopt such eating habits. If co-workers bring in sweets to share, friends routinely want to meet and eat at restaurants that serve unhealthy fare, or you live in a house that is filled with junk food that others buy, you probably already know the pull that this type of peer pressure can exert. It is important to have a plan to avoid these temptations, and stick with it.
• Cortisol cravings. When our bodies have elevated levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, we tend to crave sweets more strongly. This may have been a healthy adaptation at some point, but now it tempts us to reach for the ice cream in times of stress. (And if we have an abundance of ice cream available, this can become a recipe for overindulgence!) Using some of the quick stress relievers I discussed in Key 2 can help to calm the body’s stress response so it becomes less challenging to reach for carrots or celery instead.
• Emotional eating. Often when we feel stressed, we tend to crave comfort food, which is generally not the healthiest food, but it reminds us of our childhood, or of happier times. Other times, when we are emotionally stressed, we eat to fill a void or to feel that we are doing something nice for ourselves. We eat for an emotional pick-me-up, but we may wind up with the opposite. When you find yourself eating when you are not actually hungry or choosing foods that will not sustain you in a healthy way, try to do something that will make you feel better emotionally that does not involve food, such as seeking support from a friend, writing in a gratitude journal, or doing things that generally make you smile.
• Habit. When we are facing stress, we may find it more difficult to take on new changes. If you are used to eating an unhealthy diet, the very time you would do best to change this might be the time during which it would be most challenging—times of stress. It is wise to maintain healthy habits when you are not already overwhelmed. When you do so, maintaining these habits when it is both most important and most challenging will be easier to do.
How to Manage: Improving Your Eating Habits
In addition to the tips mentioned above, the following proactive steps can help you to avoid letting your stress push you into a downward spiral of unhealthy eating habits and ensuing spikes in stress levels:
• Stock your kitchen. If you find yourself reaching for the quickest thing available, it’s best to be surrounded by convenient, healthy options. Plan ahead by stocking your kitchen with healthy fruit- and vegetable-based snacks, such as apples and celery that can be enjoyed with peanut butter, carrots and broccoli that can be eaten raw with a favorite dip, hummus with bruschetta and pita, or even just a ripe banana. Cook extra portions of some meals that can be easily reheated, such as vegetable-heavy chili, oven-baked chicken, or hearty soups. And don’t buy foods that you know you would be better off not eating. If your environment supports the habits you want to maintain, you will not have to rely on willpower as heavily, and this can relieve stress.
• Know where to find healthier fare. If you find yourself eating out quite a bit, you can still avoid the traps of unhealthy eating if you plan ahead. Know where the healthiest restaurants in your area are located, and be aware of the healthiest meals on the menu.
• Become aware of your obstacles. If you tend to binge on a specific food when you’re stressed, try to switch to a healthier option. If you find you eat the wrong things at a certain time of day, be sure that you are surrounded by better options during that time frame. If you find that you forget to eat when you are stressed, you may want to set an alarm on your phone or computer to remind yourself to eat. If certain people send you into a stress binge, see if you can minimize contact. Think about what your triggers are, and find a plan to work around them.
• Start new habits. One simple way of cutting out negative habits is to take on new habits in your life that are incompatible with the unhealthy ones. Start journaling to manage emotional stress, and you may find your stress cravings diminish. Start exercising more often, and sweets may hold less sway. Add healthy foods to each meal, and you won’t have as much room in your stomach for the less healthy options. See what new habits you can take on!
• Enlist support. Your friends may have the capacity to be negative influences, but they can also be wonderful allies. Announce to others your intentions to stay on track with healthy eating, and they will be less likely to offer you unhealthy options and more likely to gently remind you when you are going off track, even if they do not plan to make these changes themselves. You may also want to enlist the support of a group like Weight Watchers, where you can find support and information and be congratulated on your success in sticking to your healthy eating goals.
• Try mindful eating. Sometimes when we feel we can’t have something, our cravings for it only grow stronger. If you experience increased cravings when you try to cut certain things out of your diet completely, you may want to try simply cutting back and really enjoying what you do allow yourself to have. Mindful eating can be an effective tool to use here. By intensifying your focus on your food as you eat it, you can expand your enjoyment of the things you crave and minimize the amount of it you need to eat in order to feel satisfied. Focus on every sensation you feel as you eat; if you do so, one bite of ice cream can be more satisfying than an entire bowl. Give it a try, and see how much less you can eat and how much more you can enjoy it.
