Session 5 Mindfulness, routines and motivation

This session will talk about:

1. What is mindfulness and how we can use it when we’re eating

2. What it takes to change routines and habits

3. What keeps us motivated, and ways to keep us on track

Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is steadfast. - Anon

The next few weeks…

The next few weeks will be in smaller groups. This is to give you more opportunity to talk and share in a smaller and more comfortable space. 

We will also be asking you to try some things that may be new, different or unusual. Our request is that you whole-heartedly try these strategies, even if you feel they are strange or are unsure how it will help you. We are always happy to explain further if something doesn’t make sense, so if you have questions please ask us either during the group, or afterwards. 

Mindfulness

You may have come across the term ‘Mindfulness’ before. Mindfulness is essentially being aware and deliberately focusing on your present state: the actions you are doing, what might be going through your head as you do it, and noticing what is happening around you at the same time. 

Being mindful is essential for making changes: if you aren’t aware of what you are doing, and why you are doing it, it becomes very hard to change it to something else. 

By being mindful, you will start to notice a lot more about yourself. You may start to pick up unhelpful patterns that you didn’t realise before. You could become more aware of how particular thoughts or feelings that you experience during the day, as well as how they affect what you do. 

Mindfulness is a skill; like any other skill, it takes practice to learn and can feel very difficult to do at first. Over the next few weeks, we will be working on strategies that build mindfulness through making you aware of certain things you experience each day.

Mindful eating

Have you ever sat down at the movies with a bucket of popcorn, and found you’ve eaten most of the bucket before the ads are even over? 

This is mindless eating. Being mindless is like being on autopilot: we aren’t really paying attention to what we’re doing, and instead our minds are elsewhere. Mindless eating is common, particularly if we tend to eat while doing other things like working or watching tv. 

The issue with mindless eating is that we are likely to serve ourselves more than we need, eat too quickly, and not pay attention to our bodies telling us that we have had enough. 

How to eat mindfully

The opposite of mindless eating is mindful eating. By eating mindfully, we:
1. Eat slower and chew our food more (this helps our digestion)

2. Give our brain time to catch up to our stomach and tell us when to stop

3. Experience and enjoy our food

Eating mindfully takes practice and planning to remember to eat in this way. Set out some time for you to try this out every day until your next session, and add this to your goals for this week. 

Routines

Our bodies and our minds work on routines. Routines mean things become habits, and over time take less mental energy to do. Working our health into our daily routine through practice and perseverance makes it easier to achieve over time. 

An example of a daily routine might include having set times for:

Waking up and going to bed

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner times

Walks or exercise

Relaxation, hobbies

You might also have a weekly routine where you exercise, meal shop or plan, or do other activities on certain days.

Working your healthy lifestyle habits into a routine makes it easier for you to remember them, and your body becomes used to doing these activities. Having them already set means that you don’t need to think about squeezing them into your schedule later. 

Example of a routine..

When starting to develop your own routine, first think about the non-negotiable things that we usually need to stick to? Include things you might want to make non-negotiable even if they aren’t all the way there yet. 

1. Sleep and wake up times

2. Work

3. Other planned activities, kid’s activities, etc…

Now what other things do you want to start adding into your life?

1. Time for planning and preparing meals

2. Time to exercise and engage in physical activity

3. Hobbies, interests, social activities

4. Family activities

5. Other

Sleep

One of the best routines you can set up is a good sleep schedule. Sleep is important: we repair our bodies, recharge our energy levels and regulate our hormones when we sleep. We also have better mood, a better frame of mind, and are able to make wiser choices about our health. 

Many things affect our sleep. If you can stick to these principles, these will set up the groundwork for a good night of sleep. Sleep tight!

1.  Keep on time: Have a bed time schedule (waking and sleeping at the same time every day, including weekends). This sets your body up to start getting tired at the right time, and being awake at the right time. 

2.  Bed time rituals: If you do the same things each night for the half hour to hour before bedtime, your body learns the cues for sleep (just like the eating cues from session 4)

3.  Bedroom for sleep: Try and keep your bed for sleep only. This means your body learns that when you lie down on your bed, it is time for sleep. If you get used to doing work, watching tv or playing games, doing your taxes, etc. on your bed, your body doesn’t link your bed to sleep. 

4.  Eating habits: Our diet affects our sleep. Eating too late in the night, and having foods or drinks with caffeine can get in the way of our sleep.

5.  Limit screen time: Think about when you get woken up by the sun coming in through your window. Screens (your tv, mobile phone, tablets, computer) act in the same way: the light stops your body releasing the hormones that make you tired and ready to sleep. 

