HABITUAL BEHAVIOR DEVELOPS VALUABLE SKILLS: WANT TO REPLACE A HABIT? (ISSUE 104)

By Diane Gold

We all exhibit habitual behavior. We have developed valuable skills as a result of by the very nature of carrying out our habitual acts. We create an expertise in order to do what it takes to get our reward of choice; we repeat and complete and do it again. This prowess builds in us proficiencies which can translate into positive action in our home life, our work productivity and our own creative projects, even if our habitual behavior is not supportive of our own lives. When we choose to replace our habit with one that is positive to our lives, we already have lots of worthwhile skills to make the change and to accompany us on our journey. And when we have a new and healthy habit; the skills we have shaped will remain!

WHAT IS HABITUAL BEHAVIOR?

Let’s define habitual behavior as a pattern of action that follows an emotional and/or physical craving that leads to some type of internal intake or ingestion, tick, movement, series of actions, that takes place several times a day, once daily or several times a week, and that, when removed without replacement, causes psychic or physical reaction that can be severely painful. When we change the habit, we actively divert our own attention from the expectation of the old reward we couldn’t live without using the same skill set we created in developing the original habitual behavior; this is how we form a new one.

ACTION STEPS

1) Ask yourself if you have a habitual behavior. Only you will know the answer if you want it that way.

2) Ask, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being most supportive, how supportive this habit is for your life.

3) If your behavior is less than 7, consider changing to another one. (There are action steps and contacts below that can help do this.)

WHAT? I’M WORTHWHILE?

When we have a habitual behavior, it is fair to say we have established some strong core competencies in our lives that, if well directed, make us excellent commodities of financial, social, personal worth. Here are some worthwhile tools we have acquired:

we know how to obtain money for food, even if we spend it to our disadvantage to get the reward a negative habitual behavior;

we know how to obtain money for shelter, even if we spend it to our disadvantage to get the reward from a negative habitual behavior;

we have the personal freedom to consume, which means we are not under military confinement or in jail.

This means we are massively more fortunate than a great percentage of the rest of the world population. Of course, looking at others does our lives no good, since our habitual behavior may be consuming us. The steps below as well as the skills we have created will help us.

THE SKILLS

What is extremely important is the skill set we have acquired to meet the conditions of our habitual behavior. Many mirror the traits of very successful people whose habitual behavior is not a detriment to their lives:

we have courage as we, alone, are dealing with ourselves,

 we have ingenuity enough to have devised a way to live with our habitual behavior in our lives,

(remembering some not so uncommon ingenuity: Bobby M. had devised a lifestyle for himself around weather. He would steal saleable merchandise from cars to get drug money (which led to his reward feeling) from April to September and then get arrested and jailed from October to March. He was on the street attending to his habitual behavior for the warm weather and getting 3 square meals and adequate shelter, courtesy of the City of New York, in the cold weather.)

we have organization skills in order to get what we want,

we have timing so that we have the object of our habit as frequently as we need it,

we have focus so that we take the right actions to get what we want,

we have drive to get what we want,

we have diplomacy to get what we want,

we have conflict resolution experience from juggling and managing our habitual behavior.

These traits are a great foundation we have already built and mean that we do have something to offer on the other side should we decide to replace our habitual behavior. Many employers, organizations, friends, families value the characteristics in us we already possess.

ACTION STEPS TO CONVERT NEGATIVE HABITUAL BEHAVIOR INTO POSITIVE HABITUAL BEHAVIOR

In order to change a habit, we have to replace it. We do this by replacing the step we take to achieve our reward. In order to achieve this, we need take the same new step at the exact time we get our craving, our trigger, our cue, every time. This action will become familiar and will replace the old action, if we repeat it long enough, knowing it will become more manageable after the first month.

CAUTION

I’m not saying it gets easy. I am saying urges do get manageable and go away, in some of us, for long periods of time. The only requirement is BLIND REPETITION, not strength, not faith, not self-esteem, not friends, not psychological evaluation, not judging ourselves or others, only BLIND REPETITION.

THE ACTION STEPS

1) Immediately drink 1 full large glass of water. This means always have water with you, should you get a cue that previously triggered you to your old habitual behavior, when out in the world.

2) Take a minute out from whatever you are doing and listen to this song:

https://soundcloud.com/benladesh/ben-la-desh-why-dont-you.