Exercise
During times of stress and of feeling overwhelmed, few of us naturally feel like taking a brisk jog or sweating at the gym for an hour, unless we are already in the practice of doing these things. In fact, many people find themselves skipping workouts during times of stress either because their schedules keep them feeling too busy to work out or because they feel exhausted from the demands they face. However, maintaining regular exercise is important, for several reasons.
Benefits of Exercise
We all know that exercise is important, but we may underestimate its true value. Regular physical activity decreases your risk of experiencing the most serious medical conditions, including heart disease, cancer, and stroke, as well as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Should you suffer from such conditions, exercise improves your functioning level. It is also a fantastic tool for stress relief! Proved to lower cortisol levels in the blood after only 3 minutes, physical activity helps to balance out your hormonal levels, reverse the stress response, release tension, boost your confidence, and clear your mind when you are stressed. Regular exercise supports overall wellness in countless ways and is linked to increased longevity. If you can take on only one healthy habit, exercise might be the most beneficial one you can choose.
Problems That Arise from Lack of Exercise
As with healthy eating, the time to ensure that we get enough exercise is when we may feel we have the least time and energy for it—when we are stressed. Here are some problems that may creep in when we skip a few too many workouts:
• Lethargy. Paradoxically, when we expend energy through exercise, we tend to feel more energetic overall. Likewise, when we remain sedentary, we generally lack energy overall, and this lethargy can affect our ability to face other challenges in our lives. Just as giving love can bring us more love in our lives, expending energy through exercise can bring us greater levels of energy in general.
• Unmanaged stress. Because exercise is such an effective stress relief tool (see Keys 2 and 8 for more on this), we deprive ourselves of stress management help when we fail to remain active. Just as exercise can eliminate stress in the body and mind, less physical activity tends to mean more stress. Adding exercise sessions to your schedule can keep stress levels lower in general.
• Health issues. As mentioned earlier, lack of physical activity is correlated with higher incidences of health issues. Dealing with these issues can be quite stressful in itself. In this way, failing to prioritize physical activity creates greater stress in the future, not only because of the missed stress management opportunities but also because of the health issues that can occur. Regular exercise is proactive stress management.
Exercise Saboteurs
In addition to feeling too busy or too tired for a good workout, there are a few other obstacles you may face that can get between you and your exercise goals:
• Past failure. If you have tried to start an exercise habit and have failed in the past, you may be reluctant to try again. You may feel that your lifestyle just can’t accommodate it, or that you don’t have what it takes to maintain a regular schedule of physical activity. We touch on this more in Key 8, but it is important to know that you can achieve different results with a different plan. There are forms of exercise that can contribute to your overall health and take only 10 minutes. There are types of exercise that can appeal to just about anyone. Don’t let your past dictate your future.
• Physical injury. If you have been injured in the past, it is important to consult a doctor before you begin a new exercise regimen. This is easily done, and it can increase your confidence and allow you to know which exercises to practice and which to stay away from. You may also wish to hire a trainer to learn proper form and reduce risk of injury in the future. Make an appointment today, and don’t let past injury (or fear of future injury) stand in your way.
• Habit. You may simply be in the habit of remaining sedentary. That’s okay; you can form a new habit. It just takes a little time. Whatever stage of change you are in, you can move yourself into a new exercise habit relatively easily, with a little preparation and motivation.
How to Manage: Start and Maintain Regular Exercise Habits
There are many ways to ease into an exercise program, and even more varieties of exercise are available to try. While we explore this further in Keys 7 and 8 and touch on it in Key 2, here are some simple ways to make exercise a part of your life and some ideas to remember to make this a smooth process:
• Join a gym. Making the commitment to join a gym can actually stimulate motivation, strengthening your decision to get more exercise. After all, if you invested money in this habit, you will want to get your money’s worth. Gyms also offer many supportive options that can help you along the way, including different types of classes, access to personal trainers, and various types of equipment that you can experiment on; some even have saunas, hot tubs, and showers, which can make the experience both relaxing and convenient.
• Get a buddy. Workout buddies can do two things. They can motivate you to do your best with a little friendly competition or support when your motivation wanes. They can also keep you on track—you may be much less likely to cancel a workout if you know you will be letting a friend down. Workouts with friends can be more enjoyable and feel less like work, so this can be an added bonus.
• Find the right exercise for you. If your workouts feel grueling and joyless, you probably aren’t doing the best types of exercises for your lifestyle and personality. There are many different types of workouts you can try. The intention is to pick one that fits your goals and personal style. Exercise truly can be fun, whether you enjoy team sports, solitary sports, dancing, yoga, swimming, cycling, or various types of classes. If you don’t like the choice you made, choose again!
