habits – A Life of Well

Rewards for Good Behaviour

When picking up a healthy activity, habit or food the reward for the first week or so is Feeling Smug. I am doing something which is helping me grow into my Best Me. I am awesome. I will become MORE AWESOME. Look at me go.

When you’re far enough into your healthy journey you can feel a difference if you pay attention but can’t see it yet, the smug runs a bit thin to sustain on alone. I find myself having to consciously note improvements after three weeks of being awake before 6am to do a 10-25 min fitness session before work: my flexibility’s improving, this exercise is easier, my mind is clearer. I’m eating more fruit than ever before, choosing vegetables before carbs and sticking rigidly to my ‘one treat a day’ limit – if needed. I just wish my trousers had realised and pulled themselves together (or rather, slackened off!).

Rewards for good behaviour are a bit thin on the ground for activities which don’t supply a big dopamine hit on their own, and I’ve found myself feeling something is lacking sometimes as I march round the woods to help clear my whirring head. I used to share my exercise activities on a running-related Facebook page, but social media is something I’m doing a lot less with. I’ve been so productive generally I’ve noticed hitting the social media feeds is something I’m only doing to actively kill time, which helps kill the hit and means I’m spending a lot less time on it – I’d rather read! I’m not even wearing a fitness tracker any more so I don’t even know how I’ve done by anything other than feel, but it’s got me thinking about the reward cycle of habits.

We have been conditioned at least in the Western nations to reward ourselves with food, drink, TV, social media and other unhealthy things; after all we’ve earned them with all those good or difficult things we completed today. “I had a salad for lunch so I’m definitely allowed an ice cream this afternoon.”, “That was a great gym session, I’m so ready for that McD’s.”, “We aced that client review meeting, let’s all celebrate at the bar.”. If you’re looking for a healthy reward, where do you go?!

Building New Habits

Definitions of habit according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary

hab·it | \ ˈha-bət \

1 : a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior

2a : an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary
b : addiction
c : a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance

My first car was a VW Polo. It had a tracking issue with the front tyres which was looked at in several different garage and tyre-changing places, but noone seemed to be able to do more than improve it. As a result if left to its own devices the steering wheel would rest at about 11 o’clock – it would naturally pull left. Regular motorway driving led me into the habit of driving with only my right hand on the steering wheel, where the weight of my hand would pull the wheel straight.

Two cars and about 8 years later with no tracking problems, and I have to make a very conscious effort to overlearn this behaviour and keep both hands on the wheel and actively think about ’10 and 2′ whenever I get in the car. This ‘habit’ has left me with a right shoulder which is rounded forward and affects my posture in a negative way – I have to work to stretch it out and straighten up!

The point which has been solidifying in my head this week is establishing new habits or over-writing existing ones is an active process which requires diligence and energy. I often think the health of my lifestyle moves in peaks and troughs – I get all these good ‘habits’ when everything’s ticking along nicely, but as soon as things get busy or something comes up they go out the window and it takes me weeks or months to pick them back up again. Even when I’m succeeding in healthy behaviour for an extended period, it isn’t sustained or easy enough for it to be a habit: It requires a constant injection of energy from me, and when the energy is not there the activity disappears from my day.

I re-read Atomic Habits by James Clear again recently, and signed up to his 30 day program – the emails are very similar to the content of the book, but having them land in my inbox every few days gives me a reminder of what I’m trying to establish. He gives advice about habit stacking and habit triggers, but the overarching message at least for starting out is:

Make it as easy as possible.

A Sojourn with Stress

Mental health conditions are complicated things. They are intensely personal and I’ve found it nearly impossible to discuss with someone from either side of the table without projecting my own opinions or experiences onto the other person, or having them do the same to me – with each having lived different existences, this cannot represent the true experience.

Recently I find myself considering the mental aspects of health as I am in the process of returning to work after five weeks off for stress. It took two weeks of walking to shut my brain down at least some of the time, another two weeks of rest to recover physically enough to consider returning to the factory and a fifth week to be able to constructively consider what going back means and how I can change things to take care of myself while still getting the job done.

I’ve learned some things through the act of taking myself away from the workplace:

I work with some absolutely lovely people who’ve regularly checked in with me in a supportive and unpressurising way
Care from a professional business perspective is rarely personal – at the end of the day, I am responsible for how I feel at work
There is no ‘right’ amount of time for recovery – no matter what my preconceived time is, it takes as long as it takes

I’ve highlighted stress at work previously relating to my workload with my current and previous managers, but it’s nearly impossible to have someone help with prioritising when I have no idea what’s on the list to start with because I’m too busy to sit down and make the list because there’s too much on the list so I’ve no time to sit and generate the list so…you get the picture.

I wanted to be able to return to work, whenever that was, able to have a constructive conversation with my manager about steps we could take so I didn’t feel like this again. In my first week off I spent some time going through my calendar for the previous month listing all the meetings I had and whether my attendance was mandatory, including meeting length and prep time. If I worked only my standard working hours (which I think is the preferred for everyone, especially when you’re not paid overtime!) these meetings and prepping for them took up 54% of my working time. The content of these meetings probably isn’t more than 30% of my job. Doing this exercise I was able to easily see which could be cut, redelegated to someone else, reduced in frequency and have a proposal which reduces my meeting associated time to 32% of my working month.

As well as giving me a framework for discussions, this exercise made me feel justified in feeling as overwhelmed and tired as I have been: this was not a sustainable situation without working several hours of overtime sometimes daily for the rest of my working life if nothing changed, and I’m not willing to do that (judge me as you will for that!). This helped me feel more accepting of being off work: space in my head to take the time I needed without judging myself for doing so and writing myself off as weak or incompetent.