Who Are You? The type of person who exercises?

You hear it all the time:

I'm no good at maths
I can't run
I'm no good with computers
I can't do this or that
I'm no good at learning languages
I'm not that type of person
I'm not a gym person
I'm more of a .....insert here what you believe you are... type of person.

Only yesterday I heard a guy in a coffee shop tell his friend he didn't have an ear for languages. And yet, he had learned one language fluently, the one he was speaking. He then told his friend he had an A-level in French. Despite this he had decided he was the type of person who was not good at learning languages.

At what point did you decide that was the type of person you were?
At what point did you decide there was a certain skill set you did not posses or there was a certain skill set that was your strong point?
Were you a child or a teenager? At what point did you think this is me?
And how many times have you changed your mind as an adult?

People adopt a series of habits and patterns and rituals and they become them.

Professor Michael Puett in his book The Path, about how we can apply some of the lessons of ancient Chinese philosophy to our modern lives, states

"What we in the West define as the true self is actually patterns of continuous responses to people and the world; patterns that have built up over time. For example, you might think, I'm just the type of person who gets annoyed easily. On the contrary, it's more likely that you have become the kind of person who does get irritated over minor things because of how you've interacted with people for years. But that's not because you are, in fact, such a person." (p.43)

A bad experience with maths or PE at school and that's you for life. Suddenly you are the type of person who doesn't like exercise or running.

Also, its easy, if that's who you are, then you never have to change, its just the type of person you are, its not your fault, you don't have to try new things.

Now this doesn't mean you have to try everything new thing in the world, every new activity. You don't have to be 'good' at everything and 'like' everything. For example, I'm never playing golf or watching Britains Got Talent.

Also, I'm not saying you have to be excellent at everything. There is a lot of ground in between saying 'I can't run' and being Mo Farah. And if you're not 7 foot tall you're probably not going to play in the NBA but you can still enjoy basketball.

However, don't dismiss activities because they may be hard or push you out of your comfort zone.

How many people leave school and never learn anything new? The pattern is set. It congeals and rusts.

You learned a series of habits and rituals and you accept them, you greet people in a certain way, in the West you use a knife and fork to eat, you drive on a certain side of the road - these were all learned - they are not you.

"We cling to a fixed idea of who we are and it cripples us. Nothing and no one is fixed." - Pema Chodron (2001)

There is no core self. It changes all the time. In the words of Chuck Palahniuk

But this means at any time you could start to choose something else, pick different 'china patterns', sit in a different place, brush your teeth with the wrong hand, be the type of person who buys a bicycle and cycles to work!

Was your view on the world and personality set by 16 years old by a few teachers, parents and friends. It doesn't mean you have to reject all this, and form a whole new personality, but don't be limited, build on this.

As a kid you learned the most complex things possible - how to walk, talk and read. And then at certain point many adults think, well I'm an adult now, I don't have try things that I may fail at or make me look 'bad', I will not push the envelope, I will seal it up and stay inside of it.

And if you only perceive the world in a certain way, and have already decided that you are not the type of person who takes up cycling or goes to a yoga, where does that leave you?

"But remember that who you think you are - and especially what you think is 'you' when you are making decisions - is usually just a set of patterns you've fallen into." (Puett & Gross- Loh, 2016).

And before you know it you never push out of your comfort zone or try something new.

Learning new things is fantastic for your brain health, learning new languages and new skills makes your brain form new connections. And the other thing that is good for brain health is exercise.

And this is where exercise rears its head. So many people like the idea of say running or being 'fit', but no, I can't do that, I'm not fit enough to go to a gym (cue flashback to running around a field in the snow at school while half the class hide behind the cricket pavilion for a smoke).

Its not easy.

Even confident successful people can crumble when faced with a new skill. Only the other day I was showing a lady around the gym, she was confident in herself, knew she wanted to get fit, she went on the cardio machines no problem, a few resistance machines no problem. Then we tried a goblet squat with a kettlebell, we were standing in the dreaded freeweights area. Her technique needed a bit of work, she couldn't get it straight away like she had on the machines. She was pitching forward a bit, had a bit of knee collapse. I gave her a bit of coaching, said not to worry, it was a new movement, just practice a bit and she would get it after a few sessions. But no, for her this was disastrous.

The next session in the gym she was adamant she did not like the goblet squat, did not want to do it again, despite the fact at this point she had probably only done 20 reps total in her life, and spent 2 minutes on the exercises. But because she had not grasped the technique and skill instantaneously she did not want to continue.

I have had a similar thing even on cardio equipment, a cross trainer that's a bit different to what people are used to, you say you just need to do this and this, and the technique needs a bit of work and next thing they are saying 'I don't like this machine I want to get off', after 90 seconds. This is code for 'I didn't come here to learn a new skill, or feel like you are judging me, or to look like I can't do something, I am adult now, I don't need anyone to teach me anything'.

What they expected and reality don't match and their brain doesn't like it, the ego kicks in, fear kicks in.

It is hard to break habits, set new patterns and learn new things, as Anders Ericsson says in his book Peak

"Getting started is easy, as anyone who has visited a gym after New Year's knows. You decide that you want to get in shape or learn to play the guitar or pick up a new language, and so you jump right in...Then after a while, reality hits. It'd hard to find the time to work out or practice as much as you should... you start missing sessions. You're not improving... It's why gyms that are were crowded in January are only half full in July. So that's the problem in a nutshell: purposeful practice is hard." (kindle edition of the book)

But as adults, its easy to duck out, no one is making us go back to school or go to the gym. The television and social media feeds are waiting to anaesthetize us as the end of another hard day.

My friend is learning to play guitar, its hard, he's an adult with a job. I can explain and show him things on the guitar which are easy to me, because I learned them when I was a teenager. Conversely, this same friend is a very good rock climber, he has been climbing for years. I'm trying to be better at climbing, but compared to him I'm terrible. He can free climb something in his flip flops which looks like El Capitan to me. But we are both trying to push out of our comfort zone, willing to fail and let go of that ego a little bit.

Ericsson talks about practice

"The hallmark of purposeful or deliberate practice is that you try to do something you cannot do - that takes you out of your comfort zone - and that you practice it over and over again, focusing on exactly how you are doing it, where you are falling short, and how you can get better. Real life - our jobs, our schooling, our hobbies - seldom gives us the opportunity for this sort of focused repetition..."