• Set realistic goals. Often people push themselves too hard in the beginning and then give up. By setting more realistic goals, you are not only more likely to avoid injury, you are also more likely to succeed, because you will be less likely to become discouraged and burn out. Start slowly, reward yourself for small milestones, and keep trying. If you find yourself skipping workouts, don’t quit—you may need to adjust your plan, but you can find a way to make exercise work in your life. It can and should be enjoyable!
Sleep
Sleep is more vital to our wellness and overall functioning than we might realize. It is also closely linked with our stress levels. Safeguarding your sleep is important for many reasons.
Effects of Missed Sleep
We may not notice the effects of missed sleep in their entirety, because they can be subtle. However, they are also pervasive. Sleep deprivation has been used as a method of torture because it can be distressing and damaging, even in the smaller doses that we typically experience as part of a hectic lifestyle. When we do not get the full 7–8 hours of sleep that our bodies need, we experience cognitive impairments and slower reflexes, as well as a greater emotional reactivity to virtually everything that we face. This not only can exacerbate the stress that we may already feel, but also can cause us to create situations that will bring more stress. For example, if we become irritable because we are very tired, we may get into arguments with loved ones, which can produce more conflict than usual in our lives and sap us of emotional support. When we are not thinking as clearly as we would have been had we been better rested, we can make simple mistakes that lead to stressful consequences, such as missing questions on a test that we otherwise would have been able to answer or making errors at work and weakening our chances at job security. When we lack sleep we can also make mistakes that result in consequences that are extremely negative. For example, people operating on less than 6 hours of sleep are significantly more likely to be involved in an automobile accident than those who have had a full 8 hours. Over time, sleep loss can affect overall health. Lack of sleep weakens immunity, leaving us more susceptible to virtually all diseases and conditions. (This, of course, can also contribute to stress levels.) There are many reasons to strive to get enough sleep, and stress management is one of the most compelling ones.
Sleep Saboteurs
As with many other aspects of self-care, sleep is important for stress relief. When get inadequate sleep, particularly on a regular basis or for several days in a row, this can feed into a cycle of more stress and more missed sleep. Here are some of the main culprits for missed sleep:
• Busy schedules. As with exercise and proper nutrition, busy schedules can cause us to shave hours off our time in bed. Some people get to the point where having adequate sleep is seen as a luxury. However, when we look at all the negative effects of missed sleep, it becomes easier to identify activities that can be cut out or at least time slots where power naps can be added.
• Outside influences. If your friends, family, or roommates tend to skimp on sleep, you may find yourself doing the same. It becomes difficult to be the first one to go to sleep, particularly when there is still fun to be had. In such circumstances, you may need to accept that you are going against the grain in favor of meeting your most important needs.
• Stress. People often find that stress itself makes sleep more difficult. Whether we are staying up later because our stress responses are triggered and our bodies can’t relax or we’re busy thinking about our problems and their potential solutions, stress can make it more difficult to fall asleep. Other times, we may wake up during the night and find that stress-filled thoughts about the next day make it difficult to fall back asleep. Even finding the kind of high-quality, restful sleep we need can be affected by the stress we face. Managing stress can bring better sleep, just as better sleep can help us to more effectively manage stress.
• Habits. We may not realize when our habits are getting in the way of sleep, but this can definitely be a factor, too. Consuming caffeine too late in the day can have a significant impact on sleep, because caffeine stays in the body for many hours and can make it difficult for us to drift off to sleep. Exercise right before bed can affect us as well, as our physiology is keyed up and not ready for the deep relaxation of sleep just yet. Similarly, the use of visual electronics late at night can shift melatonin levels and fool the body into thinking it is earlier than it is; when this happens, sleep is affected. By avoiding late-afternoon and nighttime caffeine and avoiding electronics and exercise for at least an hour before it is time to sleep, you can make it easier for your body to fall asleep and stay asleep.
• Underlying health issues. Certain health issues can affect sleep, as can various medications. If you have tried the techniques recommended in this book and are still having difficulty sleeping, or if you suspect that the problem is more serious than can be addressed here, consult with your doctor. It is important to get to the root of the problem, and there are many things that can be done to bring on sleep more easily.
How to Manage: Improving Your Sleep
Aside from the tips mentioned above, there are several strategies that are effective when you are working on altering your sleep patterns. The following are some important things to keep in mind:
• Plan ahead. Many of us wait until we are tired or have completed everything on our to-do lists before we fall into bed. The problem with this is that we may not realize how tired we are until we fall into bed, and that to-do list may be too long. Plan ahead in the following ways, and you can ensure better chances of the right quality and quantity of sleep.