Habits

Let’s say you wanted to start brushing your teeth with the opposite hand compared to normal tonight. To make sure you did it, you would probably have to:

Know which hand you normally use to brush your teeth

Remember to switch at the right time, and notice when you’re about to do the old habit (using your regular hand to brush)

Continue remembering and thinking about using the opposite hand, to make sure you don’t accidentally switch back without noticing

Repeat it until using the opposite hand becomes a habit

This is how we change habits. It takes a lot of thinking and preparing, and then mental energy to do the new action. It then takes a lot of repeats until we finally make the new action a habit.

In the toothbrush example from above, these are examples of how someone might have been able to change their habit of using a particular hand, and switch to the opposite hand. 

What is the habit you want to change?	Brushing teeth with right hand
How will you notice when you start doing the old habit?	Put a sticky note on the bathroom mirror to remind myself to notice
What’s the new action you want to do, and how will you make sure you do it?	Put a rubber band on my right hand, so when I see it in the mirror I know I’ve switched back
When are you going to repeat this new action?	Every time morning and night when I brush my teeth
What’s the new habit?	Brushing teeth with left hand

What would your version be for some habits you would like to shift?

1.

What is the habit you want to change?
How will you notice when you start doing the old habit?
What’s the new action you want to do, and how will you make sure you do it?
When are you going to repeat this new action?
What’s the new habit?

2.

What is the habit you want to change?
How will you notice when you start doing the old habit?
What’s the new action you want to do, and how will you make sure you do it?
When are you going to repeat this new action?
What’s the new habit?

Old habits are like a well-worn path through the bush: going down that path is easy. Making a new habit is hard; you need to be working to clear a new path, which takes effort. Only through going through that new path will a new habit become stronger and stick, while the old path slowly becomes more overgrown and more strange to go down. 

Motivation

Many of us have tried to change our health in the past. While we might be able to stick to a new regime for a week or two, very often we end up giving up and back where we started. Often a health scare or something else unpleasant got us started. 

But what will keep us going?

We know people are most motivated when they are working to get away from something unpleasant, and at the same time working towards something we want. That would mean while you might be trying to improve your health because of something the Doctor has said to you, it is equally important to think about the goals and things you are working on gaining as well.  

We can change our language to match what we’re getting away from, and what we’re working towards. For example:

The 7 ‘Rs’ 

1.    Reminders: Use notes, alarms etc. to help you remember your health plans. You can use post-it notes, phone alarms, symbols, calendar reminders

2.    Records: Monitoring and keeping track of what you’re doing helps you stay aware and mindful! No more autopilot! Diaries, calendars or tracking apps are easy ways to do this, such as Easy Diet Diary or My Fitness Pal

3.    Rewards: Treat yourself for a job well done: whether it is something you have been saving up for, a special night in watching a favourite movie, etc.

4.    Routines: Setting up the same time every day or every week for an activity makes it a lot easier to schedule life around your health, rather than the other way around. You can set up what you’re doing each day and have a particular time to do it

5.    Relationships: It’s no fun doing things on your own all the time. Friends and family can support and join you. Find someone who builds you up, not puts you down: find a fitness buddy or wellbeing friend you can rely on

6.    Reflecting: We’ve been practicing this every week: what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s the next step? This way, you’re always improving and getting closer to your goals. Set aside some time each week to think how things are going

7.    Restructuring: Changing the world around us can make it easier to stick to our health goals. Whether it getting smaller plates for your food, putting the office lolly jar out of sight, or even hiding the TV remote so you have to get up to change the channel! Notice what affects your progress, and change it up!

Which ‘R’ will you try?

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How will you put it in place over the next week?
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Goal Setting

What’s your next nutrition goal? 

Look back at the nutrition non-negotiables and pick the next one you will achieve this week.

You will find some extra food monitoring forms in the appendix at the back of this workbook. If you find these helpful, feel free to photocopy more for your use. Otherwise, other tracking apps or your own diary are nice ways to continue monitoring what you eat.

What’s your physical activity goal? 

What can you start doing this week? 

What can you do from this week’s information? 

Some new information on healthy eating and mindful eating was given today. What can you try out this week?

Summary

By next week…

By next week, you will have…

1. Worked on your next nutrition goal 

2. Worked on your physical activity goal

3. Worked on something you learned from this week’s information on mindful eating, using routines and strategies to keep motivated and on track

4. Continued with monitoring your food and activity levels 

5. Continued working on your social goal