Month: January 2022

Go Team! January 22: Encourage Yourself
fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team! January 22: Encourage Yourself

Christine Hennebury

I’ve written all kinds of things about not getting discouraged and about celebrating your wins and about noticing your progress and being kind to yourself as you build your habits but I don’t think I have said this loud and clear yet:

PLEASE CHEER YOURSELF ON!

You probably aren’t used to cheering yourself on.

We all have a lot more training in keeping a detailed mental record of the ways we fall short of our plans, the times that we don’t meet our goals, and the things that don’t turn out the way we thought they would.

This isn’t the same as celebrating your wins. That’s a tricky practice in itself but, for many people, it’s a little more straightforward than cheering themselves on – you track something and celebrate when you see a change.

Cheering yourself on is motivating yourself to make an effort, it’s about noticing that effort, and reminding yourself that your effort matters.

Hmmmm, where have I heard that before? (imagine my friendly, slightly smirking expression here)

I’m thrilled to be able to offer you a gold star every day and to remind you that your efforts matter but I would also like for you to be able to practice that regularly on your own.

(Yes, I am asking you to put a practice on top of the practice you are already working on. I am ruthless like that. )

When I’m doing a Yoga with Adriene video and she asks us to say, aloud, ‘I am strong.’ I feel silly but I do it anyway and then that silliness is (mostly) replaced by the thought ‘Huh, I AM strong.” Which is way better for cheering myself on than the other thought (How long to I have to hold this?) that would probably be running through my head otherwise.

If I turn on an exercise video and say ‘Ok, Christine, let’s go!’ I feel much more energized that if I start with ‘Ugh, I guess I should do this.’ (You saw that vile word should in that sentence, right? *shudder*)

If I remind myself that I overcome challenges all the time, if I roll my shoulders back and take a deep breath before I begin my practice, or if I give myself a solemn nod or a high five in the mirror as I start my day, I feel better about my practice and my momentum.

All of those actions make me notice and acknowledge the efforts that I am making on my own behalf.

Now, I am not suggesting that you need to become sort of ridiculously-positive, high-energy whirlwind. After all, I DID say it was ok to grumble. You only need to do the things that work well for you. And frankly, if angry self-care or pushing through is all you need then forge ahead!

But I always like to have a variety of tools at my disposal and cheering myself on through my day, through a practice, or through a few extra seconds of plank has proven to be an extremely useful tool.

Cheering myself on never fails to remind me that even though things might be challenging, my efforts count.

Today’s Invitation

So, today, I invite you to find a way to cheer yourself on as you build your habits.

Can you choose an encouraging phrase to repeat or an action to take that signals that you have shown up on your own behalf?

Can you set a reminder on your phone or your email that tells you that your efforts matter? You don’t have to make it an embarrassing string of words – you could choose a gold star (obviously!) or a turtle (slow and steady wins the race) or a crown or a medal or a cookie or anything else that helps you take a moment to notice your efforts and (hopefully) to agree that you are doing pretty damn good with this whole practice thing thankyouverymuch.

You can also do a screencap of the gold stars I have shared here and send them to yourself one at a time with scheduled emails.

(The details are up to you, of course. Just please find the thing that will serve you best – don’t do this just because it works for me!)

No matter what kind of self-encouragement you choose, I’m offering this gold star as encouragement from me.

As always, you matter. Your efforts matter. It is ok to take time to take good care of yourself and it is ok for you to choose the form that will take for today.

Go Team!

A small drawing of a gold star with a variety of black and white patterns in the background.
I went all in with meditative drawing for my ritual this morning. After drawing the gold star, I filled in the background with a variety of doodle patterns. Image description: a small drawing of a gold star with a variety of black and white patterns in the background. Some patterns are overlapping lines, others are spirals or circles. The card is sitting on a wooden tabletop.

For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.

morning types and evening types, with a sun and moon to illustrate Why it doesn’t matter whether you exercise in the morning or evening
fitness · research

Why it doesn’t matter whether you exercise in the morning or evening

catherine w2 Comments

This week, the NY Times published an article with the headline “Is is better to exercise in the morning or evening?” The answer, when I dug into their article and the original research paper, was this: we learned many groovy facts about male mouse metabolism this week, but we still don’t know what time of day is best for you (a human) to exercise. Or even them (the mice), really.

