{"id":2717,"date":"2023-07-09T14:00:31","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T19:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2023-07-09T05:08:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T10:08:21","slug":"how-to-build-healthy-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/?p=2717","title":{"rendered":"How to Build Healthy Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

How to Build Healthy Habits<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Claremont\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

It\u2019s not about willpower. Good habits happen when we set ourselves up for success. Our new challenge will show you how.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re all creatures of habit. We tend to wake up at the same time each day, brush our teeth, have morning coffee and commute to work, following the same patterns every day.

\n\nSo why is it so hard to form new healthy <\/i>habits?

\n\nBehavioral scientists who study habit formation say that many of us try to create healthy habits the wrong way. We make bold resolutions to start exercising or lose weight, for example, without taking the steps needed to set ourselves up for success.

\n\nHere are some tips, backed by research, for forming new healthy habits.

\n\nStack your habits. <\/b> The best way to form a new habit is to tie it to an existing habit, experts say. Look for patterns in your day and think about how you can use existing habits to create new, positive ones.

\n\nFor many of us, our morning routine is our strongest routine, so that\u2019s a great place to stack on a new habit. A morning cup of coffee, for example, can create a great opportunity to start a new one-minute meditation practice. Or, while you are brushing your teeth, you might choose to do squats or stand on one foot to practice balance.

\n\nMany of us fall into end-of-the-day patterns as well. Do you tend to flop on the couch after work and turn on the TV? That might be a good time to do a single daily yoga pose.

\n\nStart small. <\/b>B.J. Fogg, a Stanford University researcher and author of the book \u201cTiny Habits,\u201d notes that big behavior changes require a high level of motivation that often can\u2019t be sustained. He suggests starting with tiny habits to make the new habit as easy as possible in the beginning. Taking a daily short walk, for example, could be the beginning of an exercise habit. Or, putting an apple in your bag every day could lead to better eating habits.

\n\nIn his own life, Dr. Fogg wanted to start a daily push-up habit. He started with just two push-ups a day and, to make the habit stick, tied his push-ups to a daily habit: going to the bathroom. He began by, after a bathroom trip, dropping and doing two push-ups. Now he has a habit of 40 to 80 push-ups a day.

\n\nDo it every day. <\/b>British researchers studied how people form habits in the real world, asking participants to choose a simple habit they wanted to form, like drinking water at lunch or taking a walk before dinner. The study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, showed that the amount of time it took for the task to become automatic \u2014 a habit \u2014 ranged from 18 to 254 days. The median time was 66 days!

\n\nThe lesson is that habits take a long time to create, but they form faster when we do them more often, so start with something reasonable that is really easy to do. You are more likely to stick with an exercise habit if you do some small exercise \u2014 jumping jacks, a yoga pose, a brisk walk \u2014 every day, rather than trying to get to the gym three days a week. Once the daily exercise becomes a habit, you can explore new, more intense forms of exercise.

\n\nMake it easy. <\/b>Habit researchers know we are more likely to form new habits when we clear away the obstacles that stand in our way. Packing your gym bag and leaving it by the door is one example of this. Wendy Wood, a research psychologist at the University of Southern California, says she began sleeping in her running clothes to make it easier to roll out of bed in the morning, slip on her running shoes and run. Choosing an exercise that doesn\u2019t require you to leave the house \u2014 like situps or jumping jacks \u2014 is another way to form an easy exercise habit.

\n\nDr. Wood, author of the book, \u201cGood Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick,\u201d calls the forces that get in the way of good habits \u201cfriction.\u201d In one study, researchers changed the timing of elevator doors so that workers had to wait nearly half a minute for the doors to close. (Normally the doors closed after 10 seconds.) It was just enough of a delay that it convinced many people that taking the stairs was easier than waiting for the elevator. \u201cIt shows how sensitive we are to small friction in our environment,\u201d said Dr. Wood. \u201cJust slowing down the elevator got people to take the stairs, and they stuck with it even after the elevator went back to normal timing.\u201d

\n\nDr. Wood notes that marketers are already experts in reducing friction, inducing us to spend more, for example, or order more food. That\u2019s why Amazon has a \u201cone-click\u201d button and fast-food companies make it easy to supersize. \u201cWe\u2019re just very influenced by how things are organized around us in ways that marketers understand and are exploiting, but people don\u2019t exploit and understand in their own lives,\u201d she said.

\n\nReward yourself. <\/b>Rewards are an important part of habit formation. When we brush our teeth, the reward is immediate \u2014 a minty fresh mouth. But some rewards \u2014 like weight loss or the physical changes from exercise \u2014 take longer to show up. That\u2019s why it helps to build in some immediate rewards to help you form the habit. Listening to audiobooks while running, for example, or watching a favorite cooking show on the treadmill can help reinforce an exercise habit. Or plan an exercise date so the reward is time with a friend.


\nContributor: Tara Parker-Pope, NYTimes.com<\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Build Healthy Habits It\u2019s not about willpower. Good habits happen when we set ourselves up for success. Our new challenge will show you how. We\u2019re all creatures of habit. We tend to wake up at the same time each day, brush our teeth, have morning coffee and commute to work, following the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2721,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions\/2721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}