Day 3 Wellbeing Practice

Day 3 Wellbeing Practice

Summary:

In this session we have studied change and making healthy changes to help in our mental wellbeing and recovery. We have discussed and reviewed The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and now understand the process of Cue = Routine = Reward.

To ensure we have the very best chance of changing a routine or creating a new healthy habit, we need to break down the process so that our mind knows every part of the plan.

If we don’t, that’s the point when our chimp gets involved with suggestions like ‘you don’t feel like doing this today’ or ‘why should I?’

Practice:

This sessions wellbeing practice is all about training our brain to plan for the Micro-Change of a routine that we have identified.

Before going to bed each night, make sure you have a pen/pencil and a note pad or scrap paper by your bed.

Set your alarm (before midday!) and as soon as you wake up, note down a daily activity that is now an automatic habit, such as having breakfast or scrolling through social media.

Once you have identified the automatic habit, consider what the routine is and note this down under the heading of:

This is what I normally do…

Then add another heading of:

This is my new routine…

Try to be as detailed as possible, especially with the first heading. You’ll soon become aware of just exactly how often we are unaware of what we are doing!

Once you are satisfied that you have chosen a small and achievable routine in which to use as a practice, you measure your new routine using the SMARTER plan, or set a timer on your mobile to remind you of what your new routine is.

You can even make your plan a daily activity and chart it on your 66 day challenge sheet!

Whatever routine you choose, go easy on yourself.

This is not a competition.

Remember that our automatic habits have often had years and years of practice, which means our prefrontal cortex (rational & logical part of the brain) is mostly off-line. This practice will help to bring it back online so that we start choosing routines that benefit our health & wellbeing.