Huh. You might be wondering why, after the NYT went to all the trouble to write this headline, that they don’t have an answer for us. And then there are those scientific researchers, who published this paper that shows a lot of results and many beautiful multicolored charts and graphs.

types of tissue samples they took from mice after their once exercise session.
types of tissue samples they took from mice after their once exercise session.
biomarkers from tissues of active vs. sedentary guy mice.
biomarkers from tissues of active vs. sedentary guy mice.
I got no idea what this is showing. I can’t even really read it.

And yet. I maintain that we still don’t know what time of day is better for exercising. Why not? Here are some reasons.

No one has worked out and gotten other people to agree about what counts as a “better” or “best” time to exercise. Better in what sense? Feels best? Burns the most calories? Burns the least calories? Results in quickest muscle recovery? Contributes most efficiently to this or that training goal?

These are all really different ways to optimize on an exercise session. The researchers do mention time-dependent metabolic processes and effects on the mice-bros, but don’t offer general recommendations. The NYT article cites some studies (here and here) done on type-2 diabetic dudes (always and only the dudes… sigh) that show preferential effects from afternoon exercise. But that’s a particular sub-group, so the results don’t apply to everyone.

This study was done ON MICE. So, any effects they found, they found IN MICE. Yes, animal studies are common and often helpful in directing further investigation. But these results don’t tell us much of anything about humans. Which is no one’s fault, because the research subjects were MICE.

Mouse on a mouse-exercise wheel. Go mouse, go!
Mouse on a mouse-exercise wheel.

The study used only male subjects. In this case, it was male mice. Argh. So, if you’re a non-male person reading this, then you can’t know if the study results (if they had something even approaching advisory, which they don’t) apply to you. This is not a one-off case. Recall the research articles the NYT cited testing the metabolic effects of different exercise times on type-2 diabetes. They only used male subjects, too.

Woman fit to be tied, about to pull her hair out. Yeah, that's me.
Woman fit to be tied, about to pull her hair out. Yeah, that’s me (metaphorically).

What the research article never mentions and what the NYT saves until the end of their piece is the number one reason why it doesn’t matter whether I exercise in the morning or evening: the best time to exercise is the time I actually can and will and do exercise; it doesn’t matter when I move; it matters THAT I move. Here’s what the NYT said:

…as additional studies build on this one’s results, we may become better able to time our workouts to achieve specific health goals. Follow-up studies likely will tell us, for instance, if an evening bike ride or run might stave off diabetes more effectively than a morning brisk walk or swim.

But for now, Dr. Chow said, “the best time for people to exercise would be whenever they can get a chance to exercise.”

Yes, I can fully endorse that recommendation.

Readers, do you need to know what ways you can optimize on your physical activity? Do these results matter to you? Do you have your own optimal times, or do you mix it up in your workout schedule? I’d love to hear from you.

Go Team! January 21: Support Systems
ADHD · fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team! January 21: Support Systems

Christine Hennebury

As yet another alarm went off on my phone this morning, I started thinking about our support systems and how you might make good use of them as you build your practices.

Note: every time you see the words should or shouldn’t in this post, please imagine me rolling my eyes and sighing it out as if I am fed up with the very concept of it. Because I am.

Story time

(There is no escape from my stories.)

Because I have ADHD, I use a lot of external cues to help me do the things that I want to do. I have umpteen timers, reminders, and alarms. I make good use of the timer on the stove when I am in the kitchen. I try to shape my environment by putting things in the place where I will need them – like putting my meds on the kitchen table before I go to bed so I will see them first thing in the morning. I have routines and checklists. I ask other people for reminders and I have accountability partners for all kinds of tasks. *

Before I was medicated (and especially before I was diagnosed), I tried to get away without using most of those things. I felt that, as an adult, I shouldn’t need so many reminders to get through the day – especially since, in many contexts, I have a good memory. I tried to fake my way along – this is called masking, by the way – and I did ok sometimes, maybe even most of the time, but with A LOT of additional stress and worry.

It was MUCH harder for me to manage the details of my life and to follow through on my plans without those things. Once I was diagnosed, I gave myself ‘permission’ to use any supports that worked for me and life got a bit easier. Once I was medicated, I could make even better use of those supports, and every increase in my medication makes them more and more useful to me.

