When in Doubt Create Healthy Routines
You may be struggling because… it’s winter and the cold and the dark leave you feeling isolated, creates some seasonal depression, or just plain blahs. Or you’re going through some major transition – a breakup, a divorce, a move, a loss of a job - and your old way of running your everyday life has fallen apart. Whatever the cause, it helps to create some structure in your everyday life.
There is something grounding in having a predictable structure to your day, your week. Think of children. They thrive on routines - time to get ready for lunch, the after-school, pre-dinner, post-dinner, bedtime routine - and they get rattled when the routine is broken (What, we can’t read books?!!). Why? Because the structure reduces their anxiety. They know what comes next.
For us adults, it provides the same benefits, but more importantly, because we are adults, it reduces our need to be constantly making decisions, sidesteps the challenge of having to create our days from scratch. It contains us; regularity breeds a settledness. And for those who are more emotionally driven -- those, for example, who are anxious or have AD/HD -- and base their days not what they want to accomplish but more on how they feel, structure is the antidote to running their lives better - reducing anxiety, increasing productivity.
Of course, there are healthy and unhealthy routines, and there lies the danger. If your routine is to come home and drink a half bottle of scotch or watch porn till you go to sleep, not so good. But if you want to break those unhealthy ones or simply get more structure into your life, here are some tips on how to get started:
Map out your ideal day
If you were to build your ideal day, what would you include? What time would you get up, what you would do before breakfast, what would you do first, second, third? How would you unwind? How would you end your day so that you felt satisfied, felt that this is a day I would do again, where you felt relaxed enough to sleep well?
Think of activities -- doing laundry, exercise, playing the guitar, work - the mix of have-to-dos with want-to-dos. Like the kids, think in terms of the time chunks - the wake-up pre-breakfast chunk, morning chunk, post-lunch, pre-dinner, post-dinner, bedtime. Have separate routines for weekdays and weekends. Build-in breaks and rewards at the end of each routine chunk, especially for those have-to-dos ones: Cleaned those gutters, paid those bills – time for making yourself a good lunch, or 15 minutes of playing a video game).
Map out your week
If you have specific goals for a week, build them into your everyday routines. This is where ten-year-old Johnny needs to build into his week a way of finishing his science project by next Monday besides doing it all on Sunday night. For you, it may be cleaning out the garage, getting your car inspected, setting up a doctor's appointment, Sit down with yourself on Sunday before you get into the thick of the week to map out your week. If you begin to feel overwhelmed, set a limit on three or four items to help you set priorities, or break big tasks - doing your taxes, the garage - up into small chunks. By being proactive rather than reactive, you have control.
Re-evaluate
So you set up routines that structure your day, but they aren’t working - you're too rushed in the morning and don't have time to exercise - step back and fine-tune. Exercise before dinner, pay your bills on Saturday morning rather than Friday night when you are tired.
Catch bad habits as soon as possible
The goal is to develop a healthy and functional lifestyle that works for you. But old bad habits can easily creep in - the scotch, the porn, the being emotionally-driven. The key is to be alert to them, to question why now, and look for the underlying driver - stress, anxiety, depression. Focus on those underlying problems - take a mental health day off from work or talk to your supervisor about your workload, your doc about possible medication - and/or get the support you need to get back on track - the running buddy, getting the junk food out of the house. And if you are continuing to struggle consider getting some professional support and help.
We are indeed creatures of habit, but you can create the habits and routines that work for you. Ready to get started?
By Bob Taibbi