Fitness is a skill, many people perceive themselves as time poor, I don't have time to learn these exercises, I just need to get fit and lose weight. This is missing the point. They don't want it to be a skill or a process, they don't really want to change anything.

The future is wide open.

Something inside us likes the world to be stable and fixed, but if you never explore new things you may never find parts of you that you never knew existed. You go to a zumba class and suddenly find out you love dancing, you avoided swimming your whole life because you lacked confidence, you get a few lessons and suddenly you enjoy going for a swim to clear your head and like using the pool on holiday. You get the idea.

As coaches, it is up to us to show this to clients.

In 2009 I walked into a book shop in London and bought a book by Christopher McDougall. It was about a sport I hardly knew anything about; ultra running. Then a few years later I saw one of the lead protagonists talk in London. A couple of years after that I went to Leadville and run a 100 miles in a race that seemed mythical and for super humans to me 5 years before. If I had a fixed idea of who I was none of this would have happened.

Its funny how things end up.

So the final word to that person I saw talk in London, Caballo Blanco. During the talk someone asked him 'Can anyone run 100 miles?'. He answered 'If they want to'.

Can you be the type of person who exercises?
If you want to.

Can you change?
If you want to.
This applies to all things.

References.

For my tribute to Caballo and my thoughts when I went to see him talk
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/micah-true-is-gone-caballo-blanco-runs.html
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/evening-with-caballo-blanco-you-know.html

On why it is hard to form a new habit and how to do it
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/forming-new-habits-how-long-will-you.html

On how habits are embedded in your memory and how you become them
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/forming-new-habits-part-4-memory.html

On habits and choices
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/forming-new-habits-part-5-choice.html

Michael Puett & Christine Gross-Loh (2016) The Path.

Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool. Peak, Secrets from the new science of expertise. Kindle edition quoted.

Pema Chodron (2001) The places that scare you.

Forming new habits. Part 5: Choice.

For part 2, 3 and 4 go here, here and here

Why do you make the choices you make?

Why do some people choose to exercise and eat healthily and others don't.

Every day you are exposed to an enormous amount of information. According to Plassman et al (2012)

"Each second we are exposed to an estimated 11 millions bits of information that reach us through our senses, yet humans are capable of processing only around 50 bits of that information."

Think about that for a second (and if you did, 11 millions bits of information were just missed by you). Your brain filters information so it doesn't get overwhelmed.

Your brain and body use autopilot, short cuts and what Daniel Kahneman calls fast thinking all the time (see part 2 for a description of this system 1). Without it you would probably be paralyzed by indecision everyday. You get up, shower, clean your teeth, get to work without much thought. These become habitual activities. When you travel somewhere new, have you noticed how much you have to concentrate, in the car you have to turn the radio off and really focus on the sat nav and the road, not the same as when you do your daily commute.

Certain decisions have been taken out of your hands from an early age. Where you were born and your parents preferences have already determined the language you speak, the foods you culturally like, the school you went to, many of the hobbies and past times you chose. You may not even be aware of other choices, you can't miss a food you've never had or are not even aware of. And that job you drifted into after school or university, it may have not been your top choice, but possibly, only years later you realize you want to do something else.

This fast system of shortcuts is useful. Going out for a coffee on your lunch break if you live in a big city could be overwhelming. If you were really to evaluate all the options you would have to go to every coffee shop, try every different type of coffee, weigh up the price and distance from your work places and then make a decision (okay, I may have actually done this). Whereas, most people will intuitively go to the same coffee shop and order the same drink.

If the choice is limited it is easier, only one coffee shop, you go there. Only one gym, you join that one. In fact, it has been shown the more choice people are given the harder they find it to make a choice. In one study, given  a choice between two different types of jam, you pick one quite easily. Given the choice of 10 or 20, then what? You are frozen with indecision over a pot of jam.

Extrapolate that to big life decisions like choosing a career or partner, the number of variables is overwhelming. This is where the shortcut, intuitive system, works best.

Dijksterhuis et al (2006, good luck pronouncing that name by the way) state that conscious thought works best when you are making simple choices like "buying towels or an oven mitt" but more complex matters like choosing a house, or car (or life partner) should be left to unconscious thought. What they call "deliberation without attention". Your unconscious mind has much bigger processing power and your conscious mind finds it hard to focus on more than one thing at a time.

When buying a car, studies have shown people make better decisions when they don't consciously think about all the variables.

Dijksterhuis et al (2006) got people to choose a car based on 4 attributes or 12 attributes (safety, mileage etc). They were given 4 minutes to think about their choice, or 4 minutes distracted by doing anagrams. The people who were distracted doing anagrams and therefore used their unconscious mind, made a much better choice when choosing a car when they had to think about 12 attributes.

We make emotionally driven choices all the time. We are not even aware we are making them.

Companies and marketers know you can be influenced, so they exploit these systems.

You are influenced by marketing even when you think you are not.

Think about all the advertising you are exposed to. Does it influence you? Of course not, you are smarter than that. Or may be not.

In a study by Bagdziunaite (2014) three group of people were shown commercials before going in to a store to buy paint.
Group 1 - random commercials
Group 2 - random commercials plus adverts for brand A paint
Group 3 - random commercials plus longer adverts for brand A paint

They were then told to go and buy some paint for redecorating.
Group 1 - 78% chose brand A
Group 2 - 94% chose brand A
Group 3 - 100% chose brand A!!

Group 2 and 3 also spent more time looking at brand A on the shelf. And guess what, 23 out of 25 participants did not perceive the link between exposure to advertising and their purchase.

And ALL of the participants who saw brand A remembered it, but reported it did not affect their choice!

Now think about the adverts you are exposed to, the filter bubble you live in, the shops you go to, the choices you make. In the supermarket, trying to make healthy choices...

Plassman et al (2012) state

"At fast decision speeds a significant number of food choices were biased towards the food items with bright packaging, even when subjects preferred the taste of alternative food options." 

In fact, given less than 1 second you will choose the most salient thing, given a second or more you will choose your preference,

Now given that most foods that are brightly packaged are processed, and if someone has been eating unhealthy for a while and has certain in built preferences, what choices do you think they are going to make?

You will choose from the menu on offer. 

There is a myth that humans will make rational economic choices. Choosing between an apple and a snickers, you choose the one that costs the least or has the most benefit for you. Except in the Western world the cost difference between these purchases is irrelevant.

The value you assign to anything is subjective. For example, chocolate or strawberry ice cream have no intrinsic value, you make a decision which one you prefer (Padoa-Schioppa, 2011). And if one is not available, it doesn't figure in your decision making process.

