Don’t focus on the colour of the walls in your house if you don’t have good foundations or you’ll be forever sorting out cracks rather than enjoying the delicate mocha.
All these messages are built from the science and understanding of what actually works to get people a long-term recovery in our clinic.
Such a simple thing that we all do twice a day but how has this routine become part of everyone’s morning and evening routine and why is it relevant?
No one wants to have root canal as it’s not far from top of the tree in most people’s idea of pain experiences and this has a lot to do with why we brush our teeth.
In fact I’ve lost count of the amount of people that list it as a horrible thing for their painful back. The fact is they still brush their teeth, no one says and “I’ve not been able to brush my teeth for the last week.”
Good habits live long and what we need to start doing is looking for things that can easily become part of your life to maintain it in good order much like brushing your teeth does, it’s not full proof but drastically improves the odds of success.
Little and often is the way to go, two hours of teeth brushing once a month is obviously not as good as two minutes twice a day. Too many people start something new at a frequency and intensity that they are never going to maintain and are then disappointed when the inevitable happens.
How do you know what you should be doing? You don’t really but take an educated guess and refine it from there. For me a simple example is that I feel best when well hydrated so now my problem is simple. I need to find ways to keep water near me as much as possible and keep drinking. Working out that I wasn’t drinking enough and seeing that I consistently felt better if I drunk more was the hard bit.
I’m also better if I get out for at least a 30 minute walk everyday, again the problem then becomes simplified into doing it. The struggle is in working out what helps.
If you want to try this think back to a time when you felt on ‘top form’ or just much better than now. Think of some of the things that you were doing that on paper are good for you but you aren’t now and start there. Inevitably there will be things your current issue prevents so either modify these into something manageable or start with the other things.
Keep it super simple [alt.] (KISS) generally the behaviours you introduce that are simple and don’t take too long to do are most likely to stay so keep it as simple as possible and don’t try too many at the same time.
How I make myself drink more is I have a glass that I walk past between each patient I see and I’ve set a rule in my head that I can’t pass it without a drink and a couple of relaxing breathes to help me hydrate and switch off from the last patient and onto the next one. Turning it into a game as much as possible helps.
Get started now and see what the most simple thing with the biggest impact you can find is!
The Key Takeaway:
We are complicated creatures with simple needs. Find out what your simple needs are then work on maintaining them. To find them you are better off thinking of what you want to feel like or who you want to be. To maintain them you’re better off using the consequences of staying where you are or not doing them to drive you on.
