We’ve all experienced it. Cleared the piles of paper off the kitchen counter and vowed to not let them accumulate, but here they are again. Told the dentist that, yes, we would start flossing more, but we haven’t. Told our therapist we’d cut back on the nighttime emotional snacking, but we’re really having trouble with that one. And of course, exercise—you probably know how that one goes. Why is creating a new habit so hard when we feel so sure and committed to our intention?

Several things can be obstacles for us: goals that are unrealistic or too vague, habits that are not rewarding enough to perform or the gratification is too delayed, we’re uncomfortable with the structure the habit imposes, or we’re derailed by interruptions. Additionally, we may feel too overwhelmed with our responsibilities to try to change, our mood isn’t oriented to the process (e.g. angry, sad, fearful, hopeless), or we have no support or accountability.

Researchers and psychologists in the field, George Koob, PhD, B.J. Fogg, PhD., and Kim Kensington, PsyD., agree that we need to do the following:

·         identify small, achievable goals

·         reduce our reliance on willpower

·         reward success until the habit is done consistently

So how do we do this?

First, prioritize the use of your time and pick a habit you want to add or break. Think about how much time this habit will take so you can decide where in your day or week it best fits. Break it down to its smallest first step—that’s where you’ll start. Determine if you’ll need any supplies, materials or other preparation. Cleaning the house one room each day, Monday through Friday, is a good example.

Also, choose what’s called an ‘anchor.’ This is what will come just before the habit behavior. An ‘anchor’ could be the kids leaving for school. There can also be more than one small first step, like dusting or tidying up a room, but the “smallest” step is just sitting in a room for 5 minutes. This is the “tiny habit” advocated by B.J. Fogg, PhD., who runs an online project of the same name. You can sign up and identify three tiny habits you’d like to change and, for five days, you can practice and do an online check-in with him.

This starts to build the habit by carving out the time to dedicate to this activity right after the kids leave, but it certainly doesn’t feel very rewarding, so we probably won’t continue without building in a reward. It’s rewarding to imagine how our lives would be different if we were fully implementing our habit (why we chose it in the first place as a priority), turning on some favorite music while we sit (and later, clean), or place the reward after the behavior. We could sit and have a cup of coffee or talk to a friend. If remembering to take the five minutes to sit in the designated room is a problem, put a reminder at the “point of performance,” or right where it matters. That could be an alert on your phone at the right time or a post-it on the inside of the front door the kids exit through.

Remember to set realistic goals. That means trying to start this habit one day a week, not five. When we’re getting one day pretty consistently, then add two, three, and so on. And what happens when a day is missed? We just do the next one and keep on going. It isn’t meant to be a source of self-hatred or shame. Life happens. The best we can do is just pick it back up, start over smaller if needed and recreate our habit using the same process we had in place.

There really is no magic number of days it takes to build a habit; it depends on the complexity and demands of the habit, how different the habit is from our usual behavior, and whether any other people or variables out of our control have any influence over our performance of the habit behavior. If you start small, building consistency with clear and realistic goals in mind while, ideally, staying accountable to someone else, you can do it! If you find you want help, Stenzel Clinical is here for you.

Cara H Jones

LCPC, BCPCC, AMP

Wheaton, Illinois, US

As I reread Rudolf Arnheim’s brilliant book, Visual Thinking, I wondered again how much our vision shapes our thinking. Anyone who has undergone a dramatic improvement in vision is in a special position to address this question. When I began to see with stereopsis, I felt myself immersed in my surroundings rather than looking in on them, and this change also altered the way I imagined and connected the spaces around me.

Prior to gaining stereopsis, if I found myself inside a room with four windowless walls, the world stopped at those four walls. While I could think about what was outside the room, I never did. What was outside and what was inside were barely connected. If, at that time, we had approached the science buildings on Mount Holyoke’s campus, and you had asked me to point from the outside to the location of my office on the inside, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. When I went inside, I left the outdoors behind and entered a completely separate world, a separate frame of reference, whose only connection to the outside world was the door that I had just walked through. In Harry Potter’s world, the wizards could “apparate” – in one moment, they were in one location and then, in the next instance, appear in a completely different place. For me going from outdoors to indoors or going from one room to another was like apparition.