Or put it another way, do you want a £1000 or a glass of water? The answer is obvious unless you just came out of the desert, you're dying of thirst and someone offers you that choice. Context matters.

The orbital frontal cortex (OFC) front part of your brain has neurons that are particularly active when you prefer one option. They are not sensitive to the menu, but decide based on what is on offer.

For example, Padoa-Schioppa (2007) offered monkeys* raisins or apple slices. Monkeys prefer raisins, but eventually when the monkeys are offered 3 times as many apple slices to raisins they switch to choosing the apple. The OFC neurons then start to fire off more, as they react to one decision that is clearly better than the other.

This also happened when the monkeys had to choose between drops of water and kool aid. The monkey prefer water, until they were offer 6 times as many drops of kool aid to water, and then they switched and chose the kool aid and the OFC part of the brain was more active and helped make this decision. They even did this when they were given 2 food options they had never encountered before, they would make a choice and then switch if significant quantity of their less preferred option was given.

What does this mean for you? It means you can switch your own choices.

I read somewhere that you should crowd your diet with healthy choices. If you eat enough vegetables and whole foods, you will 'crowd out' the unhealthy options. (Sorry, I can't remember where I read this, if this is your idea, let me know, and I will credit you)!

Eventually, you brain will choose from the menu you on offer.  You can control the menu and the quantity of the menu as well.

You go to a petrol station...

How does this all work in practice. A classic way people lose track of their diet.

They have gone to a petrol station to fill up the car. This is a top down conscious decision.

But then in the shop they are confronted by chocolate bars and crisps. All brightly coloured. There are no healthy options on offer, you're hungry (you've just left the gym) and you are not carrying any healthy snacks.

Before you know it you are making a bottoms up decision, you had no intention of buying chocolate. But it's there, and the menu on offer is chocolate or more chocolate. Before you know it you are in your car eating a snickers and your diet has been derailed before you've even had time to think. The pleasure centres in your brain are firing off and you go home and wonder what happened.

Why you will be fooled by expensive wine and works of art.

The orbital frontal cortex helps you make choices. And the medial part of it (mOFC) is believed to activate more when you experience pleasantness.

In one study by Plassman et al(2008) they measured the activation of peoples brain in an fMRI scanner while they were given wine of different value, they were told the wine cost $90 or $5 o $10. Of course, there was no difference in the wines but people experienced more activation in the pleasantness areas of the brain when they thought they were drinking the more expensive wine.

The perceived price did not change the activation of the primary taste centre of the brain, but the expectation of how good it was meant to be changed the activation in the pleasantness centre of the brain.

(And as a side note: Wine experts can't even tell the difference between red and white wine when blind folded!).

In another study people valued works of art more and had more engagement in the mOFC when they thought they were painted by an expert rather than a novice. Of course, none were painted by an expert.

If I told you I painted this you'd give me £1 for it. But if I told you Jackson Pollock did, you might be willing to pay way more.

This has led to the idea of "placebo marketing".

Why do people spend £200 more on a computer because it has an apple on it? (like the one I'm typing this on).

In the world of fitness and nutrition you could use this effect to your advantage. If you spend £80 a month on a gym membership or get the platinum super duper personal training package with the best trainer in town, you may well perceive that your results will be superior to the £20 a month gym and the free programme you got given.

You may possibly work harder and just have more belief in the product.

In terms of nutrition, the super detox juice you bought for £6 a glass may seem more beneficial than the apple and bag of spinach you bought in the supermarket.

This may also explain why people see famous online coaches, posting up pictures of clients, and testimonials. You may automatically perceive this person as an expert and expect to get results when you buy their programme or online product.

Even if objectively the expensive options are no better than the cheap options.

Where does this leave us?

So you know your brain is now making decisions on autopilot all the time and whether you like it or not marketing can influence you.

Here are a few take home points relating to health and fitness

• Make it as easy as possible for your brain to make the right decision. Reduces the cognitive load. This is why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit everyday. Put your gym gear in your bag ready to go in the morning. I once heard someone give the advice of sleeping in your gym kit and then getting up and going, it might be going too far, but you get the idea.
• Put the gym session or class on your schedule, it becomes an autopilot activity.
• Not sure what to do in the gym, get a plan/programme that is not too complex and stick to it. Again it will take another decision out of your hands.
• You will choose from the menu on offer. Fill your cupboards with healthy options, crowd out the unhealthy.
• Be prepared when out and about. Take your own snacks with you, a box of nuts in the car may stop you buying chocolate in the garage. Also prepare your own lunches.
• Avoid the office on cake day!
• Trying to give up fizzy drinks/soda? Try drinking 6 glasses of water when you feel the need for a soda. (I'm serious, give it a go, but don't over hydrate).
• You can change your preferences with regards to food, they are subjective and you can switch them.
• Take a shopping list to the supermarket. Take your time, when tempted by bright colours and packaging. Pause, take a breath and stick to the list.
• You may think the more expensive product is better, it may not be.
• OR if you are a personal trainer or gym, people may perceive your product as better if you charge more and be more willing to listen to you if they perceive you as an expert. (Testimonials, qualifications etc can help with this).
• Sometimes your brain will make the right decision without you thinking about it, especially if it is a complex decision.
• Beware of placebo marketing and living in a filter bubble.
• Your environment and the people you surround yourself with will influence your choices. The old adage that you are the sum of the 5 people you spend most time with is true. Expand that to environmental influences, the websites you visit, the TV shows you watch, the books you read.
• Buy cheap wine and tell people it's expensive. They wont know any different!

References.

Choosing paint research
Expensive wine research
Monkeys choose raisin or apple
OFC in making choices overview
Plassman et al "Branding the brain"
An Introduction to Neuroeconomics: How the Brain Makes Decisions. www.coursera.org
An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing. www.coursera.org


*Yes, I find the research involving monkeys problematic, as they don't get to choose to be part of the study. But it is what it is.

Forming new habits. Part 4: Memory.

Every habit you have is embedded in your memory somewhere. 

For part 1,2,3, go here, here and here

The more you practice a habit, the more the neural pathways are laid down. The pathway gets stronger and the memory becomes consolidated. As the neuroscience adage says 'neurons that fire together, wire together'.

But you memory is unreliable. It does not store fixed digital files, they change over time. Less like a digital photo and more like a painting you keep adding to and re-touching. Your memory of playing frisbee at 10 years old is different when you remember it at 14 years old to when you remember it at 50 years old.