° Be sure sleep is in your schedule. Set a bedtime, and stick with it as closely as possible.
° Cut out activities where possible, in order to create more time for sleep. (Key 5 has some effective strategies for this.)
° Let others know when you need to go to bed. Set boundaries, and stick with them.
° Cut down on late-afternoon caffeine, as well as late-night exercise and electronics, or at least allow a 1-hour buffer between those activities and the time you would like to fall asleep.
• Adopt relaxing rituals. There are several things you can do to get your body and mind into a more relaxed state, which can facilitate sleep. The following activities can become part of your nighttime routine and can help to relieve stress as well as more easily usher in sleep.
° Take a bath. Nighttime baths can provide a wonderful way to relax. Adding lavender bath oil can be one way to use aromatherapy to your advantage—studies show that lavender scents not only can promote falling sleep, but also can improve quality of sleep. The warm water can relax your muscles, and if you wash your hair at night, you can save yourself time in the morning.
° Create a sleep-friendly environment. Be sure that you cover the basics. Have a cool, comfortable place to sleep; soft, clean sheets help. If you are having trouble with sleep on a regular basis, try to use your bed for sleep only—if you need to read, work, watch television, or perform other tasks, try to do this in another spot so that your subconscious mind connects your bed with sleep and nothing else. If environmental noise bothers you and you cannot avoid it, consider investing in a sound machine that can soothe you to sleep and block out distracting background noise. Let your surroundings support your sleep.
° Exercise (but not too late). I have been warning you against before-bed exercise, but all nighttime exercise isn’t bad! In fact, engaging in physical activity during the day and in the evening and even later—before it gets too late—can actually bring greater relaxation and sleep readiness when it’s time for bed. Again, just be sure you are done at least an hour before you need to fall asleep.
° Journaling. As you will read in greater detail in Key 8, journaling can be a highly effective stress relief tool and can take several different forms. Particularly if you find the thoughts in your head swimming around as you try to relax, letting them out on paper can be an effective way to prepare for sleep. If you are concerned about a problem you face, you might want to take a few minutes to brainstorm solutions on paper before you head off to sleep. And if you are feeling slightly melancholy before bed, a gratitude journal can help. This flexible practice can bring you a high degree of inner peace so you can relax and sleep.
° Meditation. Meditation is another strategy that can facilitate sleep and that you also can learn more about in Key 8. Getting your mind and body into a more relaxed state naturally makes sleep come more easily, and meditation accomplishes both goals beautifully. Especially if you are stressed and busy and have trouble with meditation because you feel there is not enough time, meditation practiced before bedtime may work perfectly.
• See a doctor if difficulties persist. It bears repeating that there are sometimes underlying medical issues that can impede sleep. Be sure to talk to your doctor if you face persistent sleep problems and these techniques do not help. There may be other issues at play.
Key Points about Healthy Habits
Healthy habits are important, but do not always come easily, especially when we are stressed. The following are central pieces of information to remember as you work on maintaining and ingraining healthy habits into your lifestyle. Keep these in mind, and you can keep yourself on the right track for a healthier body and a less stressed mind.
Healthy Habits Take Time to Develop
Practicing healthy habits can feel good the first time we try them, but they take time to become automatic. As I discussed in the Introduction, neural pathways form slowly and over time—just as we strengthen mental habits with repetition, we can strengthen our tendency to participate in lifestyle habits through repetition. Just as traveling to a new job can demand focus and planning the first few times but becomes automatic once we learn the route, lifestyle habits may feel strange at first and require some initial effort, but become virtually second nature if we work them into our routines and practice them continually.
Conventional wisdom has it that it takes roughly 3 weeks to develop a new habit, but the amount of time can vary among individuals, based on how much time and effort is put into preparation and execution, the difficulty of the habit, and several other factors. Change can generally come after a few weeks of regular practice. Whatever the time frame, with practice, we eventually do not have to think about maintaining the new habit; it just feels automatic. This is not to say that the habit will require no effort at all—just as traveling to work still takes some effort—but it will feel like less of an option that you have to push yourself into taking and more like something you just do, a natural part of your life that would be missed if discontinued.
So remember: Get through the first few weeks or months, and the road becomes much easier. This is an important point to keep in mind, because the first few weeks of a new habit are often the most difficult. Knowing that the road becomes smoother after that initial push past inertia can sometimes make the difference between losing momentum and persevering into long-term success. (Read more about maintaining long-term habits in the last chapter of this book, “Creating an Action Plan.”)
