Overview:
What are the good habits that are currently having the most positive impact on your well being? This is a good question to regularly consider, write down, and discuss with friends. Below I make 3 suggestions of what I consider to be really key habits that are designed to be short and simple yet to have a great deal of positive impact for balancing mood, reducing stress, improving sleep, and directing attention in helpful ways. These are not intended to replace the good habits you are already doing, but to give you additional good habits to experiment with to further improve your life.
How to begin: I would encourage you to try these daily habits out if you haven’t already. One strategy would be to start with one practice daily for two weeks and then add the second one for two more weeks and finally add the third one for two weeks. This will give you time to pinpoint what improvements each habit is bringing into your life before adding the next one. It is also less overwhelming to just start with one simple habit at a time. I recommend incorporating these habits in the order I’ve laid them out beginning with light viewing in the first hour of waking because it can help so much with balancing neuro-chemicals, reducing stress, improving sleep, and and setting internal clocks that have a cascade of positive effects on health and well-being. However, the other habits could be good starting points as well if they feel more attainable to begin with and each habit has an array of potential positive effects.
Priming: After reading through the following habits, visualize when in your day you will incorporate this habit. Picture what you will do just before the habit. Then visualize actually doing the new habit, followed by picturing what you will do just afterward. Now run this little movie again a couple of times and add a little feeling of pleasure to it, perhaps saying to yourself, “I like this,” or “I’m growing to like this.” Enjoy. It’s ok if you miss a day or two here or there, but try to be consistent in doing the habit at least once on most days.
Keystone Habits to Build Capacity
#1 Viewing Bright Light Within an Hour of Waking.
When: Within 60 minutes of waking. Ideally as early in the day as you can.
How: Looking in the direction for about 5 minutes of the sun or having bright overhead lights on within 60 minutes of waking.
What: Getting 5 minutes of direct sunlight within 60 minutes after waking and ideally early in the day has been shown by research to have a lot of positive effects on your brain and body. That means looking in the direction of the sun although not directly at it (without sunglasses). If this is simply impossible, bright overhead lights that you turn on shortly after waking can also have some of the same positive effects. For highly depressed people even placing a sun lamp next to their bed so they can turn it on for 15 minutes upon waking can significantly help them get their momentum going in the morning and improve sleep at night. If it is a cloudy day, 10-20 minutes outside can have the same positive effect as 2-5 minutes on a sunny day. Note that viewing sunlight through a window or with sunglasses on will significantly lower the amount of light getting to your eyes versus actually being outside without sunglasses. Below are some of the positive effects of morning light exposure.
Why:
- Morning light exposure gets energy levels going up at the right time in the right way by elevating cortisol in the right amount early in the day to wake you up.
- Light to the eyes also sets your brain’s internal timer to release sleep chemicals (melatonin) when it’s time to go to sleep (16 hours later.)
- Morning light to the eyes helps to orient internal organs and brain systems which do not otherwise have a clear way to orient to what time it is. This allows many different internal clocks to get in sync and to get set to the right time which helps everything from energy levels to sleep to digestion.
- Sunlight exposure also gets dopamine flowing in your body which is the chemical of motivation.
#2 A Five Minute Walk (Outside if Possible)
When: Any time of day but at least once. Ideally morning, noon, and early evening or any time you need a reset to destress and improve concentration.
Why: Here are some of the many that you are accomplishing in a five minute walk.
- Deep breathing which is proven to have all kinds of stress reduction and health benefits.
- Sunlight exposure which increases dopamine and has many other positive benefits.
- Viewing nature even some simple vegetation or trees in a city is proven to reduce stress levels.
- The physical act of moving forward helps our brain relax and feel like it is making progress toward a goal.
- Side to side eye movements which we naturally do as we walk are calming to the nervous system.
- Bilateral stimulation of our footsteps (and eyes) also has a calming affect on the brain and can aid in processing whatever our brain is thinking about. Bilateral stimulation is the basic mechanism of EMDR therapy.
- Stepping away from long tasks for short intermittent breaks (such as a 5 minute walk) has been shown to reduce fatigue, increase focus, and even increase productivity.
#3 Five Minutes of Appreciation
When: This exercise might be ideal to do as you go to sleep at night and/or first thing when you wake up in the morning. It can also serve as a good transition from work to home, or really any time. Do it as many times a day as you want, but please do it at least once.
How? There are endless ways to do appreciation, but the key is to keep refocusing your mind on appreciation and gratitude for a period of at least 5 minutes.
Here are some ideas:
- Write a brief note or letter telling someone what you appreciate about them. You may or may not decide to send it.
- Visualize the faces of people you love and appreciate and send thoughts of appreciation their way.
- Write down a list of things you are grateful for.
- Think of a positive memory and focus on the various details you appreciate about that experience for several minutes, If needed you can repeat with a second positive memory until you make it to at least 5 minutes.
- Appreciation is especially powerful with a group of 2 or 3 friends where you take turns sharing positive memories of something you appreciated.
Working With Blocks to Appreciation: Some people may have difficulty feeling appreciation for various reasons. For example, deep grief, strong feelings of anger, intense feelings of anxiety, hopelessness, and other concerns can at times make it feel or maintain feelings of appreciation. In these cases you may try to start with 5 minutes of acknowledging to yourself or to another person what you feel upset, worried, sad, or angry about. Sometimes these feelings simply need to be seen, heard, and acknowledged before we are able to move into a state of appreciation. Once you have given time to truly hear and acknowledge what you are upset about, see if you are then more free to move into a 5 minute appreciation exercise. Note that it may take a few minutes to switch gears but after a few minutes of deliberate appreciation you will likely notice the feelings of appreciation building. If you are still blocked after this I would strongly recommend bringing this up with a professional counselor.
Research: There is a lot of research on the positive benefits of appreciation. Below is just one interesting article about the effect of appreciating other people simply by writing them a gratitude letter, even if the letter was never sent.