You will have attachments to certain activities and foods beyond the utility of getting enough calories to survive and filling up your days with stuff to do.

Think of all your favourite comfort foods, they will probably have a memory attached to them. A roast dinner at your grandparents, a cheese sandwich after school, being given a certain chocolate bar as a treat. That food you had once on an amazing holiday.

And you may have an aversion to other foods because of a bout of food poisoning, or that time you got so drunk on Sambuca that you can never face drinking it again.

And you cannot escape your culture.

Pepsi vs Coca Cola.


In one famous study (McClure et all, 2004) the researchers compared peoples brain activation in an fMRI scanner when they were drinking Pepsi and Coca Cola. They are both essentially brown sugary drinks, so should activate the same areas of the brain.


When the participants didn’t know whether they were drinking Pepsi or Coca Cola the VMPFC lit up, an area of the brain that relates to taste.


However, when they were told they were drinking Coca Cola the DLPFC and hippocampus were activated. This didn’t happen when people thought they were drinking Pepsi.

The DLPFC is involved in working memory and perception based on previous experience. The hippocampus is involved in memory recall.

The coca cola was causing a memory recall in people, not just a taste sensation. The influence of culture and brand knowledge had made their brain remember Coca Cola (bear in mind they didn’t actually have to drinking Coca Cola for this to happen, they just had to think they were).

If you're American this is probably embedded in your memory, whether you want it to be or not.

Interestingly, the memory parts of the brain were not activated for Pepsi. And even the people who had a stated preference for Pepsi only showed activation of the memory parts of the brain when they though they were drinking Coca Cola.

This study was in the USA, and shows how much Coca Cola is part of peoples culture and upbringing in that part of the world.

For me this wouldn’t happen for Coca Cola, but it would probably happen for a cheese sandwich on white crusty bread and a cup of tea. These were more significant foods and drinks for me. Or possibly even Tizer, or Irn Bru if your Scottish!

If you're British and of a certain age this is in your memory. If you're American or Chinese this means nothing.

You cannot separate yourself from your culture or your memories which are hard wired into your brain.

Now think back to exercise. If someones memory of exercise is being made to do it at school, going for runs in the freezing cold and hiding behind the cricket pavilion for a cigarette; this is what they think of when they think of running. However, they may have more positive associations with dancing or cycling. Who doesn’t like riding their bike as a kid? Or swimming on holiday?

Spreading activation. Run = school = cold = bullying PE teacher!

Spreading activation theory is how your brain groups things together.

The networks in your brain seem to group words and objects together. Think pets, and you brain might thing dog or cat (in western culture) . You can prime someone by using associated words. Say the word carrot, and someone takes longer to recall the word doctor, say the word ‘nurse’ and they recall the word doctor a lot quicker.

Your neural network is dependent on your experience and your culture. You could prime yourself by associating certain feelings and words with exercise.

For example, for me running is not like the example above, but is running with my Dad as a kid - going to cool places, being outside.

And for a lot of new people going to the gym, especially women, I suspect that when you mention the words 'lifting weights' there neural network goes with the only examples it knows: weights = olympic = massive guys lifting massive weights = masculine/drugs. 

But could you change this, can you create a new pathway?

False Memories.

Elizabeth Loftus and her team were the first team to show you could implant a false memory in people, the memory was of being lost in a shopping mall as a child. It has to be a plausible memory, it  is less likely you could implant the memory that someone climbed Everest as a child.

They have also managed to do it with food (Bernstein et al, 2011). 

In one study (where the participants did not know it was about false memory, but about food preferences) the researchers managed to plant false memories in subjects to make them believe they had a bad experience with egg salad or strawberry ice cream ( up to 40% of participants). So much so that when offered these food one week or several months later they avoided them.

They also managed to plant a false memory about a 'healthy food', in this case, Asparagus, making them believe they love it the first time they had eaten it. They managed to convince 50% of participants they had loved Asparagus the first time they had eaten it. They then offered them a choice of foods to eat at a later date, the people with the false memory chose Asparagus more than those without the false memory. The participants with the false memory also said they would pay more for asparagus and choose it as a preferred food to have several months after the study.

You can be made to think you loved this the first time you ate it. Maybe you really did?

However, they were unable to plant false memories about a bad experience in the past or fake food poisoning with cookies (biscuits) or potato chips (crisps). This could be because these food are too tasty to give up and too common OR it could be intuitively as humans we generally know we don't get food poisoning from crisps.

Also, note they were not able to plant the false memory in everyone, more than half the people did not accept the memory.

The researchers also managed to do it for alcohol as well.

From a real memory point of view this makes sense, you aversion to Sambuca after that heavy night of shots years back or that terrible bout of food poisoning means you avoid a certain restaurant or seafood. And if you are allergic to something like peanuts or red wine your are very likely to avoid it.

Whats less clear is if you could deliberately plant a false memory in your self, while knowing you are actually doing it.

Be careful!

There is something called covert sensitization, which is essentially the idea of gradually associating a feeling of nausea/sickness with a food until you don't want it. Of course, this may result in you never wanting a food, even something as tasty as cheese. And lets not forget obesity and healthiness goes beyond one food group.

More useful could be the idea of making yourself want healthy foods more. And then associating these healthy foods with healthy words and healthy positive images in your brain.

You could make yourself remember that you loved running at school, you liked all vegetables as a kid and can't get enough of them.

Of course, there are techniques that people already use like hypnotism and NLP. Even though these have been considered fringe methods up until now, the research which uses quite basic methods of visualization shows there could definitely be some merit in some of these approaches.  

This is not going to happen over night, like all visualization techniques you have to practice.

What is real and not real?

There is another famous study, where one group of people learned to play a sequence on the piano actually sitting at the piano, and another group visualized practicing it. After 5 days, both groups showed an increase in the motor cortex where the fingers are controlled from in the brain.

Think about this for a second, not only did it show the brain in adults is plastic and can physically change when learning a new skill. It can be changed just by visualizing a new skill!

Now, you have to make your visualization targeted, you can't just sit there and pretend you are Elton John or Jimi Hendrix. You have to make your visualization a clear practice.

And one last study for you, Ganis et al (2004) Got one group of participants to look at a sketch of a shape, and another group to imagine the shape while in an fMRI scanner. There was a lot of overlap in the regions of the brain activated, in fact about 90%. There wasn't complete overlap, but there was a large amount of similarity.