But this changed when I gained stereopsis. For example, one day, while sitting in my bedroom, I thought about my daughter in the adjacent room. In the past, I would have connected the two of us by imagining myself walking out my bedroom door, turning 90 degrees to the right, taking a step, making another 90 degree turn to the right, and entering the door to her bedroom. I would have recreated in my mind the linear, two dimensional path I would take to reach her. But there was another three-dimensional way to think about her location. Only a thin wall separated the space that made up her room from the space that made up mine.

This way of connecting spaces comes easily to me now because of my stereo viewing experiences – in particular views created by window reflections. For example, the workout room in my college gym is separated from an inside corridor by a plate glass window. While working out, I can look through the plate glass window into the corridor and the wall beyond it. Before gaining stereopsis, I would have seen my reflection on the pane of the plate glass window. But, now, I see my reflection as floating in the corridor space on the other side of the window. As I move further from the window toward the inside of the workout room, my reflection moves further from the window into the corridor outside the room, and then right through the wall! The wall is no barrier to my reflection which, after all, is not tangible. Experiences like this give me a sense of the world beyond walls, a sense that I never appreciated before gaining stereopsis.

Alicia Elliott, LPC

Carrollton, Texas, US

When we hear someone say “take care,” it could be a friend saying goodbye, for now, as we part. Sometimes it’s meant seriously by someone who we are very close to. It could be that they want us to drive safely or get a little more rest.

In this hectic age we live in, Psychologists are inundated with people who suffer from anxiety, not infrequently to the point of suffering from panic attacks (shortness of breath or heart palpitations or fear of going crazy or dying, or nausea, or feelings of unreality or dissociation, as some of the symptoms).

As a result, many Psychologists are helping clients with Mindfulness training.

Dan Siegal has written a number of books on this subject (such as The Mindful Brain, Norton, 2007).

In my experience both personally and as a therapist, we experience stressful situations that we don’t have time to process or are afraid to process and or don’t know how to process. Our minds can add additional stress by focussing on things we can’t control, such as illness or our children’s issues. All of this unprocessed stress is like water behind a dam: eventually it goes over the top of the dam, resulting in conditions like depression, anxiety, illness, need to medicate and or anger issues.

Mindfulness by it’s nature trains us to stop adding to the stress and take time to detach and take care of ourselves. We move away mentally, for a few moments, from problem solving, to do lists and planning. We decide to take some time to take our emotional/physical “pulse” if you will. We become aware of our “state:” our breathing, heart rate, and tension in our muscles. This awareness puts us in the position to relax. Additionally, we can utilize techniques to open up channels for these stored energies to be released.

The technique I prefer for active releasing of stress (an additional technique) is called Brainspotting, but that discussion can be for another post. See my website: www.scottsdalecounseling.net; Arizona Brainspotting Center, for more on Brainspotting.

It can be remarkably helpful to know how to relax. We do this by learning to be mindful of our bodies. Once mindful, we can allow (not force) the body to return to it’s fundamental quiescent base, which is quite restorative!  What you’ll see below is called Autogenic Training. This is a technique we can do ourselves (hence “auto”). Since being trained in it decades ago, I have found it to be perpetually of great value (yes, for me also).

So…take a few minutes right now if you’re able, and take a moment to indulge in Self-care!

1. Clear your mind…leave the rim of the wheel where all your concerns are and go down inside to the hub…find God’s presence there…Be Still and Know That I Am God…detach from all worries…just be here and now. To the degree that we can accomplish this (sometimes no mean task), we do not add any new stress to the body while relaxing.

2. Once you are working on detachment (notice it’s something you keepdoing) start the autogenic training:

Sink into your chair and intentionally relax all your muscles…go
through your body (body scan) to see where you might be holding tension
and release where you can
Then give yourself the following commands…Remember, you can’t
force compliance, but you can allow healthy responses. Stay Curious,
Open, Accepting and Loving:
My arms and legs are heavy and warm…let that be so…notice what
your body does with this and let it deepen. Blood flowing to the extremities brings weight and warmth.
My breathing is calm and regular…let your breathing be deeper,
slower and very regular if possible
My heart beat is calm and regular…notice your heart beat…let it slow
down…the goal is that there is no pounding or racing…if there is, that will be
part of our work later
My forehead is pleasantly cool (sometimes blood flow gets a little too
busy in the head)…use this if necessary

Take 10-15 minutes to feel where YOUR BODY relaxes and enjoy and deepen it by
continually repeating the commands above while allowing your body to respond.

Warning: you may not want to stop after 15 minutes!

Gregory M Crow

Ph.D

Scottsdale, Arizona

Office: (480) 947-1989
Other: Worcgg@gmail.com