Glue yourself to a chair and move the body to the beat for 1 or 2 minutes. Close your eyes, too. If you want to stand up and dance, do it after the first minute. After the first time you use this technique, go get a danceable song you can always take with you,  should you get a cue to consume when out in the world. Planning which song and how quickly you can get to it is the key.

And don’t say you can’t figure out a way to be excused from whatever you are doing for one minute. Think of all the manipulating ways you slipped away in the past to fulfill your previous rewards.

3) Call a friend or acquaintance to talk you through the urge, a friend who is prepared to take your call at any time, day or night. Drink a second glass of water while you are on the phone.

If you don’t have anyone you know who can be available for you – or you’re not comfortable asking – call 2-1-1 from your phone. This works in 90% of the United States. If 2-1-1 does not work, 1-800-552-1183 works from a touch-tone phone and for VoIP phones. 80 countries (including the European Union and Australia) use 112.

4) Immediately upon feeling your urge to act out your habitual behavior, go for a 5 minute run. If you don’t have the ability to go outside; go into the rest room, and run in place. If you are wearing heels, put down a few pieces of paper towel, take off your shoes and go, go, go. Time yourself.

5) Drink another glass of water after all these other activities. By this time, you should have diluted the urge to the point where you can manage it.

6) If your habitual behavior is not overeating, eat a meal immediately. To fulfill this one, it is always necessary to have some sort of meal with you at all times.

7) [or 6) if your habitual behavior is overeating] If you are home or can get to a rest room, brush your teeth as a symbol of starting a clean slate. This means carry a mini tube of toothpaste with you. Remember, this is no weirder than actions you’ve taken to get your old reward.

CONCLUSION

Most of the time, we develop habitual behavior because we experience grief, anger or limited self-esteem. These can come from abuse, crisis, death, sickness and whatever our mind conjures, since feelings are irrational and show up when they show up. Since we have a myriad of valuable skills from our habitual behavior, we are worthy, since worth is calculated by our collection of  respectable, attention-getting skills.

Even if we don’t feel it and even if no one has recognized us or commissioned us yet, we are worthy in terms of the definition.  In my personal opinion, everyone is worthy in some way, even if evaluators or teachers have not found the way for our subject to exhibit worthwhile behavior.

We can recognize, intellectually, anyway, that we have marketable, communication skills of merit by the very nature of our success at managing our habitual behavior. When we use them to the greater good (ours or that of the universe), we flourish. One step at a time, no thoughts, only action, power in our essence, using our valuable skills to change ourselves and the world.

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition and habit change.

When we do anything else, we are elevating our skill set. The great set of skills we develop through habit behavior is no exception. She says,

“We have lots of favorable circumstance, as long as we are able to notice it. When we are consumed with negative habitual behavior, our lives are chaotic, messy, explosive; and our vision is dim. We miss opportunities at every turn as we are busy rewarding ourselves. Until we replace our habit.

“We have the group of skills that can change a habit, get us a new career or creative project and take us in a new direction.

“It is not impossible; all it takes is blind repetition which takes only one step. There are many resources available to help along the way, including the action steps in this issue. They work. I know. Put on carriage horse blinders and choose your direction. You can do it.”

THE ONE SECRET TO HABIT CHANGE: GET IT AND USE IT! (ISSUE 97)

By Diane Gold

There is one secret to habit change. We don’t need to be college-educated to understand it. We don’t have to have been brought up in a wealthy home to use it. It is the same in every country. It applies to every habit. We all know the concept as it applies to daily life. Yet, it’s still a secret.

Before we spell it out for you, let’s look at the characteristics of habit change. We have three ingredients: the URGE, which is the itch or cue that we want to experience a particular pleasurable feeling; the ACTION, which is whatever is done in response to the urge; and the REWARD, which is the glorious feeling of pleasure we get from the action we chose to take after we had the urge.

In order to hear it, we must be ready at this very moment to realize its truth; and that if we don’t make it a priority in our lives, we will go another way. Easiest is best, and that’s upon what this secret is based.

Are you ready? Here it is.
In order to eliminate lots of wasted time from roller coaster habit change work, act within 5 seconds of feeling the urge. And you will have the easiest road ahead. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying this method makes it easier. Simple, right?

