[Radiant Living] 10/02/2009 03:34:00 PM
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Emerge Healing
Oct 2, 2009, 6:39:57 PM10/2/09
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Recently, I started working for Inner Rewards a brilliant new wellness website that offers articles, reviews and discounts for the personal wellness. Part of my role is to respond to people's wellness related questions. One such question really got me thinking and felt juicy enough to share my response with you all here. Enjoy!
Question: How do you make a good habit stick?
There are so many things I think I should do more or less of. Take fish oil. Drink wine. Drink water. Put cream in my coffee. Sleep. Fiddle around on Facebook. Eat a healthy breakfast every day. How do you make and stick with good habits, or break "bad" ones?
Response: Here's the deal, all good habits (or bad one's for that matter) start in our brains. Our brain literally creates a neural cluster around things we do over and over again, including thoughts we think over and over again...which is basically the root of any action. What this means is we become preconditioned to whatever we do, feel or think over and over and over again.
Its recently been shown that the brain creates "neural clusters" when we do, think, or feel something for more than 15 minutes. When we spend 15 minutes or more focused on something we are creating cellular memory around it.
Doctors used to think that was it, you built all your neural clusters by the time you were 25 and that was what you were stuck with. But the science of neural plasticity is showing that we can actually remap the brain based on new actions, thoughts, and choices.
So look at it this way, if you spend say 15 minutes every morning eating a healthy breakfast, focusing yourself on the way eating healthy makes you feel, you are creating a new neural cluster that conditions you to eat that way. If you do this for, say, 21 days then you are siphoning off all the energy that normally went to the bad eating habits cluster and rerouting it to the new healthy eating cluster. But if you go back and forth you are disbursing your energy and are at a wash.
Think of it like having a bank account. If you invest in the account of healthy eating (or any habit that strengthens you) that account gets bigger/stronger from being invested in. Likewise, if you invest in all the things that you know weaken you, that account is strengthened instead. The thing is that the brain, at this level, does not discriminate between what weakens you or what strengthens you, it just sends more juice to whatever you are focusing on by your thoughts, feelings or actions.
Knowing this about yourself can go a long way to creating healthy habits that stick! One of my favorite stories that illustrates this is:
A Grandfather from the Cherokee Nation was talking with his grandson.
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves."
"One wolf is evil and ugly: He is anger, envy, war, greed, self-pity, sorrow, regret, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, selfishness and arrogance."
"The other wolf is beautiful and good: He is friendly, joyful, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, justice, fairness, empathy, generosity, true, compassion, gratitude, and deep VISION."
"This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other human as well."
The grandson paused in deep reflection because of what his grandfather had just said. Then he finally cried out; "Oh! Grandfather, which wolf will win?"
The elder Cherokee replied, "The wolf that you feed."
--
Posted By Emerge Healing to Radiant Living at 10/02/2009 03:34:00 PM
Question: How do you make a good habit stick?
There are so many things I think I should do more or less of. Take fish oil. Drink wine. Drink water. Put cream in my coffee. Sleep. Fiddle around on Facebook. Eat a healthy breakfast every day. How do you make and stick with good habits, or break "bad" ones?
Response: Here's the deal, all good habits (or bad one's for that matter) start in our brains. Our brain literally creates a neural cluster around things we do over and over again, including thoughts we think over and over again...which is basically the root of any action. What this means is we become preconditioned to whatever we do, feel or think over and over and over again.
Its recently been shown that the brain creates "neural clusters" when we do, think, or feel something for more than 15 minutes. When we spend 15 minutes or more focused on something we are creating cellular memory around it.
Doctors used to think that was it, you built all your neural clusters by the time you were 25 and that was what you were stuck with. But the science of neural plasticity is showing that we can actually remap the brain based on new actions, thoughts, and choices.
So look at it this way, if you spend say 15 minutes every morning eating a healthy breakfast, focusing yourself on the way eating healthy makes you feel, you are creating a new neural cluster that conditions you to eat that way. If you do this for, say, 21 days then you are siphoning off all the energy that normally went to the bad eating habits cluster and rerouting it to the new healthy eating cluster. But if you go back and forth you are disbursing your energy and are at a wash.
Think of it like having a bank account. If you invest in the account of healthy eating (or any habit that strengthens you) that account gets bigger/stronger from being invested in. Likewise, if you invest in all the things that you know weaken you, that account is strengthened instead. The thing is that the brain, at this level, does not discriminate between what weakens you or what strengthens you, it just sends more juice to whatever you are focusing on by your thoughts, feelings or actions.
Knowing this about yourself can go a long way to creating healthy habits that stick! One of my favorite stories that illustrates this is:
A Grandfather from the Cherokee Nation was talking with his grandson.
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves."
"One wolf is evil and ugly: He is anger, envy, war, greed, self-pity, sorrow, regret, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, selfishness and arrogance."
"The other wolf is beautiful and good: He is friendly, joyful, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, justice, fairness, empathy, generosity, true, compassion, gratitude, and deep VISION."
"This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other human as well."
The grandson paused in deep reflection because of what his grandfather had just said. Then he finally cried out; "Oh! Grandfather, which wolf will win?"
The elder Cherokee replied, "The wolf that you feed."
--
Posted By Emerge Healing to Radiant Living at 10/02/2009 03:34:00 PM
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