76 - Let's Create New Habits

It's the 4th day of 5 episodes in 5 days!  And today we are talking about habits.

I share with you how habits are created, strengthened, and how you can change the habits you no longer want and create the habits you do want.

I hope this helps you reach your goals for 2023 and gets you closer to living the life you want. 

Transcript

Welcome back friend! How are you handling all the hustle and bustle of the New year? Here is your gentle reminder to slow down, enjoy your time with loved ones and enjoy the food. In this episode we are talking about habits. How they are created, how they are strengthened and how we can change the ones we don’t want to keep. Let’s do this shall we?

Each morning, as part of my routine, I read the memories Facebook keeps for me. There are some from many years ago that have me cringing for how steeped in diet culture I was. But most of the time I enjoy reading about where I was at that point in my life and I love seeing the photos of Anthony as he grows.

This morning I was noticing a trend each year around this time and I’m curious Does this sound familiar to you, too??

Each December I’d start planning for my New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, get in shape, and FINALLY love my body.

I’d spend hours researching which diet was going to be the RIGHT one. The one that would finally allow me to keep off any weight that I did lose.

Throughout the month I would psych myself up for hitting the ground RUNNING come January 1st.

I’d have my meals planned out, time scheduled for meal prep so that even when I was super busy I could stick to the meal plan.

I’d plan out my workouts, meticulously timing the morning routine to know EXACTLY how much earlier I’d need to get up each day to get my workout in before Anthony got up, or while he was eating breakfast.

And then I would binge. This was the last month I’d be able to have these foods, right?! So why not indulge and enjoy ALL the foods I would be swearing off of. I now call this the Last Supper Syndrome. And what I didn’t know then was that I was making the problem worse and setting myself up for failure, yet again.

What I was doing was creating a habit that showed up not only in December but several times throughout the  year. I was reinforcing that diet binge cycle.  Let’s chat a bit more about this cycle, that we could also call the restrict binge cycle. 

Sometimes it’s hard to pull it apart and see just where it started. Kinda like the chicken or the egg scenario. Because this is cyclical we can start anywhere and get the same result. So let’s start with the thought that usually sparks this eating pattern…. Something like “I’m disgusting.” Or comparing yourself to a friend or celebrity or just someone walking down the aisle at the grocery store, which brings  up those thoughts that you are only worthy if you look a certain way.  These thoughts then lead to remembering what you’ve learned from diet culture, the whole calories in versus calories out. So you decide you’re going to cut your calories and exercise more. Which takes us to the restrict portion of the cycle. You restrict calories, macros, certain foods, or times in which you eat, and maybe for a time this seems doable. But in truth your body may not be getting the nutrients you need and you feel hungry. Eventually biology is going to take over and you will eat the foods  you’ve sworn off of, and because these foods are forbidden you are likely to binge and feel guilty about it. Think of the times you’ve put off eating, whether because you were on a diet, you were waiting for a special dinner, or just because you didn’t have food around while you were out doing errands. That hunger feeling gets louder and louder. And when you do finally eat you are so ravenous that you scarf the food down so quickly you’d think your taste buds were in your stomach rather than your mouth.

This is because when you allow yourself to have what your body has been asking for it goes a little overboard, not knowing when you will listen again. And thanks to diet culture you’ve been led to believe that this overeating, these binges are shameful. The negative thoughts begin and get louder and louder. Telling you what a loser you are, how you have no willpower, how you should feel terrible and never ever do this again. So you vow to restart the diet, limit your access to certain foods, and do it better this time. That is until the next time biology takes over because you are hungry, or you just really want to enjoy a cookie or a piece of chocolate. And then because you’ve been dieting harder this time, aka restricting more and more, you end up binging again. That leads to beating yourself up again.. And the cycle repeats itself. Over and over again.  This is what I call the diet rollercoaster and it wasn’t until I stepped off of it that I saw it for what it is. I kept thinking I was the problem, when in reality diets are set up to fail you. That’s right diets fail you, not the other way around.