Let’s look at a few examples.

Picture the situation where we get an urge to eat cake. We are on a strict regimen not to include cake in our food plan. If we don’t act with instant motion within five seconds of the urge, we have already given ourselves time enough to plan which way we will walk to the cake store, passing an Automatic Teller Machine along the way, since we keep no cash with us to avoid running out to buy food. Oops, we forgot about the ATM card. Or figuring out how to run up an account with the local grocer if we have no cash, if we have remembered not to have an ATM card around.

[Note to self: if not already done, place the ATM card in the safety deposit box.]

If we do act within five seconds, we can dissipate our urge and have one more experience of staying within our food plan.

Here’s another.

Imagine it’s the end of the work day, we are closing up our store and start getting the urge to join all our buddies across the street and drink alcohol. Yet, we know, at this time, we have decided to abstain from alcohol because it does not support us. So, when we feel that craving, we have a choice: we can act within 5 seconds and take a new action that does not involve alcohol OR wait and go drink alcohol, a behavior we already know is not working for us. If the people at the pub are really our buddies, we will see them later, not in the bar.

This urge and this situation have happened to me more times than I can count. My live-in boyfriend had left work early and was always at the bar. So, my mind did its jealousy dance about his having alcohol and fun without me or having more alcohol than I was having. Crazy, right, that I would be jealous of someone else’s having more substance than I? Crazy, but true. Vividly, jealousy green, true.

The only way for me to replace this cycle was for me to act IMMEDIATELY before I thought about alcohol, jealousy, whatever else my crafty mind came up with. If I didn’t act quickly, I’d be sucked into the old habit behavior.

And finally, a last example follows.

Let’s say I had stopped smoking cigarettes for a year. And no one smoked around my job or house. One day, I was taking a walk in the metro area, and someone who was smoking passed me by. I got a whiff of smoke and instantly wanted to smoke. Without instant action, I would be urged to bum a cigarette from that very person. That would start the old familiar cycle of smoking which was the familiar behavior I knew that satisfied the craving for smoking. When I moved quickly and took a different action, I learned how to create new rewards with my different actions, and the urge to smoke went away again.

CONCLUSION

We have a very short window of opportunity in which to execute the one secret to habit change. It’s usually in that five second range that we must act. If we don’t take a new action within that time, we will habitually do our old behavior. And changing our habit will wait on the sidelines another day.

Think about it. What happens when we procrastinate? Nothing new. If we do nothing new to change our habit, we will gravitate toward what we know: our old habit. Most of us know our old habit with our eyes closed because we have repeated it so often.

It requires focus to take a new step. The more we take that step, though, the more it replaces our old action. If we do it once, it’s a novelty. If we do it twice, we see its merits. If we carry it out a third, fourth, fifth time; it becomes more natural, although usually it requires 21 days for the mind to accept the new behavior as becoming a possible replacement.

ACTION STEP

The one action we will take when we feel an urge works for all kinds of habits. It can’t hurt us either. It can only help.

We will drink water, two glasses, eight to twelve ounces each, as soon as we feel our urge to fulfill our old craving, no matter what it is. The act of drinking water dissipates any of the oral addictions biologically, such as eating, alcohol drinking, drugging, smoking. It has the following effects on all habits.

1) It physically dilutes the blood so that the usual amount of substance (food, alcohol, drug) cannot produce the same reward.
Perspective

2) It changes our mental perspective so that we are no longer focused on whatever we were focused on before we drank the water.

3) It changes our emotional status because it has a calming effect.

4) It teaches us a technique we can use almost anywhere), at any time, as long as we are in a place fortunate enough to have freely running water.

5) It is our first habit change buddy, always loyal, never a flat leaver, always faithful.

Do it. It is massively impactful, requires little activity, not much effort other than the effort of doing magic on or tricking one’s own mind. And it works on all the urges to a large degree.

May the change be with you!

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition and habit change.

She has used the one secret to habit change many a time and would like to see it go public. She says,

“Habits are learned by repeating one behavior, over and over again. If we were Vulcans (from Star Trek) and had no emotions, we’d have no trouble taking the secret step at any time and adjusting our behaviors.