This shows how powerful imagination can be.

Take home.

Hopefully, this has shown that your brain and habits are not fixed. After all people give up smoking and start exercising every day, and some stick with it.

You brain is plastic, you can change how you think about things and what your memories are 'telling' you.

Always remember that what you believe and remember and like are all products of the culture you were brought up in, at a certain point in history. And even though these things can be quite deeply embedded, there is no reason why you can't use strategies of visualization and mental imagery to change the things that are may be not working for you now.

You can visualize new skills, you can create positive word associations with healthy foods and exercise and probably even convince yourself how much you love vegetables. But, be careful, don't create a permanent aversion to cheese or coffee or bread - what could be worse. Live your life!

References:

Coca Cola v Pepsi Study 

False Memory Study 

Piano Study

Mental Imagery Study 

Forming new habits. How long will you wait for results? Part 3.

How long before people abandon their new nutrition plan or exercise habit?

For parts one and two, go here and here.

Research shows that by now most people have given up on their new year exercise plan or nutrition plan. Dry January or Veganuary have quickly turned into beer and a burger for quite a few people.

But why? And why are some people still going and sticking to their plan?

Temporal Discounting.

In behavioural economics and neuroscience there is something called Temporal Discounting. Basically, how long are you willing to wait for a reward. And in general humans (and animals) prefer immediate reward to delayed reward.

For example, its not unusual for people to say after a week of exercise 'I haven't lost any weight yet' or a week of more healthy eating 'I don't feel any different, when will I lose weight?'.

The brain wants immediate results and rewards.

"Large probable, immediate rewards are preferred to smaller, less likely and distant ones." (Gazzaniga et al, 2008:p528)

This could explain two phenomena we all see on a daily basis. One, people weighing themselves after every workout, in the hope there has been an immediate loss of fat or gain in muscle mass. Two, people rewarding themselves with a chai latte and cake after a workout and immediately consuming more calories than they burned off.

Most of the studies focus on monetary rewards in humans (sometimes while they are are in an MRI scanner) or giving juice to monkeys, or sometimes a poor rat with an electrode implanted in the 'reward' centre of the brain.

A common question in these studies is, would you like £10 now or £11 tomorrow,? Most people choose £10 today. But if you say would you like £10 in a year, or £11 in a year + 1 day? It is so far in the future people will choose the £11. (McClure, 2004).

It is not uncommon for lottery winners to be offered a lump sum now, but half the actual amount they won, or the total sum in portions over several years. People opt for the lump sum, even though it is less money.

Exercise and new nutrition habits are by their very nature delayed rewards for people new to it. They are not necessarily exercising because they love it, they are doing it because of a future delayed reward such as fitting into a dress, looking good on the beach. And for many people this reward seems 'distant' and unlikely (due to past failures).

The brains reward system likes immediate rewards. The release of dopamine creates pleasure. It activates neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens/ Ventral Striatum (the 'reward' centre deep in the brain).This dopamine release can be caused by drugs, but also by other things such as a tasty cake. Therefore, your reward system can say 'eat the cake, weightloss is too far away to think about, we need a reward now, we've had a tough day at work.'

Back to rat in the lab, when it has an electrode in its brain that fires off some dopamine reward cells every time it hits a lever, guess what it does? It hits that lever obsessively, in fact ignoring food and water until it collapses from exhaustion because it values the activation of the reward centre in the brain over everything else.

If you keep checking social media every 5 mins, or have ever played a computer game all night, you are basically that rat hitting the lever, looking for a hit of dopamine.

BUT, humans are not rats. We have some (newer from an evolutionary point of view) parts of the brain that deal in self control and planning. The Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC), at the front of your brain.

You can make your brain choose healthy foods.

For example, in one study on dieters (Hare et al, 2009). There were two groups, a group exercising self control, a group not exercising self control.  They rated 50 different foods for taste ( very bad to  very good) and healthiness (unhealthy to very healthy). These foods included 'junk' food like crisps and candy, and healthy foods like fruit and vegetables.

Then while in a MRI scanner they had to reject foods on offer and choose other ones. They had actually not eaten for three hours, and the food they choose they got to eat at the end. The self controllers rejected the unhealthy foods they liked and choose healthy ones they disliked more often. It is not that they didn't find junk food tasty or really likes healthy foods, they just had better self control. In fact, a part of their brain called the dlPFC was more activated in the self controllers. This is the part of the brain that is making more deliberate decisions. This part of the brain was operating far sighted behaviour.

And your brain does this all the time. For example, people book holidays in the future, they save money for pensions and they go to University, when the reward of a degree is years away.

Our brain would like things as soon as possible (Kable and Glimcher, 2010), but it knows that this might involve a delay. For example, you order something on the internet, it wont arrive for 3 or 4 days, but you are prepared to wait. If you went into a shop and they said you had to wait 3 or 4 days before you could buy an item, you would go somewhere else. Your brain understands context.

The reward has to be big enough and important enough. £10 now or £10,000 in a year, err I'll wait a year thanks. The problem is most people aren't thinking about the rewards of exercise and nutrition like this. In their mind the reward isn't big enough to wait.

They are thinking about it much more like a monkey being given juice. A trigger goes off, a few seconds later the monkey is given some juice, there is a dopamine spike in the brain and the reward centre is activated. After a while, there is a dopamine spike when the trigger happens, before the monkey has had the juice. The expectation of reward is triggering a response in the brain. But, if there is a trigger and no reward, eventually the monkey gets wise and realises there will be no reward, the expectation has gone, that 'reward' part of the brain no longer activates.

This is like someone who starts exercising, the anticipation of weight loss and feeling better drives them, but after a while they get no results, they get despondant and give up, the reward system is not firing anymore. A cake will fire it off immediately.

Whereas, the crash diet industry knows how to hit the reward system. Have a novel food you have to eat, restrict calories, lose a lot of weight in a short period of time, weigh yourself five days later and the reward system in the brain goes into overdrive. But the pain is too much, eventualy they give up.

Your emotions are affecting your decisions.

Attractive women, bad decisions and blue oceans.

In one study called Do Pretty Women Inspire Men to Discount the Future ( Wilson and Daly, 2003), the researchers offered men a small monetary reward tomorrow or a larger sum in the future (7 to 236 days). One group were shown pictures of 'hot women' (yes, the researchers actually got the pictures from hot or not.com). The men who viewed the hot pictures were more likely to accept the smaller offer tomorrow than a larger amount in the future. They forgot about the future, the planning part of their brain wasn't thinking that far ahead.