Accepting that it was ok to have that support system in my days made a huge difference in my life. I could use more of my mental energy to actually do the things I wanted to do instead of using that energy to try and remember to do them.

And the really annoying thing is that I could have been saving that energy all along by just letting myself do things the way that I needed to do them. I could have had those supports in place all along and felt much better every day.

Instead, I fell victim to our cultural message that if things are difficult it is because we aren’t working hard enough. From that perspective, my reminders and notes and systems would be a sign of being inept or being weak, or being stupid.

What a load of crap, hey?

Now that I am aware of that whole set of messaging, I am so annoyed. I am annoyed with the message and I am annoyed that I was stuck in that mindset for so long.

Find/create/use your support systems

Maybe ADHD isn’t an issue for you but I’ll bet that you have other things that get in your way as you try to build your new practice.

You don’t need a reason or an excuse to seek support. I know it can be hard to seek support or help but don’t let the idea that you shouldn’t need it be part of the challenge of asking.

If you need a reminder, a pep talk, or some sort of tool in order to remember/start/do/complete your practice, then please seek those things out and use them.

Please don’t should yourself out of making your own life a little easier.

Try to think in terms of solutions instead of whether you should need support.

Use the timer on your phone, your watch, your stove, or your computer.

Stick notes all over the place. I often write notes in dry-erase marker on my bathroom mirror and I frequently attach sticky notes to my kettle. I have also been known to put a sticky note on my phone, which I find hilarious – a literal note to self on my phone!

If you need a pep talk, ask your friends for one or look up pep talks on YouTube, TikTok, or on a podcast app.

If you need an accountability partner, check for online groups who are doing a similar practice to yours. Or ask on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram or via text for someone to check in with you after a certain amount of time.

If your arms are strong enough to lift some weights but gripping them hurts your hands, could you wear gloves? Could you put the weight in a bag that is easier for you to lift?

If you don’t want to get on your yoga mat because it is hard to get back up off the floor, what can you use to help yourself up?

In fact, yoga can be an excellent example of how to casually allow yourself to use the supports you need. In yoga, you are supposed to meet yourself where you are today. If you can’t reach the floor with your fingertips, you put a block down and touch that instead. If you are struggling with a pose, you either adjust it to meet your needs or you use a strap, a bolster, a blanket, or a block to support your efforts.

Today’s Invitation

I know that it is hard to ask for support, even if we are just asking ourselves to use something that makes our lives easier.

This whole cultural thing we have around independence and how we should be able to operate with out support is a racket but it is a pervasive one. It keeps us all stuck and prevents us from getting the help to manage all kinds of situations.**

Today, I’m inviting you to seek and use supports for your practice, whether those supports are post-it notes or a friend to walk with you. Let yourself make your own life easier whenever possible.

And here is your gold star for today’s efforts, whatever they entail.

Your efforts matter. You matter. And it is ok for you to ask for help, to use supports, and do the things you need to do in the way that you need to do them.

Sending you ease.

a small drawing of a gold star surrounded by black dots
It occurred to me that I should try to make my star drawings connect to the topic of the day but then I noticed the word ‘should’ in that sentence. Should is always a sign that I need to reconsider. If I start trying to connect my drawings and my topic, it will box me in and make it a bit harder to do my drawing (and my writing) and that goes against my big picture plans for spaciousness. Sooooo, I’ll just stick to drawing whatever star shows up when I start moving my pen. Image description: a drawing of a gold star surrounded by tiny black dots on a white card. The edges of the card are outlined in a wavy black line and the card is resting on a black computer keyboard

*Because of how the huge variety of ADHD traits work in each individual brain, all ADHDers will have some traits in common with others and also have their own unique spin on the condition. Most of the time, my reminders, timers, and environmental shaping works for me but for other people with ADHD, these things may not work at all. Please DO NOT use me as an example of why someone else should be able to use these things effectively.