“Because we are not Vulcans and are so attached to our emotions, cravings, urges, desires, passions; each behavior is motivated by many emotions. Thus, we need boldly to move ourselves to the new behavior, whether our emotions agree or not. This takes focus. If we put on horse blinders, we would have an easier time. Although the very idea might diminish our self-esteem, another important emotion; so we don’t use them.

“The secret to habit change is water, two glasses. Let’s make an effort to drink it as a technique of change. It works and empowers, all by itself. Consider it. There’s nothing to lose.”

HOW WATER WORKS ON HABIT CHANGE (ISSUE 87)

By Diane Gold

Water works on habit change. It has a profound influence on whatever we are doing. If we are working on changing a habit, we need it. If we are thirsty, the body is already deprived, but it hydrates us. Water flushes out toxins; it balances the chemicals that make us human; it combines with the nutrients from our food. It keeps our health.

THE ACT OF DRINKING WATER, THE BEHAVIOR

We know that, in order to change a habit, we are going to plan a new behavior to activate when we get our urge, our cue, our itch instead of following through with our behavior we have decided to change. Here’s an example behavior with overeating. When we sit down to eat, and we find ourselves salivating and ready to gobble down every last drop of our food because we can never get enough food at 100 pounds overweight, we can use this pre-planned strategy, which works for most habits:

ACTION STEP

Before sitting down to eat (or even if we eat standing up), pour two glasses of water for ourselves. Before we allow ourselves to take a bite to eat, we drink all the water. We do this at every meal, including snacks.

We can think of the beautiful water supply from which it came, if it is clean water and conjure a picture of wonderful waterfalls surrounding it. Secondly, we can honor those who do not have clean water or any water at all by being grateful for the water in front of us. This mental exercise helps insure the water is drunk with no excuses.

THE RESULT

The body is somewhat sated and has the control to eat the meal at a healthy speed, chewing many times (25 X per mouthful is a good start). We will also eat less. Yes, we will become hungry again after we have finished the meal. However, the water may give us control not to run and eat again.
__

PROOF OF MY OWN

I recall that drinking water was a way I used to reduce my urges. On many occasions, I actually lost the desire to overindulge from the act of drinking water. The removal of desire was not permanent, but it is became very manageable and rarely reappears. Sleep often followed this remedy so that I didn’t chance that the urge would reappear again and tempt me to have an additional meal or substance.

The idea of taking away my appetite for whatever it was I wanted often made me REFUSE to drink water. Why would I want to get in the way of satisfying my own urge? As time went on, though, I realized that the technique of using water as a friendly control tool, was changing my understanding of myself. Even if part of me resisted it, once the water was down, I wanted to forego the old habit and a new reward took its place, that wonderful feeling of having changed myself. I still feel it all over my body, inside and out. I smile at the way the mind pulls us and marvel that I have discovered how to adjust it with a plan, some faith in myself and repetition.

Here’s another relevant personal tidbit. My precious cat is usually on a weight loss or weight maintenance diet. He quickly changes his behavior when there is no food in his dish. He goes out to play or, like me, goes to sleep.

THE SCIENCE

There are lots of people who know that water helps habit change. Most don’t know that , according to a study by Almiron-Roig & Drewnowski, 2003, and DellaValle et. al., 2005, in the Journal of Physiology & Behavior, energy drinks increase food consumption, compared to water or non-energy, artificially- sweetened drinks. (It has been shown that artificial sweeteners can be carcinogenic and are still under study, so I recommend water). I don’t know the sample size or technique used in this study.

More recent than that is a 2009/2010 study performed by Brenda Davey, Ph.D., of Virginia Tech University, et. al. with 24 subjects. This study demonstrated that water, drunk prior to a meal, reduced energy intake (which we call the amount of food we eat) in older, overweight adults. Although the sample of test subjects was small, it finally demonstrated what many people have been saying for years.

THE EXCUSES

Here are reasons why people don’t drink water. Know them, bypass them and go drink:

1) It’s not always convenient to stop and get water.

2) It makes our stomachs puff out, and we don’t like to see that.

3) It flushes out the many toxins that are produced during weight loss which is necessary and good. The result is we have to use the bathroom much more often, which is a chore for the lazy.

4) We don’t feel thirsty. Once we feel thirsty, we are already dehydrated, and we have already taxed our bodies too much.

