Episode 6 - 8.10.21

8.10.21 Transformation Tuesday – Habits

***Trigger Warning: discussion of dietary changes, diet culture, and the diet industry***

Hello! And welcome to Episode 6 of the Recovering Trash Person Podcast! Today is Transformation Tuesday and today I’m going to talk about habits. Merriam-Webster defines a habit as: “a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior.” As many of us know, habits can increase our potential and contentment or they can take away from those things that make us feel productive and have a sense of purpose. Many times, we associate certain things as good or bad habits, for sake of neutrality and to diminish the amount of shame and guilt we place on ourselves, I challenge you to not judge your habits, but rather label them as: things I do, things I want to do, and things I want to stop doing.

Going into any lifestyle change with judgment, at least in my experience, tends to set me up for failure. However, neutrally identifying areas of my life I want to change and why tends to bring the control back to me and my efforts. I also want to clarify the difference between a habit and an addiction. Right now, we are focusing on the habitual things we do day to day that could lead us to repeating addictive or harmful behavior. For example, for someone who smoke cigarettes, the habit might be sitting outside every morning with a up of coffee and a cigarette, the addiction is the physical dependence on nicotine. What I’m suggesting is changing the habit of the morning routine could help derail some of the addictive behaviors. If that same person chooses to change their morning habit by drinking their coffee inside, where they do not smoke, it may delay the gratification of smoking and therefore begin a new habit that sets the tone for addiction recovery.

The NY Times writer Tara Parker-Pope talks about how to create (and maintain) new habits in her article: How to Build Healthy Habits. I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me starting new habits is not nearly as hard as maintaining them and integrating them into my everyday life. That being said, many of us have unconscious habits we perform, such as the order in which we complete our morning routine, how we take our coffee or tea, and the route we take to work everyday. These are things we had to teach ourselves, but have now become so routine, we often complete these tasks with little awareness and even talk about feeling like we’re on autopilot.

So why can’t I seem to make meditation or yoga a seamless part of my everyday routine? Because it takes time and there can be some initial discomfort in making room for new habits to form. Parker-Pope goes on to say in her article: “We’re all creatures of habit. We tend to wake up at the same time each day, brush our teeth, have morning coffee and commute to work, following the same patterns every day. So why is it so hard to form new healthy habits? Behavioral scientists who study habit formation say that many of us try to create healthy habits the wrong way. We make bold resolutions to start exercising or lose weight, for example, without taking the steps needed to set ourselves up for success.”

Parker-Pope goes on to explain some ways we can work to integrate new habits into our lives and I will discuss my plans for integrating new habits into my life as well and invite you along!

The first point in the article discusses stacking habits. I like this because it’s not too demanding and doesn’t require a surplus of time that most of us don’t have. This involves edging in a new habit into your routine you already have established. For example, I was having trouble integrating prayer and affirmation into my morning routine. Each morning, I started with good intentions, but before I knew it I was well into my morning and hadn’t had that moment of peace and reflection I was craving. What helped was writing down the prayer and affirmations I wanted to start my day with and put it right in front of my tea container (picture included on Instagram & on blog). The ritual of making tea grants me the gift of time, while I’m waiting for my tea to steep, I can read The Pagan Prayer by Abby Willowroot and set the tone for my day. This one seemingly simple addition to my morning routine didn’t cost me any time I didn’t have and instead helps to ground me for the rest of the day.

The next step in achieving healthier habits is start small. I think many of you can relate to this; when I think of changing habits and making permanent lifestyle changes, two things simultaneously happen in my brain. The excitement of something new and novel coupled with the dread of following through with big changes with little transition. This tends to overwhelm people and big changes often aren’t sustained because it’s just too fucking hard. Starting small can be something as simple as adding a salad to your day (despite what the rest of your meals look like). Even if every meal is fast food, adding a habit like a salad is manageable and can often lead to more healthy habits. This is a concept called crowding out and one many folx use when they are working to make major dietary changes. This is, simply, adding more of the foods one wants to incorporate into their diet, without cutting anything out. A blog post from The Iron You states: “The crowding method is the practice of trying to make healthy choices every time you eat, by gradually adding foods to your diet rather than just take them away. If you add a healthy range of tastes, you offer balance to your body which will not happen when you just restrict your food intake.”