**For this post, I am generally talking about some pretty straightforward things, small supports that we can use to expand toward our new habits. But, I want to acknowledge that this same thinking trap extends in all directions and has all kinds of deep implications for vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society. Vulnerable and disadvantaged people are discouraged from asking for the things they need. If they do ask, they are criticized, judged, and put through all kinds of extra work and invasive questions to try and get it. And many of us with privileges and advantages are encouraged to think of this as ‘the way things are’ because we are used to the ambient sense that no one should ask for support and that becoming an independent person who can do everything on their own is the ultimate goal. Obviously, this post about supports for the practice you are building isn’t going to create social change but I didn’t want to pretend that the need for support in our society stops at a pep talk or putting a chair next to your yoga mat.

fitness

Angry self care: it’s a thing

marthafitat552 Comments

Some of you may remember the funny meme circulating last winter of a winter scene featuring a baleful eagle. In case you can’t remember, or didn’t see it the first go around, here you go:

The meme struck a chord with me. I have never been someone who goes for leisurely walks. I do enjoy a good brisk walk, or a lovely stomp, especially when I am trying to work out a problem for a client.

The pandemic has brought home for me the need to maintain regular physical activity, so when I came across this reel on Instagram with a reference to angry self care, I was intrigued. The video shows a person who presents as young, able, and white making her way determinedly and spiritedly down a snowy street.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CYH5eN_LR1E/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

There’s something appealing about angry self care, the same way rage baking took off as a way to ease and redirect rage and anxiety in the last Republican presidency. We often see anger as a negative emotion when it can actually be a spur to useful and productive activity that takes us outside our headspace and repeating interior monologues.

Going for a walk, drinking your water, getting your sleep, meeting your swimming goals to name a few examples are all great ways to look after yourself and aren’t really stupid at all. However, as this pandemic stretches on, even the most positive and optimistic among us have days when we don’t feel like doing all the healthy things. That’s when stupid walks can help.

These days I can get down with some motivational resentment. If it gets me out the door, why not? Come join me. Get your footwear, get your coat, and yank that hoodie on your head. Or put on an especially stompworthy tune — like London Calling by the Clash or Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life — and stomp your fine self around your space.

MarthaFitat55 really enjoys good stomp for her mental health. She hopes you will too.

Go Team! January 20: You’re Worth It
fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team! January 20: You’re Worth It

Christine Hennebury

Have you ever sat around feeling kind of meh about doing anything but then someone needed you and you sprang into action to help them out? Didn’t you feel less meh when you were done? Maybe kinda tired but decidedly less meh?

You probably decided to take action for them because you value them, they are important to you, and you want them to be happy and at ease. *

They are worth taking action for.

Well, Team, I’ve got some news for you: YOU are also worth taking action for.

Let’s talk about that a little.

Inertial Meh

I know it is tricky to generate internal motivation sometimes. Inertia is a powerful force.

Plans, and encouragement, and rituals can help but there will still be days when things are kind of meh.

Even if your practice is important to you. Even if you really want to do it. Even if you have the time and the capacity and the ability to do it. You still may struggle.

And that’s ok. It doesn’t mean that you have given up. It doesn’t mean that you don’t ‘really’ want to build your habit. It just means that things are, well, meh, right now.

If that meh feeling compels you to rest, have at it.

But, if that meh feeling is generating thoughts like ‘This isn’t worth the effort.’ ‘I won’t bother.’ ‘Who cares if I do this?’ or ‘It’s not making any difference anyway.’ Then I want to remind you of why you are putting in the work to build a habit in the first place.

You Want Something Different

Sorry to spoiler you by putting the main point in the heading but here we are.

You want something different in your life. You want to be stronger or calmer or more flexible or to have more ease or to have less pain. And your planned practice is a path toward that new thing, that expanded self.

Yes, it takes effort. Some days are easy, some days are hard, and some days you have to take a break. But you are trending toward the difference you are trying to create.

If you knew that your effort on this meh day was going to make a difference for someone you care about, if it was going to move them in the direction of something they wanted for themselves, you would be up stretching/dancing/meditating/practicing your Taekwon-Do/doing the hokey-pokey and turning yourself around, in a heart beat.

Today’s Invitation

I’d like to invite you to treat yourself with the same kind of care and compassion.

I’d like you to consider your practice as a way to put that caring and compassion into action.

You, your well-being, your feeling of ease, your sense of satisfaction, are worth the effort to do your practice.

It may not be fun today. It may not be easy. But, like Nicole said in her post today. It can be worth it to push through.

You matter. Your efforts matter. You are worth taking care of.

It makes sense to put effort into your well-being, even when you feel meh.