5) We know water will take away our urge and we want to get the old reward of our urge that is not supporting our positive life style. And it’s hard to let go of this.

CONCLUSION

What I have learned from changing habits is this: water cuts the appetite, water cuts urges, water makes us healthy and water sustains our lives. If we have access to it, we can use it for all these things.

Before we close, I want to make sure to mention some water facts. These facts do not take away from the fact that to change a habit requires will power galore. They just bring to light the fact that we are not the only ones with issues.

THE FACTS

1) Over three-quarters of a billion people lack access to clean water.

2) Only 63% of people have a sanitation facility. That means 1.1 billion people (estimated from WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme) defecate in the street.

3) More than 80% of sewage in developing countries goes untreated to pollute rivers, lakes and coasts.

4) 90% of all disease comes from feces.

5) According to water.org, a $25 donation will supply clean water for one person for life.

In honor of those who have less,

CONCLUDING ACTION STEPS

1) Continue the two-glass technique until you feel some modicum of control over your most out-of-control urges.

2) Repeat this technique for seven days. If successful, go 14 more days.

3) Once you have completed 21 days, think of drinking water as a method to change your biology for the rest of your life. This method needs to be continued, since habits we change usually live in us in a dormant state.

4) Once you have completed 21 days, as you drink water on purpose, congratulate yourself.

5) Every day, don’t wait until the body is thirsty. This taxes the body. Drink at regular intervals. In keeping water drinking high, we have a good chance of staying in command of our urges.
____________________________________________________________________

FEEDBACK

Please leave a comment and LIKE.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She is pleased to have lived long enough to discover herself well. She says,

“I am not special in developing self-control and the ability to know myself. I believe we can all do it, if we devote the time and follow a technique. And here’s a secret. Even if we don’t believe in ourselves, as long as we follow the technique, we’ll succeed anyway. It’s the doing that matters; the belief comes later.”

3 FEELINGS THAT CAN CAUSE TEEN GIRLS TO GAIN WEIGHT PLUS UNIQUE SOLUTIONS AND FOOD TIPS FOR EACH (ISSUE 51)

By Diane Gold

We are all so similar in so many ways that it is highly phenomenal that each of us has such a unique perspective, belief system and way of being. We all feel less than balanced about something. Funny how we can be so strong in 1 area and so miserably shaky in another.

We can all understand each other’s feelings if we bother to stop being so exclusively absorbed in our own lives. Today, we will look at the similar feelings that teen girls have that make them gain weight.  We think we are the only ones who feel what we feel. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

1)

I feel big, I don’t like it and no one else worries about this issue the way that I do. Or even if someone else is concerned, that doesn’t make me feel better.

ACTION STEP BEFORE RUNNING TO EAT

1)    Go into the privacy of your own room or in a bathroom, if you don’t have your own room. If no private bathroom, you will have to work on putting up a temporary curtain for privacy (a clothesline and a sheet will make a good one).
2)    Sit on your bed or some kind of chair.
3)    Touch your R shoulder with your L hand and your L shoulder with your R hand, so that your arms will be criss-crossed.
4)    Close your eyes.
5)    Let the palms slide all the way down with light pressure, all the way to the wrists.
6)    Realize the strength in your arms and your hands, and think of all the talents they have. Stick with me here. I have a point.
7)    Imagine you are the most popular girl in school touching her arms. She has many talents for her arms, too.
8)    Imagine you are the girl whose family lives in the street, and she is touching her arms. Again, she has performed many tasks with those arms.
9)    Now, realize that we all use our arms and hands in similar ways and that this small exercise makes us similar, not different.

This exercise is not a big revelation, but, in doing the exercise, we see, immediately, at least, 1 similarity, unlike when we see ourselves as big vs. someone who is small.

So, next time we feel big vs. small, let us stop for a moment and do this exercise to feel our power, to feel how similar we are to others and to be calm in a quiet, meditative place.

FOOD TIP

Now, have a healthy snack such as an apple or sauteed carrots with a big glass of water.

2)

No one can love me because I am big.

The first 8 words of the previous sentence are probably the most common 8 words in our mind. The 9th word, in this case, pertains to weight. But anything can be put in its place. We all, at one time or other, feel that we can’t find love because of some way we are.