Healthy Habits Feed off Each Other
We have discussed how unhealthy habits tend to feed on themselves when we are stressed. (Chronically stressed individuals not only are less likely to maintain healthy habits because they may lack the energy to make the effort, but they also generally find unhealthy habits more tempting simply because the stress that they are under causes them to crave the wrong things.) Fortunately, things work the other way as well—healthy habits tend to make us want to maintain more healthy habits! This is because a change in one area—such as a new exercise program for a previously sedentary individual—can lift the stress that is blocking the way to healthier living in other areas. So if you start exercising more, you may find yourself craving fewer sweets and carbs. And you might find that your mind is clearer than it had been, so that you sleep better at night and get better-quality sleep. You may find that you are more relaxed, more patient, and more forgiving, which can help in your relationships. So keep this in mind: One change makes all the other changes come more easily. What a great incentive to make that first change!
Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference
When we are stressed and living a less-than-healthy existence, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. People often find that they are less motivated to make changes in the areas of health and self-care because there is so much that needs to change that they find themselves getting discouraged and wanting to give up on the effort before they even try. Why try, they reason, when the ultimate outcome will probably be failure?
It is important to realize that baby steps work. Not only does the accumulation of individual steps ultimately lead to a destination, each little step might make the next one easier, especially in the realm of self-care. This is how it works: When we are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, we have less energy to change our habits, and we may be more likely to crave unhealthy activities, as discussed. Just as healthy habits feed into other healthy habits, healthy changes tend to self-perpetuate—taking a brisk walk to reduce stress can lessen the incidence of stress, which in turn can help us to feel less overwhelmed, less physically drained, and more energetic. Then exercise like walking becomes easier and more attractive. Taking a short walk can lead to longer walks, and the habit can build upon itself. (The same is true with healthy eating, getting more and better sleep, and other self-care activities.) So bear in mind: Just getting started with a healthy new habit will make it easier to maintain that habit. Now, don’t you feel more motivated already?
Make One Change at a Time
Learning about the benefits of healthy lifestyle habits can be inspiring. Thinking about all you can gain from changing the way you live can switch from feeling exciting to feeling overwhelming pretty quickly, however, if you try to make too many changes at once. If you try to do this, it can become intimidating to know where to begin. Focus on one area of your lifestyle at a time, for example, getting more sleep, or even one new habit at a time, such as avoiding caffeine after 2:00 P.M. Then you can add new changes from there, letting the momentum of the previous changes work in your favor.
Don’t Give Up!
If you find yourself slipping back into your previous habits, do not give up. Remember from the Introduction that this is part of the process of change (see Stage 5 of the Transtheoretical Model of Change). In fact, you can actually use the experience of backsliding to propel yourself forward toward your goals. Again, the last chapter in this book, “Creating an Action Plan,” is focused primarily on the process of implementing these changes and can help you to put together a complete plan, but this is an important tip that can go a long way in helping you to get to the planning stages.
Questions to Ask Yourself
• When I am stressed, which areas of self-care do I tend to neglect?
• How might inadequate sleep, improper nutrition, or lack of exercise be affecting my stress levels?
• What are the simplest ways in which I can ensure better self-care? What are the most effective?
• Of the techniques discussed in this chapter, which ones seemed to resonate the most with me?
• If I could choose only one area of self-care to work on first, which would I choose because it would make the biggest impact?
Evaluate Your Answers
The answers to the questions above can help you to zero in on the areas of your health that you may be neglecting the most, and the new habits you choose to adopt that will set you on a healthier path. Where you begin with your self-care plans will depend on your answers, and on your goals. What poor habits are impacting you the most? Would you like to begin with action plans that are best for your health, or the ones that are easiest for you to adopt?
Activity to Try: Make an Action List
After answering the questions above, read back through the lists of action steps in this chapter and choose a few that you would like to put into effect in your life, either now or in the near future. Then, based on which ones appeal most to your needs and priorities, choose one or two to focus on first. For more help in maintaining new habits, create your list and see the final chapter of this book, “Creating an Action Plan,” for next steps.
Activity to Try: Make an Exercise List
One of the best ways to ensure that you will begin exercising in the near future is to make a list of exercises you think could be fun. If you are having a difficult time coming up with some, go online and research gyms in your area. Look at the schedules of their exercise classes, and see which classes appeal to you. If you find a gym that appeals enough, consider joining! If classes at the gym aren’t your thing, research adult sports leagues in your area, talk to friends about what they do for exercise, and put your feelers out for more ideas. Don’t stop until you have a list of at least two activities you would enjoy doing for exercise. Then get moving!