Lynbrook | New Hyde Park | NY

habits

Tips for Establishing a Healthy Routine

We asked Peak Performance’s own Exercise Physiologists about how they have created routine in their lives. From working out, to meal prepping to staying hydrated, read on for their best tips!

What is a routine and why is it important to me?

Not to be confused with a popular French Canadian dish, a Routine is a task or behavior performed regularly. It can be daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly- and it can be anything from brushing your teeth, to changing the oil in your car, or getting to work and the gym. Each task is some part of every person’s life to some degree of regularity. In relative terms, a routine is what’s considered a normal pattern for someone. Although the “normal” can vary from person to person, it provides structure, familiarity and helps to form habits that can save time and energy (two of our most valuable resources).

How would I set up a routine to benefit my life?

Routine behavior is almost autonomous, meaning that we don’t give it much active thought from to start and finish. For this reason, it can be tricky to consciously kick an unhealthy pattern out for a more beneficial one. Some tried and true methods for positive routine forming involve some thought organization, a bit of planning, and most importantly time and patience.

First: Recognize the behavior that you would like to change or add. Write it down. Next: Take some time and write down your daily routine, then find out if your new goal or task fits into your current routine, and write it in. If the change is drastic, you may want to break it into smaller steps to make the transition easier. The difficult part of this process is taking the conscious effort over the next few days and weeks to perform that task as it fits. With consistency and repetition, that new task or behavior will become a habit, streamlining your life into a healthier version of itself.

 

By Matthew Rhodes, MS

The Importance of Habit Forming

You’ve heard it talked about, time and time again; “Healthy habits make healthy people”. But how do our old and new habits influence the way we live? At its most basic level, a habit is an autonomous, regular behavior. So in order to create or change a habit, some activity or reaction must be performed over and over again consciously until the brain takes over and sets that behavior as automatic.

Enter: Brain. The brain wants to make life easier on itself, it does not want to have to think, problem solve, or use logic any more than needed and because of this, your brain will respond to a repeated action by streamlining it – freeing up space to think about the funny cat video that Karen sent yesterday. This happens on a three step process called a “Habit Loop.” Step one is a cue or trigger. The cue will signal the beginning of that streamlining process. The cue can be anything; a place, an emotion, a sound, or a person. The next step in the loop is the routine. The routine is whatever behavior is most associated with that cue. The third and final step in the loop is the reward. This is the pot of gold at the end of the loop, the brain will release a bunch of feel good chemicals to let you know that you have done a good job, and thus, are more likely to perform that habit again in the future.

So why is it important to understand this process? Positive and negative habits effect up to 40% of someone’s decision making, without them even being aware of it. If someone can consciously alter a negative habit into a positive one, and create a shortcut into a positive habit loop, they can #lifehack their way to greater levels of health and happiness without even thinking about it. Each day, the small changes someone repeatedly makes will become an automatic part of their life. If these changes are made with the intent to improve ones life, they are added to a habit loop of constant improvement by the brains own streamlining design. The more of it we do, the more effortless it becomes.

 

By Matthew Rhodes, M.S.

Forming Positive Habits

It’s a typical weekday morning; cold, dark, and quiet. 5:30 AM. The alarm rings, you push snooze immediately. 5:45 AM, the alarm disrupts your slumber yet again. This time is different; you punch the clock, pull off the sheets, grumble some explicits and shuffle 22 steps to the kitchen. Three scoops of coffee and two big cups of water later, you tie your shoes; right, then left, you fix your shirt, start the car and begin your commute into work. You drown out the din of coworkers catching up on their bowling leagues, barbeques, and kids’ sports games. You clock in, and begin the workday.  You’ve done all of this without a single thought.

Your mind has recognized the patterns of your morning routines, whichever that may be, and has streamlined the process for you. The completion of this pattern over and over again has allowed your brain to make these behaviors autonomous with time. This phenomenon is more commonly recognized as a habit. Habits form in each and every one of us and can range from healthy behaviors, think buckling your seatbelt, to less than healthy ones, such as that post-dinner cigarette. If we can better understand why we do these things, we can begin to rewire our brains and create a healthier, better life.

When it comes to habit forming, our brains work in three simple steps. First is the stimulus; this can be anything in our lives that cues a feeling or emotion. The second step would be our response or action to said cue. The third step is the reward! The reward provides our brains with the feeling that something went well or made us feel better. Re- read the intro and break it down: the cue is our alarm clock. Incessant beeping early in the morning promotes a reaction to push snooze, which then leads us to the reward, 15 extra minutes of peace and quiet.

Now that we know a little bit about the habit forming process, how can we get the blueprints of the wiring to try and change old routines or create new ones? This takes a little conscious effort. In order to change an old habit, we need to associate a different reaction and reward to an existing cue. In our cigarette example, the cue is finishing dinner, the reaction would be to go outside and smoke a cigarette, the response would be the effects of the cigarette on our body. We can change this routine by not going outside. By filling that gap with a reason to not go outside, we won’t have the cigarette and, over time, the chain is broken by a different pattern of autonomous behavior. The same goes with positive behavior. If we want to create a new chain, we follow a cue with a positive response and positive reward. For example, if I don’t feel confident (the cue), then I write three positive things about myself (the response), and afterwards I feel happy (the reward).

Much of the information presented here is available in depth from a book called “The Power of Habit” By Charles Duhigg. It’s a $10 purchase if you’d like to read more into the topic. Regardless of your current standing, I’d like to issue a challenge to everyone reading; January is a popular time for reflection on your actions over the past year. Over the next few weeks, take a look at some of your routines, habits and patterns- is there anything that you’d like to change? Perhaps kick a bad habit or form a healthier morning routine? Take this time as an opportunity to take control and become the better version of yourself. #strongereveryday

 

By Matt Rhodes, M.S., C-EP