We’re too short, our skin is wrong, our voice sounds squeaky, we have a mole on our face, we limp, we wear a prosthetic.
Mostly, we just feel don’t like the way we feel.
The only thing to do here is to understand that this is a universal feeling and that it’s our job to get ourselves to the next place.

ACTION STEP FOR SCHOOL BEFORE EATING

1)    Survey the students at school. (If you are home schooled, do this survey with the other home schoolers.) Tell everyone you are doing a research project for the school paper or community news. Make sure you team up with the school paper or community news, so that the editor will publish the results when you get them and help put the results into an article.
2)    Tell people you will not publish their names.
3)    Have people finish the statement,

“No one can love me because I am _____________________.”

Collect the answers, and you will see that everyone can complete the sentence in some way.

Variation 1)   Another way to collect the information is to put their answer in a fishbowl     anonymously. More people would be likely to answer if they knew there was no way their  secrets could become exposed, but that’s not always possible in every school or community.

Variation 2)   You can put this question on a website and have people comment anonymously. If you are interested in this variation, please contact us, and we will arrange to make you a  page on WarriorsOfWeight.com for this purpose.

FOOD TIP

Now, have a healthy snack such as fresh, organic romaine lettuce leaves, just washed. It’s amazing how filling they are if eaten slowly. Also, drink a glass of water.

3)

I don’t want to smile because I’m ugly, at my weight or at any weight.

Of course, we know that smiling is better than frowning. It actually makes us happier, studies have shown. And smiles bring people to us; frowns, unfortunately, push people away. So what do you say to a great exercise for smiling?

ACTION STEP BEFORE EATING

1)    Take time out in a quiet, private place, as in action step 1).
2)    Frown or keep the face devoid of a smile.
3)    Make sure you are in a safe place, sitting on a chair; and close your eyes. Work as if you will not have your sight for the first 9 steps of the exercise. Develop the sensitivity of a sightless person.
4)    Place the palms on the face, and examine the frown position, as if it is the first time you have ever felt your face. (It might be the first.)
5)    Take as much time as needed without opening the eyes.
6)    When ready, turn the frown to a smile with eyes closed.
7)    Notice the differences in the structure of the face.
8)    Notice how we take our sight for granted, and be happy about having yours. I’m grateful for mine.
9)    Doesn’t the smile make you laugh when you feel the face breaking into a smile? It does make me laugh. It is quite fascinating how the entire face changes under the skin from such a thing as a smile.

10)  Relax and smile with eyes open.
We are much more beautiful when we smile. I, personally, look a good 10 years older when I don’t smile. And, when I do, I’m all teeth. But the happiness is in the smile.

Smiling feels good if we hold our face, too, as we just experienced. Have fun working your smile. It can get you through some tough times.

FOOD TIP

Now, for fun, go get a snack food, preferably something solid, like an apple. Smile while eating it and feel your face at the same time. This will slow down the eating process, always a good thing. It’s also more challenging to keep the food in your mouth if you eat with a smile, tempering the eating process.

CONCLUSION

Imagine you love a very large person. You aren’t loving the person because s/he is large or small. You may love her bigness or smallness. You aren’t loving her because she has brown eyes, although you may appreciate the brown eyes. You are not loving her because she has brown hair. These physical traits have nothing to do with why you love her. These traits may make her easy to look at, but trait appeal is not love, not at all.

In the same way, when someone loves you, and someone definitely does, it is not because of your size, your eyes, your hair; it is because you are who you are.

It’s easy for us to see that when we lose someone, we all feel the same pain, the same feeling. Likewise, we figure that feeling sick or breaking an arm feels the same whether we are large or small. But when we feel bad about ourselves, it’s hard to realize that we all have similar feelings, more or less, at 1 time or other, in our lives.

It sometimes helps to find inventive ways of extending the universal understanding that we all have similar feelings and are not alone.

Small action steps to these feelings make HUGE differences. Especially if they are repeated. Give the action steps a go, and enjoy the journey.

We are with you, have been where you are and are here when you reach out.

WarriorsofWeight Consulting
Click the image below for a helping hand.

If you need a hand, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Help is right here.

FEEDBACK

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom.
She moves along observing behavior, continually seeing the similar ways we act, feel and are. She says,

“It is truly helpful when we know we are like each other. Of course, there is the other side of some of us that enjoys being unique. But when feeling bad, we want to know that people understand us, that we are not freaks, that others are going through the same thing and that we can get through it.