The next step Parker-Pope discusses is do it everyday. This is key. Making it a priority and being consistent is crucial. We’ve all heard claims that it takes X amount of days for something to become a habit, the fact of the matter is there are many other contributing factors and it is varies from person to person. Parker-Pope states: “The lesson is that habits take a long time to create, but they form faster when we do them more often, so start with something reasonable that is really easy to do.” Once you begin doing something daily, you miss it when you forget. Let’s go back to my morning prayer and affirmation, there are still mornings I forget or maybe even see the prayer and scoff because I’m grumpy. Inevitably, I tend to still go back and read my morning affirmations, because my morning routine feels incomplete without it.

The next step is make it easy. I don’t know about you, but I am much more likely to participate in a daily habit like a skin care routine or flossing every night versus taking a 2 mile hike everyday. As we slide into Pandemic 2: Electric Boogaloo, it is vital that we assess habits we want to begin and how that will translate to potentially another lockdown. This would be the time to identify habits that are easily done at home. For example, I have always wanted to become skilled at yoga. Ideally, I would attend regular yoga classes at my local Y, but with living in the South where new cases of Covid and the delta variant are increasing, it makes more sense for me to begin that habit at home and choose from the myriad videos available online. Some folx bring a pre-packed gym bag to work as an incentive to stop by for a workout on the way home or bring food to work to stave off afternoon sugar cravings.

The last step identified in the article is: reward yourself. Admittedly, this is where things gets a little sideways for me. I love rewarding myself and I have to be conscientious that I’m not using habits I’m trying to break as the reward itself. For example, when I was 16, I started Weight Watchers for the first time (of many!). As a reward for losing weight, each week I had a list of “treats” I would reward myself with. 24 years later, I see the pattern I perpetuated and have now learned to reward myself in ways that actually continue to promote the new habit I’m forming in the first place. Now I find ways to make completing my habits more fun and rewarding. For example, I am a huge fan of the show Gilmore Girls and a couple years ago I stumbled upon a comedy podcast where two friends watch each episode and discuss called Gilmore Guys. What’s interesting is, one friend is a die hard Gilmore Girls fan and the other is watching the episodes for the very first time. I have created a habit of only listening to these episodes while I take a walk. Some folx save their favorite shows for when they work out or make a song playlist for when they cook or clean. I typically like to celebrate after the fact as well. For example, I often have a running wish list of things I want and will typically reward myself with something on that list if I complete so many days on a new habit or have a desired outcome, like lowering my cholesterol or walking 10,000 steps a day for 30 days. Whatever motivation you need to keep your habits a priority and keep the process fun will work!

Now, let’s talk about ways you can start adding habits to your life. First, you’ll want to identify habits you already do, without reminders, that benefit you. This could be a skincare routine, flossing, reducing caffeine intake, really anything. Next, you’ll want to identify the habits you want to add to your routine and how to stack those habits into your day. Last, you’ll want to come up with a way to track your progress so you can reward yourself accordingly.

Some of you might be asking yourself Why should I care about habits? What’s the benefit? Sean Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, is quoted saying: “We become what we repeatedly do.” I take that to mean, whether we want it to or not. If what I repeatedly do is who I become, I want to make sure I am doing things that benefit my mind, body, and spirit and is aligned with my values and what I want to achieve in my life and in the world.

Starting today, I plan to integrate 10 daily habits into my life in the next 100 days. I will track my progress using the app Streaks (picture included on IG and in the blog). I will start with one new habit for 10 days, on Day 11, I will add a second habit and so on until I have integrated 10 new habits into my schedule in 100 days. These are the 10 goals (in order from 1^st to last) I plan to integrate in the next 100 days:

1. Journal

2. Daily affirmations

3. Movement

4. Learn Spanish (Duolingo app)

5. Meditate

6. Yoga

7. 15 minutes reading a spiritual text

8. Spend time with nature

9. No screens 1 hour before bed

10. Unplug for 1 hour a day

I will begin today and by the end of 100 days (November 17^th), I will have 10 new habits under my belt. I will be posting daily updates on my TikTok account (check out my Linktree). I would love to see some duets and stitches with your habits and changes you are noticing in yourself! Thank you for joining me! Have a great day!