Or to put it another way, a young guy is doing some shoulder rehab work and mobility exercises in a gym, an attractive female in yoga pants walks past, next thing you know he is doing max bench press and bicep curls and ignoring his shoulder health.

The researchers found no such effect with women looking at hot men, they were better at keeping a sense of perspective!

Imagine a calming blue ocean...

In another study (Delgado et al 2008), a group of people were asked to visualise a small money monetary reward, $4, or imagine something in nature that is calming and blue, while in an MRI scanner.

The people imagining the calming blue ocean had less activation in the reward centre of the brain and more activation in the control, future planning centre of the brain. They weren't thinking about the money they were going to get.

Now, this doesn't mean emotions are bad. In fact, people who have damage to the emotional parts of the brain make notoriously bad decisions or no decision at all.

The point of this is not that you should avoid hot women or imagine blue calming things, but how even the most basic visualisation and exposure to pictures can affect your brains activation centres and decisions.

What if you actually applied these principles in a much more in depth, sophisticated way?

Where the rubber meets the road.

This is what neuroscientist Sam McClure calls where the rubber meets the road. The practical advice arising from all these studies.

He also points out the hippocampus (where memories are made) is now known to be involved in prospecting about the future.

He recommends:

1) Envisioning future rewards. Make them easy to envision. Envision what the reward will do for your life.

So, really imagine how exercise and nutrition will make you feel and look.

2) Change how you frame things.

Frame rewards in different ways. See the exercise session as a reward in itself. Or in relation to food, demotivate appreciation of unhealthy foods, try seeing cookies like inanimate objects like a rock and think of green tea as a reward or treat.

3) Become more myopic in the way rewards are represented.

Attach more positive emotions to healthy foods. The self controlling dieters knew the junk food was tasty, they were just more focused on their goal and choose a 'less tasty' healthy option. Or even better make it so you see the healthy food as tasty and a rewarding. There are plenty of visualisation techniques to do this. Its just most people don't do them, and have no systematic approach.

And don't forget

'neurons that fire together wire together'

The more you use a pathway in the brain, the more you practice, the stronger the connection gets.

And one last thing, aerobic exercise is shown to activate that deliberate dlPFC part of your brain more. It becomes a self fullfilling prophecy, the more you exercise, the better your brain will get at decision making and planning!


Nuts and bolts are easy.

The fitness and nutrition industries have focused on the nuts and bolts, the programme, the recipe. But this is the easy bit, the nuts and bolts.

The hard part is making people stick with it. The future will be the coach who can change mindset.

Some visualisation techniques have been dismissed in the past as pseudoscience. However, neuroscience is now showing us how important envisioning and mindset are in framing your goals, seeing where you want to be and succeeding.

Lastly, associating the process itself as the reward. Taking pleasure in the exercise, looking forward to cooking that healthy meal. The people who stick with exercise are the ones who look forward to going to the gym or for a run. It becomes their passion, their reward.

Or as Adrienne of Yoga with Adriene said this week:

"The journey is the reward, the process is the candy."

Or for another excellent article I read this week about focusing on the process and forgetting goals by James Clear please click here 

In part 4 we will cover memory.

References:

Gazziniga et al (2008) Cognitive Neuroscience

McClure et al (2004) Separte Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards.

Hare et al (2009) Self control in dieters study.

Wilson and Daly (2003) Hot women cause men to discount the future study.

Kable and Glimcher (2010) We want things 'as soon as possible'

Interview with Sam McClure, Introduction to Neuroeconomics MOOC.

Forming new habits. Why is it so hard to give things up? Part 2.

Why losing things is twice as painful as gaining things.

In this series I am going to cover some of the behavioural science and neuroscience of forming habits, giving up bad habits, goals and rewards. I am going to come at it from a different tack possibly to the usual writings on fitness and nutrition, and at points I am going to extrapolate, stretch the science if you will, or apply some principles to exercise and diet that you may not have seen framed in this way before.

Human decisions are complex, the brain is complex(go figure), so there will be some simplification as necessary.

Over the next few posts I will cover the parts of the brain that deal with addiction and reward, loss and memory, making comparisons, motivation and decision making.

But lets break it down.

First up

Prospect Theory.

I've covered forming new habits before, see here for part one.

Essentially, I don't think the process of forming the new habit is hard. What is hard is the things you have to give up for the new habit to work.

It might be time you have to give up to go to the gym, this could be time when you normally watch TV or cruise the internet.

It could be some foods you have to reduce or give up and then replace with better alternatives. Despite what you may have read, you can't just eat what you want and lose weight, you may have to actually modify what you eat.

I am an example myself. Yes, I add in healthy foods, vegetables, green tea and all that but I still eat way too much cheese. Yes, there may be some addiction here (which I will cover in future posts) but basically I don't want to give it up.

If humans were following purely rational utility, then we would not eat the donut if there was an option of an apple as well. But as we all know, this is not always the case.

Most of these traditional theories of economics and utility ignore emotions but obviously your emotions have a profound impact on what you choose.

Human beings are risk averse and loss averse.

In some classic studies by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, they showed people when given a choice generally accept the less risky option. Even if they could possibly win more money, people generally go with the sure thing.

Two of their classic problems:
Which do you choose:
Get $900 for sure OR 90% chance to get $1000?

Which do you choose?
Lose $900 for sure OR 90% chance to lose $1000


Most people choose option 1 in the first problem and option 2 in the second problem, essentially for the same reason. People don't like losing things, they like the sure thing, but will take a risk if the sure thing could involve a loss.

In fact, most people find losing something twice as 'painful' as gaining something.

See the graph below.

Prospect Theory graph: Note how losing something causes twice as much psychological pain, as the joy of gaining something.

(The caveat being if you trade on the stock market and take class A drugs there is a chance you are not risk averse and are prepared to lose big time).

These studies are normally done in purely economic terms, you could win money, but what if we applied these ideas to fitness and nutrition?

If you are trying to develop a new lifestyle there is uncertainty and this cause emotional arousal.

Yes, logically you know eating healthier and  exercising is good for you But these are things that are going to happen in the 'future'. All the time you brain is making a cost benefit analysis.

To frame prospect theory in fitness and nutrition terms, as some people see it:

Which do you choose:
Give up an extra hour in bed, eating crisps and chocolate, sitting on the sofa when you get home OR the chance you may lose weight, feel better and possibly prevent a future disease.