“When there is a hurricane, we stand together united. We make each other feel better, we share electricity, ice, food and bandages. We are thrown together in union when there is a weather disaster. We must take the time to unite in what matters to each to us throughout our lives: our peace of mind and peace of homeland.

“Ï believe that anyone reading this is living in the generation that will learn this compassion through the need to learn it.

“Let us learn to enjoy our sameness, learn to love our uniqueness and, through understanding, learn the principles of peace and helping each other along the way.”

For help, check out 1-Step Consulting.

BAD HABITS: HOW TO CHANGE A HABIT (Issue 41)

By Diane Gold

I have been studying bad habits for some time, but closely since I realized that what was not addicting to me in my first and second decades felt different in my fourth and fifth decades. And after having lived a period of time as the girlfriend of someone self-destructive to someone emulating the behaviors myself and getting through that.

Eating too much in college or drinking a lot when I was studying jazz in school and going to the clubs at night were no big deal to eliminate from my life at the snap of my fingers. Everything was fun, experimental and easily controllable. As luck would have it, there were no addictive triggers. (showing at that time).

True, I did gain 20 pounds during college and struggled to get it off, but it did not feel the same as later in life when I began to develop chemical triggers with deep cravings. So I learned that one’s capacity for habit (like an addictive trigger) can alter itself or turn itself on or off at various times in one’s life.

Teaching and consulting in music, tai chi and stress relief have allowed me to study the habits of others. In general, what I found was that people change a habit by replacing it with a new one. I, for one, broke my cycle of excess by going to sleep early. When I woke up, my urge was gone.
The result? Eventually, a new habit is formed, that of immediately taking an action that takes us away from the behavior we want to eliminate.

We have to keep in mind that when we do something over and over, our synaptic pathways get worn in a certain way to crave and satisfy, which is why we always have a tendency to that particular habit. That’s why we have to form “parallel patterns” (in the words of Julia Layton, contributing writer at How Stuff Works) so that we become satisfied, replacing the old with the new behavior, eventually.

Old triggers will still occur. It’s what action we take when they do that determines whether the new reward gives us enough pleasure to sustain the new behavior.
The expression

“build a life which is actually more enjoyable than substance use”

is quoted as the result we are looking for in a description of a substance abuse program at St. Jude’s. This is the similar to

“Build a series of habits that erase or greatly minimize the desire for bad habits. ”

To this day, though, I know that (I’m using alcohol, but this applies to any object of destruction) having one drink of alcohol will light up my synaptic pathways which are molded from habit, lying in wait to trigger cravings. I’ll have one drink on day one. Then, on day two, it will be easy to have one or two drinks. The third day, it will be three drinks. This pattern will occur exactly as outlined, as sure as the letter b follows a in the English alphabet, once the cycle of giving in to the craving has begun.

Then, I will have to go cold tofu and kick the cravings.

THE SECRET

How? I will eat a salad and drink water at the first sign of any craving. This will stop the urge and calm down the urge cycle. This works for food in the same way. It changes the need for that greasy, salty, sugary food because we have nourished the body with
a blander, more wholesome taste. It will also mean agreeing with myself not to have the object of the craving for a few years, at least.

Having gone through the process of giving in to the craving and kicking it before, I won’t bother going through it now since the work is hard and, most of the time, borders on massively hard. I can go do tai chi, stick my feet in the ocean, write an article, call an offspring or friend, drink the water or eat the salad very happily. I can even ramp up the writing of my book on, you guessed it, cravings.
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Getting back to studying others, I have watched people dance, play music, do tai chi, run, start a conversation upon feeling a craving they wanted to get rid of. As long as they stuck to the new behavior; they had a chance of forming a new habit and bucking the old.

The trick is to do the new behavior within 30 seconds of getting the urge so that it doesn’t build up in the mind. Not allowing time to lapse will help us not to get sucked into the behavior we want to dump. That’s the key.

ACTION STEP

So here’s an awesome action step. Carry a pocket watch or one of those timers the dentist gives us to time brushing our teeth. Immediately start it. This will make us aware that we have mere seconds to take action. This action should precede dancing, doing a kung fu form. It should not precede calling a friend or accountability partner for help. Always reach out first. But get busy and go for a run. Do it. New pleasure feelings will arrive. The previous craving should be gone.

