habits

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Recap: Health Foundation

We’ll be spending the next couple of months covering several proven strategies for achieving optimal physical and mental health.  

But all the best health advice in the world is useless if we cannot get ourselves to make consistent healthy choices. This challenge lies at the foundation of healthy living and must be addressed first.

Constructing a solid foundation on which to build a truly healthy lifestyle was the focus of this week’s posts. The key messages from these posts are summarized in the checklist below.   

The checklist

Here is the 1-2-3 to a solid health foundation:

  1. Measure your health.
    • Smart BMI, biological age, stress and sick days combine to give a surprisingly complete assessment of general health. 
    • This invaluable knowledge will cost you a mere 10 minutes per quarter. 
  2. Find you why.
    • Carving out a healthy lifestyle among all of life’s unhealthy temptations requires a strong driving force, a strong why. 
    • Start by fully understanding the implications of health for yourself, your loved ones and your planet. 
  3. Learn to win during the crux moments.
    • Choices during crux moments set you on a longer-term path to either wellness or illness. 
    • Mastering these moments is the key to unlocking optimal health. 

Please make sure your foundation is strong. If so, the next couple of months can add many awesome years to your life 🙂

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Crux Moments in Health

A crux moment is a time when the choices you make in the next minute will set you on a healthy or unhealthy course for hours, days or even weeks into the future. 

Over the next couple of months, we’ll go through several great strategies for healthy living. But all the health knowledge in the world is pretty much useless if we cannot get ourselves to choose wisely in crux moments. 

So, let’s see if we can do something about that…

Some examples

A typical crux moment would be when you walk past the empty-calorie aisle on your weekly grocery run. The choices you make in those few seconds will strongly influence the nutrition of yourself and your family for the next week. 

Another typical example is when you learn about (or get the urge to look for) a new series to binge-watch. If, in that moment, you choose to indulge, you’re locking in days of stagnation, probably augmented by unhealthy snacking. 

The way we react in crux moments quickly turns into a habit. And such crux moment habits can easily lock in years of good or poor health practices. 

Why do we choose so poorly?

There is no logic to choosing unhealthy options in these crux moments. Clear correlations between healthy eating and happiness and between TV watching and unhappiness have been established. 

In the long run, the healthy choice in crux moments will always bring the most happiness to yourself and your loved ones. The problem, of course, is that we easily discount all this future happiness for a burst of instant pleasure. 

This endorphin addition is incredibly powerful. Every day, it drives billions of people to make choices they know are fundamentally bad for them. 

What can we do about it?

The craving for instant pleasure may be very powerful, but it has a weakness: no stamina. 

Let’s think through our two examples. If you experience strong cravings in the grocery store, but manage to drag yourself past to empty-calorie aisle to the next item on your shopping list, your mind will move on surprisingly quickly. 

Similarly, if you feel the binge-watching craving and manage to get yourself started on a more wholesome activity, the craving will evaporate in no time. 

In other words, if you can extricate yourself from the circumstance that triggered the unhealthy craving, it will fade surprisingly quickly. 

Winning in crux moments

There are two steps to consistently making the right choices in crux moments.

The first step is simply to catch yourself, preferably with a fun visualization to tame your Craving. We often make unhealthy choices totally out of habit, like dogs trained by little treats of endorphins from the instant pleasure industry. Using our human intelligence to break out of this spell is the first step 😉 

Once we’ve caught ourselves, we need to navigate the next couple of seconds. In the moment, making the right choice can feel almost impossible, but just remind yourself of two things:

  1. This intense craving will fade very quickly after the right choice is made.
  2. The crux moment habits you form over time shape long-term health and happiness for yourself, your family and your planet (see yesterday’s post). 

Please give it a go. It’s hard initially, but gets progressively easier over time as you develop good crux moment habits.

Winning during crux moments is essential to transform upcoming posts from words on a screen into longer and happier lives 🙂  

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The Tiny Saves Counter

Habits are formed in small increments. Many times, we’re not even aware of our default thoughts and actions, but, whether we recognize them or not, every little one counts.

That’s why it’s so crucial to address those negative patterns we’ve unconsciously developed over the years. Far too many of our default thoughts and actions are driven by caveman instincts that no longer serve any useful purpose in today’s world. We need to take control. 

The best way I’ve found to do this is the tiny saves counter. 

Tiny saves

The tiny save counter is nothing more than a simple app on my phone with counters for each of the Big Five primitive emotions. I use a free app called Multi Counter, but there are many options out there. 

Every time I manage to catch a clearly detrimental thought or action caused by the Big Five and stop it in its tracks, I pick up my phone and add one click to the appropriate counter. 