Each time we ride the diet roller coaster we are strengthening this restrict binge cycle and creating a habit.  Let’s look a little deeper at how habits, with food or anything else are formed.

The pleasure principle states we are programmed to want to feel pleasure and avoid pain. This is why when we are hungry we want to eat, when we are hot we want to turn on the air conditioner, and when we get home from a long day we want to kick off the shoes and change into comfy clothes.

Food is a great coping tool because it causes a spike in dopamine in the brain. This could be one of the reasons there are so many habits around food.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a messenger between neurons. And is released when your brain expects a reward. When you come to associate a certain activity with pleasure, simply anticipating it can cause dopamine to rise. Since we’ve been taught since day one to use food to cope and our bodies have associated food with pleasure, thanks to dopamine, it makes sense that as adults we reach for something to put in our mouth when we are feeling down. 

 Over the years and years of using food to cope we’ve learned that food is a quick way to feel better, at least for a short time. Each time we turn to food and feel better we reinforce turning to food in the future. It doesn’t take long to build this habit. And I don’t think it’s something we need to do away with completely. However, it is helpful to have other strategies to use rather than turning to food all the time.

Cognitive behavior theory states that our thoughts affect our emotions, which in turn affects our behaviors, and the outcomes of those behaviors. These outcomes or results either reinforce or change our current perspective.

Almost everything starts with a thought. Sometimes it might not seem like it because a lot of the thoughts we have we aren’t even aware of. When we become more aware of our thoughts we can start to see how much is really going on inside our brain and how these thoughts spark an emotion. 

We can think of emotions as another physical sensation, a message from our body.

And since we can observe both our thoughts and our emotions we are neither our thoughts or our emotions. 

That’s right, you are not your thoughts or your emotions.  They are part of you, they are not you. And they don’t have to define you. 

Thoughts are just words. Words that are strung together. Our thoughts and our emotions are not good or bad. They just are. It’s our perspective that makes thoughts and emotions good or bad.

The trick with this is slowing down the experience enough to begin to identify those thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, and the behaviors that follow.

Bringing this back to habit formation and changing habits, can you see how most everything starts from that pleasure principle of wanting to feel pleasure and avoid pain? We create thoughts that spark emotions and lead to behaviors, and thanks to dopamine, each time we avoid feeling pain or we feel pleasure that behavior and those thoughts are reinforced. And like a rut in a dirt road, each time it is used it gets deeper and deeper. 

Which if it’s a habit we want is great. And if it’s a habit we don’t want, it isn’t so great.

I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life and never plan to, and it’s something that so many can relate to, even if you’ve never smoked. There are many reasons why a person begins smoking and only a few as to why they keep smoking. 1 reason why it’s so hard to quit is because of the highly addictive ingredients within the cigarettes and we can’t do much about that, other than not starting. So let’s move on to number 2. The second main reason people continue to smoke is the initial release they feel. This could also be applied to eating sweets. Those first few times you took a puff or took a bite of a cookie, the euphoria is quick to come and we feel  instantly better… for a time… This is where dopamine comes in creating a positive association between smoking or food, or whatever else and feeling better. The more you reach for that cigarette or cookie when you are feeling uncomfortable and feel better, the more you are strengthening that association. But what happens after a while is habituation. Meaning it takes more puffs or bites to have the same feeling of relief. Now we’re needing more to feel the same, so we keep using and keep strengthening the behavior and the thought that you need this to feel better. 

How about we look at it with what would be considered a positive or desirable habit. Moving your body daily.  We all know movement is good for us on so many levels. And I so often hear how much you want to add more movement into your daily routine but you just can’t make it a habit. Well first, find something you enjoy doing. If you try to establish waking up at 4am to go to the gym for 2 hours and you hate going to the gym or you are an extreme night owl, no wonder this hasn’t formed a habit. Remember the pleasure principle…. We are designed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If you enjoy nothing about the 4am gym trip you are not feeling pleasure and avoiding pain, so you aren’t taking advantage of dopamine. Instead, find what movement you do enjoy and what times work best for you. 