Or when taking out a gym membership think of it this way:

Lose £40 a month for sure (gym membership fees) and you may get fitter and lose weight and prevent disease

OR

Keep £40 a month for sure (don't join a gym) and you might get fitter a lose weight by going for a walk everyday or may not develop those diseases anyway by doing nothing.


Some speculation on my part...

There is the potential loss of your old self or things you enjoy. This can fire off a part of the brain called the Insular Cortex. This part of the brain is also monitoring body states such as disgust, if you are eating something you find horrible then could this part of the brain fire. If you find exercise painful and not enjoyable then this part of the brain could again be active. Meanwhile the part of the brain that responds to reward and potential gains (the fabled dopamine response) could not be so active.

Going into a gym, getting out of your comfort zone, trying something new are all 'risky' things. And to begin with you may not perceive them as pleasurable, in fact they may be decidedly uncomfortable to begin with.

Where you Insular is, in case you were wondering.

Then we have the amygdala, the so called fight or flight part of the brain. But, it is a bit more complicated than this. The amygdala is also working out cost benefit (should I do this new thing, what is the cost, what is the benefit), fear conditioning and more.

Of course, if you start to really enjoy exercising, or enjoy the health new foods, and enjoy the feeling of being healthier and maybe carrying a little less fat, then the potential gain has outweighed the potential loss of Dominos pizza and 10 hours on the internet. But, the gain would have to be perceived as twice as much as the loss.

This also relates to what Kahneman calls system 1 and 2 of thinking.

In general system 1 is quick, emotional, intuitive and can actually make better decisions than your logical mind when there are a lot of factors to consider.

System 2 is slow and rational.

When you eat that donut, you are probably already licking your lips before system 2 has had a rational chance to start working.

People are not risky in all aspects of their life, for example, people can make sound financial decisions, wear a seat belt while driving and still smoke.

People normally view monetary risk in terms of the status quo, you don't want to lose what you've already got.

In terms of health and well being you have to re-frame it in your mind. Make the potential gains and benefits overwhelming.

So to re-frame one of the statements above:

Invest £50 a month in your health, add a new enjoyable activity into your life for 4 hours a week, try some new nutritious food and it is a sure thing your health and fitness will improve and you will probably live longer and have less chance of developing certain diseases (and look better naked!).

People make subjective probability choices rather than objective ones. For example, If people were being objective they would never buy a lottery ticket, and they would realize that something like a terrorist attack in the western world has a very low probability (which they will tend to overreact to, thanks media) whereas heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes have a large probability and people tend to under react to them.

Except, if they get a health scare, then some people modify behaviour but some people don't.

One thing Prospect Theory cannot contend with is regret and disappointment. The choice you should have made, that could have been an easy financial win but you were greedy. OR in terms of health, the small lifestyle changes you could have made that would have had a profound impact on your well being but you chose the status quo instead.

Why is that? Why would your brain let you continue on a path of behaviour that may result in its early demise?

Find out in part 3.

References:
Kahneman D (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Introduction to Neuroeconomics, How the Brain Makes Decisions, MOOC, Higher School of Economics(Moscow).

What I learned from 30 days of yoga (and 100 days of meditation). How to form habits. Part 1.

"I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail, poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail." - Bob Dylan, Shelter From The Storm.

After a long time ultra-running my body was gradually breaking down. I'd made perfunctory efforts at mobility and tried to stay strong as well. My right ankle mobility was gone, my calves were always tight, my right hip and right knee were like rusty hinges, and my T-spine had always been like a breeze block, and it later turned out to be Sheurmanns disease. I was chronically stiff, and my posture was edging towards Mr Burns on a bad day. It was time to do something.

Mr Burn: former ultra-runner

I had to dedicate specific time to mobility, flexibility and breathing. Tacking it on to my normal gym workout wasn't going to cut it.

I decided to do some home Yoga. I knew I wasn't going to commit to going to a class, due to my schedule changing, trying to find a class near me that suited my time (and budget) and my general male ego of going to a class of mainly female Yogis. Also I knew doing this once or twice a week wasn't going to be enough.

Don't get me wrong, I knew the benefits of having a teacher who could correct you 'hands on' in the moment. I had a one to one with a Yoga teacher I work with, which highlighted  even more the stiffness in my joints and what I needed to work on. But having one to one sessions every week wasn't an option. And I knew without some kind of guidance I wasn't going to break into spontaneous self guided Yoga sessions at home.

I tried some Yoga apps, they were okay. Then I found some Yoga channels on youtube, these were more like it, Yoga with SarahBeth and Yoga with Adriene. I liked the fact the videos were at varying lengths, some only 15 minutes, some longer 30-40 minutes. Which I could fit into my schedule. I also liked the tone of the videos, passionate about Yoga, good teaching without being overly serious.

I started doing a few a week, mainly in the evenings before bed, I liked the Yin Yoga ones, good for relaxing, and focusing on the areas I needed to work on. Plus for me, I didn't need to really focus on the strength moves, I didn't need Yoga for weightloss or anything like that.

Then someone mentioned ROMWOD. A crossfit website, with 20 minute routines. I signed up. This involved holding the poses for a long time, holding poses like lizard and pigeon for 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes at a time. This is hard. Each session may only contain 3 or 4 poses or positions at most.

This felt like what I needed, these longer holds to really open out. After a while though I began to dread another session of holding Lizard for 5 minutes. It became too repetitive for me. Sometimes it felt like I was getting better, but other times it felt like my hips were feeling chronically worse. I decided to cancel my subscription. I still think it is a good option for a lot of people.

One of the yoga youtube channels had a 30 day yoga camp, so I decided to do that.  I knew from previous experience, that one way to ingrain a habit was to commit to doing it every day. I had done it last year with meditation.

This would help me form the habit. I would start on the first of the month and do every session for 30 days.  First of all I couldn't believe that this was actually free, a new session every day, varying in length from 15 to 50 minutes. Second, I knew doing it everyday was the best way for me to form a habit.

100 days of meditation.

I'd always been interested in meditation, and like many people, had tried a few times, sporadically to do it, but given up.

I had started reading increasingly about mindfulness, neuroscience and decided it was time to really try meditation again. (please note: this isn't going to be a discussion about the benefits of meditation or mindfulness, but how I formed the habit).