Sometimes these tiny saves can have a huge positive effect. One save could be the difference between a healthy and productive day and a self-destructive day of binge-eating and binge-watching.  

Try it! See how many of these tiny saves you can make in a day. Over time, the counter will also give you some interesting insight about which member of the Big Five gives you the most trouble. 

When you catch one of these primitive creatures, dispatch it with the visualization trick we discussed earlier. You’ll know you’re doing it right when it brings a smile to your face 🙂

But there will still be times when more serious bad stuff happens, triggering a Big Five stampede that cannot be stopped by a few tiny saves. Managing this stampede will be tomorrow’s topic. 

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The Short Version

Over the past two months, we’ve covered several awesome morning habits. Some of them take just a minute or two. Others, like morning movement, inspirational reading or chatting with your accountability buddy, take a bit longer. 

These habits can be challenging on those mornings when life just gets in the way (shout-out to parents with young kids).

For those mornings, we need today’s…

Monday 1-minute action Create short versions of these three morning habits

 

Aim to make it embarrassingly easy so that there really is no excuse not to do it. A quick “have a great day” SMS to your accountability buddy, one sun salutation as morning movement and one page of reading will do just fine. 

The short version is a powerful tool because habits are formed by the number of reps, not by the amount of time spent on each rep. This truth is particularly valuable in that difficult habit formation phase. 

Deciding on some clear short versions will strongly increase your chances of getting through this phase and establishing a world-class morning routine. It just takes a minute!

Tomorrow, we’ll dissect some other scenarios that can disrupt your morning routine. See you then!

 

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The Daily Constitution Recital

As we discussed yesterday, a daily recital of your constitution is essential to becoming the best version of yourself. 

There are two keys to a good constitution recital: consistency and emotional engagement. 

The occasional read-through of your constitution will give you nothing. If you want the benefits, you’ll have to do it properly. 

The first step is to give your constitution a fixed position in your morning routine. It only takes a minute or two. So, if you manage to commit, this is actually pretty easy. 

After a couple of weeks of daily recitals, you should know your constitution by heart. This is a clear sign that you are starting to internalize its content. It also becomes even easier to maintain this daily habit when you can complete this recital off the top of your head. 

Second, it’s critical to activate some emotion during your recital. You’ll probably feel like an idiot during the first couple of passionate recitals of your constitution. But this awkward phase passes soon enough 🙂 

I’ve also found that it helps to play some inspirational background music during my recitals. My super-dramatic constitution song is included below, but you’ll have a different preference. 

Tomorrow, I’ll share the story of how it took me several years to finally realize the importance of these two guidelines. Hopefully, you won’t waste as much time as I did. 

See you then!

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Adventures in Morning Reading

My fixed morning reading habit started in early October last year. It really has been one of the easiest habits I’ve ever acquired and there’s a good chance I’ll keep it ’till death do us part 🙂

Over these ten months, I’ve read the eight books linked below:

  • The God Species by Mark Lynas. Read it if you’re interested in the future of our planet. 
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear. Read it if you recognize the power of habits, but are struggling to make it work in the real world. 
  • Make Your Bed by William H. McRaven. Read it for a little bit of general life inspiration. 
  • Deep Work by Cal Newport. Read it if you are a professional in the knowledge industry. 
  • The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. Read it to get a proper understanding of the power of compounding and the importance of consistency. 
  • Dream Teams by Shane Snow. Read it to learn how to assemble and maintain successful teams. 
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Read it if you are interested in the workings of the human mind (be warned that this is a bit of an intellectual marathon).
  • Willpower Doesn’t Work by Benjamin Hardy. Read if if you want to learn about the power of shaping your environment and how to apply it. 

This insignificant investment of 5-10 minutes each morning has definitely made me a more effective person. I’d recommend this awesome habit to anyone who’d listen!

Another key recommendation is to make your own summary after finishing each book. Take an hour or two to flip through once more and note down the key insights. Focus particularly on what you can apply in your own life. This practice will greatly increase the value you get from each book.  

Tomorrow, we wrap up the topic of early-morning reading. See you then!

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The Invaluable Reading Habit

Yesterday’s post introduced the habit of consuming a little bit of interesting or inspiring information every morning. I presented this habit as a good way to switch on your brain after getting out of bed, but this is actually nothing more than a nice side-effect.

The main reason for embracing this habit is the interesting and inspiring information itself.

We live in the information age. Today, those who fill their heads with the best quality information tend to do very well for themselves. They continuously become more rewarding to work with and more interesting to be around. 

But let’s face it, consuming and processing new information requires mental effort. And this effort can easily feel too much next to all the zero-effort empty entertainment that’s all around us (especially after a long and tiring day). 