I’ll share my own example from years ago. Anthony has never been one to sleep late. In fact, as a baby he woke quite early. I learned about a 5:30am Jazzercise class, which meant waking up a few minutes earlier than Anthony normally did, and it meant I could shower with just enough time before my first daycare child arrived. What made all this work even better was that I love dancing and had fond memories of attending Jazzercise in the 80s with my own mom. I was doing something pleasurable, dancing, which gave me a hit of dopamine first thing in the morning and created positive associations with a 5:30 am Jazzercise class, and it fit nicely into my schedule which increased the habit.  Each time we attended class, dopamine and the pleasure principle strengthened the habit. And because I knew it worked, even when I needed to take days off due to not feeling well, traveling, or holidays, it was easy to get back to the habit because I missed it when I wasn’t able to attend. 

I hope this helps with your understanding of habits and how they are created and strengthened. When it comes to changing habits we have a bit of unpairing to do with the associations we’ve made. To do this I like to focus more on what you are adding rather than taking away. Before I dive into an example, let me remind  you of cognitive behavior theory that posits change begins with changing our thoughts. In order to be the person you want to be, doing the things you want to do, you first have to think the way that type of person thinks. You get to have the belief system of that type of person. So often we focus on the behavior side of the equation while leaving out the thought side. Which is why our attempts to change our habits fall short.

This time I encourage you to focus on both the behaviors AND the thoughts, with maybe a bit more focus on the thoughts. Let me give you an example from my life. There was a time where the only water that touched my lips was from brushing my teeth. I would only drink soda or juice. Sometime in my twenties I decided I wanted to cut back on the soda and increase my water intake. So I focused on drinking less soda, thinking if I drank less soda I’d naturally drink more water. But that didn’t work out so well.  I just drank less in general and whenever I did drink water I focused on how boring and tasteless it was. 

A decade later, I tried drinking more water again. Only this time I focused solely on the water and why I wanted to drink more water. I practiced intentional thoughts like “water is good for me.” “I feel better when I drink water.” “I’m the type of person that drinks water.” While practicing these thoughts I also focused on the act of drinking water. I start each day drinking 16 ounces of water. Not because that is some special number, it’s just the size of the cup we keep in our bathroom. 

Each time I thought “I’m the type of person that drinks water first thing in the morning” it helped me drink water each morning. And each time I drank water  first thing I felt better throughout the day. I used my thoughts, behaviors, and dopamine to create positive associations with drinking water when I wake up. Over repeated practices of this it is now a very formed habit and I don’t even think about it unless I’m telling this story to you or a client. 

Let’s go back to the restrict binge cycle from the beginning of this episode. Your current thoughts are keeping you here and continually reinforcing the habit. To get off the diet roller coaster you get to change how you think. Right now the habit may be to berate yourself after a perceived binge and while that may not make you feel very good in the moment, it’s meant to help you do something different, except it doesn’t. So the next time you find  yourself on the roller coaster, try being a little nicer to yourself. Try giving yourself grace. It might help to have a phrase ready to practice for when this happens. Something like “Sabrina says this is normal and I trust her.” or “Oh look at that, I’m riding the roller coaster again.” or “Beating myself up never worked so I’m letting this go.” And then watch what happens throughout the next couple of days. Do you notice any changes, even subtle ones, in how you interact with yourself and food?  Over time this simple practice will help stop the shame spiral which will eventually lead to less and less binges and restricting episodes. 

Let’s do a quick recap before saying farewell.

Habits are formed by our innate desire to feel pleasure and avoid pain.

Dopamine is released when we feel (or anticipate feeling) something pleasurable, which provides a positive association with the behavior and/or thought.

Repeated experiences builds and strengthens this behavior into a habit.

Habits can be changed by changing our thoughts.

If you’ve found this helpful and want to dive deeper into your thoughts and habits, you’re in luck!  This is a big portion of my work with clients and I’d love to chat about how we can work together. You can find a link in the show notes to my calendar where you can schedule a 20 min consult to discuss how I can help you. I look forward to chatting with you!

Until next time, be gentle with yourself friend