I already had a comprehensive guide in meditation, a whole set of DVDs I had bought from Zenways years before. I had watched all the DVDs. dabbled in the meditation and then given up. I even had a meditation cushion. And when I realised I couldn't crowbar my ultra-running hips into a lotus position I bought a meditation bench as well.

In the little booklet that came with the Zenways DVDs, Wake Up and Live, it mentioned the practice in Zen tradition of meditating 100 days in a row. So I decided to try 100 days in a row, if you miss a day, you start again.

I didn't realise at the time this is a productivity idea called breaking the chain, attributed to the comedian Seinfeld (Of course, there is a good chance the Zen monks probably came up with the idea before Seinfelds sitcom aired and Jerry came up with the funky slap bass opening theme tune). When asked about writing jokes, he said write every day, and mark off on the calender everyday with a big X, it will get to a point where you don't want to break the chain, so you keep going. This article here explains it.

Class calendar picture

And so it was with the 100 days of meditation. I didn't actually mark anything off on a calendar, and I didn't write it down as a goal, I just resolved to do it.

I started with the 8 week mindfulness audios that come with the book 'Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world'. It was easy to commit, some of these were only 10 minutes a day.  I already had some John Kabat Zinn guided CDs as well, which I had done a few times.

I then moved onto the Zenways 8 week course, starting at the beginning,

As I had resolved to do this every day no matter what, the times I did the sessions were variable. I don't work 9-5 Monday to Friday. Sometimes I would do the session in the morning, other times I was doing them at 11.30pm at night, making sure I was getting them in before midnight.

I committed 100% to doing the session by the end of the day no matter what, however tired I was, whatever was happening that day.

I also downloaded the insight meditation time app, I can't remember when. This has a timer on it, and other guided sessions. Even now I use this to get a 10 minute meditation on the bus or at home.

All these various guided sessions were very useful in forming the habit. Especially with meditation it is very hard to sit down yourself and essentially do nothing. The guided sessions give you a sense of 'I have to do this', the guiding voices help. Also, I can get annoying pulsating tinnitus, Bodhidharma may have stared at a wall listening to ants scream for 9 years, but he probably didn't have to put up with tinnitus. At one point, I was on holiday during the 100 days, and I had to do the sessions in my hotel room unguided, sitting on pillows every morning after breakfast, but at this point I wasn't going to stop.

It was the same with Yoga. I could have tried doing Yoga by myself everyday with no videos, after all I know a lot of moblity and flexibility exercises. I just knew, that wasn't going to happen for me. Much like going to a class, I need to switch off and be guided by the teacher at first.

At some point I  passed 100 days of meditation, and I kept going. The habit was formed. Later in the year I went to a meditation retreat for a few days, and that was a good experience. It was good to hear that you can't really do meditation 'wrong', if you're doing it, you're doing it.

"Think of your meditation practice as mental training." - Julian Daizan Skinner.

Once the habit was formed, missing a few days here and there didn't matter. No need to beat yourself up, you always know you are going to come back to it, the ground work has been done. I knew I was going to do this forever.

I could apply the same to Yoga.

30 days of Yoga: First let go of judgements.

One thing I had probably learned from meditation, or it would be more proper to say 'gradually absorbed' rather than learned was to be a bit less judgemental and open.

When it comes to exercise, I have quite a strong evidenced based idea of what I think is 'good' and 'bad' exercise. With the Yoga for 30 days, I decided to do all the exercises and moves that came up regardless of what I may have previously thought about them or judging them.

Same with the idea of Chakras and that type of thing, it get mentioned a fair bit in Yoga, and I decided to be okay with that.

I did the 30 day Yoga Camp with Adriene on Youtube. And much like the meditation, I did it whenever I could, it might be 7am it might be 11pm, it helped that the sessions varied in length.

Unlike the meditation, I did write down everyday in a journal/diary what I had done. I also put asterisks next to sessions I really enjoyed so I could go back to them again. I also started to write down meditation sessions in the diary.

After a while I didn't want to break the chain, and more importantly, I was enjoying it, I looked forward to doing it, especially at the end of the day after being at work. I could see how people called it moving meditation.

At some point I decided it was time to buy a Yoga mat. (This involved a trip to the land of sub minimum wage worker exploitation Sport Direct, explaining to the girl I didn't want the pink mat, I needed the black manly mat, which involved her having to go up a ladder to a high shelf. I'm sure official ladder training protocol had been broken).

I did also go to a Yoga workshop and Yoga Nidra session. The Yoga workshop was hot Yoga, for me there was no benefit to it being hot. And some Yoga sap who was sweating profusely said he wanted it hotter, at which point I could only think of Hank Hill, King of the Hill, 'If it gets one degree hotter I'm going to kick your ass.' But hey, each to their own.

Hank Hill after going to Hot Yoga

I liked the Yoga Nidra, it was basically a progressive relaxation technique.

After 30 days.

The 30 days finished, and I carried on. I'm no Yogi, I'm never going to have the perfect technique or posture. This is not a story of transformation, I can't suddenly do the splits, and all my injuries didn't suddenly disappear. But it did help, I feel more mobile, without sounding like a cliche it does make you feel better mentally and physically.

This isn't meant to sound all 'look how great I am I did Yoga for 30 days and I meditate too'.  I'm essentially a neophyte when it comes to these things, I'm no expert. I just happen to like them and think they are beneficial.

I'm not saying you have to go and start meditating or take up Yoga, that is up to you. What I am saying is you can apply this simple technique to forming any habit.

And for me this technique works, do something for 30 days or longer, resolve to do it everyday, no exceptions and the habit is well on its way to being formed.

In part 2, I will briefly show have I also applied it to nutrition and social media. And the reason why these are harder habits to form, and why I still think SMART goals are dumb.

Resources.

This is a list of resources I used. I am not affiliated to any of them. And I'm sure there are equally good youtube channels and meditation apps and books I am not aware of.

Yoga with Adriene, the youtube channel for the 30 day Yoga Camp. Why don't I live in Texas?
Sarah Beth Yoga, another youtube channel I like, especially the 20 minute deep stretch videos.

Zenways, comprehensive Rinzai meditation course. Plus I also have their summer Yoga download and Spontaneous Zen download.

Mindfulness book and 8 week audio course. From the guys at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, no religious  or 'new age' overtones if you don't like that kind of thing. Practical and clear.

Romwod : Crossfit mobility videos. Good if you need to hold stretches and positions for a long time to see results. There is a 7 day free trial.

Insight meditation app for your phone or tablet. Loads of guided meditations or just use the timer.