Indeed, to have any chance at consistently consuming high quality information, it must become a daily habit that happens before your long and tiring day. 

It also helps to realize that just 5-10 minutes of reading each morning will let you absorb 10 books per year. 

Personally, I don’t think reading more than this is all that useful. There are many personal development experts talking about reading 30+ educational books per year, but this is overkill. Next to all the other stuff in our lives, we simply won’t be able to properly internalize all this new information. 

So, in my humble opinion at least, 5-10 minutes per day is just the right amount. Tomorrow, I’ll share the books that I’ve managed to read over nearly a year of maintaining this great habit.

See you then!

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Yoga: the Habit That Finally Stuck

My yoga experiment started many years ago, mainly out of frustration about my lack of flexibility. In fact, like a true yoga dinosaur, I still bought my yoga instructional videos on DVDs! 

Predictably, my practice was very hot and cold. Sometimes I would get inspired and practice regularly for a week or two. Other times, my DVDs would gather dust for weeks on end (as is the fate of most DVDs nowadays).

My breakthrough finally came when I fully committed to my morning routine. Yoga was a natural candidate for inclusion, mostly because it wakes up the body and can be done whether it rains or shines.  

Thus, yoga soon claimed a slot quite early in my routine right after my rather odd 2-minute habit of scoring the previous day (we’ll get to that in a couple of weeks).

Which brings me to another important point about habits… Routines tend to work well because the start of one habit is triggered by the end of another. 

For me, filling in the last number on my scorecard is the trigger to turn off my wake-up music and put on Rodney Yee. And when Rodney says “Namaste” at the end of the routine, it’s my trigger to sit down for a few pages of an educational book.  

So, that’s how, after years of trying, my yoga habit finally stuck. I gave yoga an honorary position early in a string of habits that naturally cascade like a chain of dominoes every morning. 

We’ll be collecting some more dominoes for your own habit cascade over coming weeks. I hope morning exercise has already earned its spot 🙂

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Morning Exercise in the Real World

So, now that you have a yoga mat (or have dug the old one out of the closet), we can talk about using it. 

The internet has all the instructional material you’ll ever need. Just try putting “yoga” (or any other kind of exercise) into the app store on your phone and see for yourself. Go ahead, try one.

So, now that you have your mat and something to do on it, we can talk about the real issue: Actually doing it.

Consistently.

Every morning. 

It’s absolutely essential that you do not try to squeeze morning exercise into your already hectic morning. Instead, rearrange your hectic morning to open up the required space. 

This will probably involve getting up a little earlier, which has hopefully become a less frightening prospect since our first post.

But there will still be those days when life just get in the way of establishing this great little habit (a special shout-out to all those with small kids).

These are the make or break days, especially early on when you’re forming the habit. On these days, shorten your 10 minute session to 1 minute: one sun salutation, one plank, 10 push-ups, whatever.

Just don’t skip it.

Remember this key fact of life: a habit is formed by repetition, not by time. A one-minute repetition will help almost just as much as a 10-minute repetition.  

To summarize:

  • Make space in your morning
  • Religiously fit your chosen physical activity into that space every morning
  • Have a Lite version for those totally crazy or totally uninspired mornings

Like most good habits, it takes a good dose of dedication to form. But once it’s formed, things become decidedly easier. 

Tomorrow, I’ll share my journey to totally habitual morning yoga. See you then!

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The Secret to a Great Life

So, you want to know the secret?

Here it is: simply do the right things (and avoid doing the wrong things) day after day, week after week, year after year. 

Yeah, I know this sounds like state-the-obvious for beginners, but just bear with me for a few more lines. 

We all know right from wrong. Eat apples, not chocolates. Work on that important project, don’t binge the latest Netflix series. Save for retirement, don’t splurge on another electronic gadget you don’t really need. 

Yet, we keep on doing the wrong stuff. Why? Because it gives instant pleasure. Yes, we know there will be pain down the road, but when that chocolate cake looks at us with those big brown eyes, we must devour it. 

It’s basic instinct. 

Luckily, human beings are capable of controlling their basic instincts. Willpower is essentially useless in this battle, but there is a tried and tested solution: intelligent design.

Designing a life where you are in control will be a recurring theme on this blog. But for now, let’s start with the simplest of habits that lies at the foundation to a good life:

Monday 1-minute action Set a constant sleep and wake time on your phone

 

If you have an iPhone, just visit the bedtime function of the clock. Android users need to install an app like “Sleep as Android” or simply set two recurring alarms: one for bedtime and one for waking up. 

Go on. Just do it. Just for tonight…

Then join me tomorrow morning as I try to convince you to go for another day 😉

 

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