Doing a movement activity works often because it produces a new set of chemical reactions which suppresses or lessens the “crave” hormones and increases the pleasure neurotransmitters.

For help with habits, check out WarriorsOfWeight Consulting, for 5-weeks or 10-weeks, for moms, daughters and you. Click the image below.

GO AHEAD. CLICK THE ENTER SIGN IN THE DOORWAY.
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In doing research for this article, I came across this below flow chart by Charles Duhigg, author of the book, The Power Of Habit. He says,

“If you can diagnose your habit, you can change it.”

He talks about how he used to leave his desk and go buy a cookie every day. He gained weight and wanted to do something about it.

He decided to log how he felt when he craved the cookie, what time of day it was and what the rewards were, following his flowchart

Click here to download.

So, he couldn’t kick the habit until he learned how his habit worked. He learned that every habit has a cue (a trigger), a routine (the habit you have) and a reward.

He spent time noticing when he urged for the cookie: 3:00-3:30 pm, it turned out (the cue). When he got this urge, he’d go get the cookie, and, upon further examination, he noticed he would also spend 10 minutes or so socializing with colleagues in the cafeteria while eating (the routine).

In order to figure out his reward, he did an experiment. One day, when the cravings arrived, he took a walk around the block. The next day, when he urged, he went to the cafeteria, bought candy and ate at his desk. The following day, he went to the cafeteria, didn’t buy anything and just talked to friends.

He realized his reward was the socializing. Now, at 3:00-3:30 pm, he gets up, goes over to a friend’s desk, hangs out for 10 minutes and goes back to his desk. The cookie urge is gone, and he is getting his reward, socializing.
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We all want different rewards and crave things for different reasons. One person’s habit may be harder to change than another’s. It may take me 3 months to figure out that I was buying the cookie to have a reason to talk to my colleagues, when it took Charles a day to do it. The habit that we want to change may show up 10 times a day, instead of Charles’ habit, 1 time a day.

But, it is possible for us to change the habit. We just have to act quickly every time we have an urge.

ACTION STEP

Imagine if every time we felt an urge to eat, we walked out the door or got up from our desk and ran around the block. If we were of school age, we could ask permission to go to the women’s bathroom where we could run in place for 60-120 seconds instead.
We’d be burning calories, we wouldn’t be allowing ourselves to sit with our same old frustrating urges and do our same behavior and we would be strengthening and toning our muscles while running. (Wheelchair folks can do this, too.)

CONCLUSION

We can take many actions to change a habit. We can talk to people or we can do some type of movement or exercise.

All the actions boil down to the one key of replacing a behavior with a behavior. When looking for literature on how long it takes to change a habit, there is as much variation as there are people who write about it. That’s because we are all so different.

To change the habit of leaving a light on when we leave a room is far simpler to change than the habit of eating salty, oily, sugary foods with every meal. Adding a salad to every meal could solve both conditions. It could be the consequence of not turning a light off and the healthy action that helps us to change our bad eating habit.

So, ACTION STEP

Add a salad to every meal. If we already eat salad at every meal, add 2 snack salads during the day, or increase the size of 2 of the salads.
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Back to how long it takes. I’ve heard 18 days, 3 weeks, 28 days, 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, 3 months, 6 months. These are all correct. It’s also correct to say that many habits are not broken but just suspended. This answer affirms the synaptic pathway scenario that cannot be changed theory.

The bottom line is that it is possible to change a habit. We have to act as if we are in a marathon. Because we are. As soon as we feel the urge to do whatever we don’t want to do; we have to run, jump, stretch, call a friend, lock the refrigerator and give the key to our neighbor. Whatever it takes, we have to do it now.

For help with habits, check out WarriorsOfWeight Consulting, for 5-weeks or 10-weeks, for moms, daughters and you. Click the image below.

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom.
She is convinced through research and through personal experience, that we have the power to change ourselves. We just have to do it. Diane says,

“We fuel ourselves with the power to change ourselves. Although the journey may be different for each of us, It is not dependent upon anything else. Even if our living quarters are no bigger than an automobile, we have the ability to become strong and change our body, mind and spirit through meditation, exercise and studying. It is up to us to take that opportunity. “