And my robot friend here is offering you a gold star for your efforts today, whether your efforts were epic or whether they were about creating a tiny sliver of space in your brain for the idea that you are worth the effort you need to put in to have something different in your life.

an ink drawing of a robot holding a gold star
I don’t just draw gold stars, sometimes I like to draw a robot holding a gold star. That’s me, living on the edge over here. Image description: An ink drawing of a mostly rectangular robot with arms drawn as spirally wires. The robot is holding a gold star and smiling. The drawing is on a small white card and the card is resting on my black keyboard.

*Yes, I know this is a very positive spin here. You might also spring into action to avert disaster, to get someone to stop whining, to prevent a mess, or because you don’t want to/are unable to face the repercussions of inaction. I’m not denying or downplaying the existence of that sort of motivation but for this post I am talking about times when you’re just kind of sitting there and ANY sort of request from someone you care about can shake you out of your malaise.

For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.

fitness

Pushing through

Nicole P,7 Comments

It’s Tuesday morning in the third week of January. It’s the 22nd month of the pandemic. It’s been about a month since Omicron reared it’s ugly head and asked us to pull back from our gradually easing lives, so that we can try to stop the spread. Some people do. Some people don’t. People have different views. Individualism veiled as fatigue or self-determination. Collectivism veiled as hermitism or hysteria.

There has been a big snow storm. The biggest since 1999 in Toronto. A city prepared for snow but not expecting it. Even in mid-January.

Bad news abounds in people’s circles. Pandemics don’t stop senility, cancer, old age, seniors from falling. Bodies age and house people who want to live and who many other people love. Don’t forget your privilege to worry about these things. Young people get sick and die too. Scan the apps and see people huddled in public busses to stay warm. You’d like to feed and house them all but there is not a simple way to do so.

There is good news too. Some people are getting better despite the odds. The sun is shining a lot these days, as it tends to do on the coldest days. Work is there. There is the ability to do it with a coffee in hand, food in the fridge and the furnace is working. There are friends to commiserate with. Amy Schneider’s incredible winning streak on Jeopardy. Communities, such as FIFI, that look at things that may seem mundane, relating to fitness and health, in a way that hopes to make the world a better place. There are husbands who make sure a new bottle of face cream is ready to go behind the almost empty one in the bathroom cabinet. There are snuggles and laughs and dogs. Thank goodness for dogs.

There is exercise. Something many lament but is something that gets me through. Some days exercise feels like all I need. Whether running in the sun, spinning with a Peloton instructor or laughing in the park with a coach while doing more jump squats than I thought possible.

But, some days are sticky. You wake up with your Fitbit telling you that you slept well. You have a 90 score. But, why are you so tired? You’ve had your coffee. Played Wordle. Smugly shown your husband that you got it in less tries than him (only because it is so rare to be better at a game than him). You know which 60 minute ride you plan to do, but you are sluggish. You bitch about the world for a few minutes. Something you try not to do first thing in the morning. Then you get yourself set up to ride.

You start the ride, waiting for the endorphins to kick in. Waiting for it to feel easy and fun and fast and satisfyingly steep. The music CDE is playing that day isn’t your favourite. You have to pee AGAIN but trying to hold it so as not to interfere with the ride. You try to sync your Fitbit with Strava for some incentive to go faster but that doesn’t work. But you keep going.

You ALMOST get off the bike. But you keep going. You modify some of the intervals to your liking (I will stand and run if I want to – no offence CDE). The last 10 minutes have finally arrived. You can’t give up now. You decide to go faster. Head down, sweat dripping. You close your eyes and try to let your mind go blank and enjoy the fast moving pedals. The few moments of your day you are actually in control of how things might go. It’s brief, but you feel the high. You pushed through. You have that. It may not have been your fastest or hardest but you PUSHED through.

There are times in life it is OK to take breaks. But when you can – it can be so worth it to push through. That is the beauty of endurance exercise for me.

Nicole P. lives in Toronto with her husband and two dogs (sorry Pope Francis) and craves her daily exercise whether running, spinning or HIIT strength workouts.
Go Team! January 19: Create a Ritual
fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team! January 19: Create a Ritual

Christine Hennebury

Do you find it hard to start new tasks or to switch from one task to another? I do.

It’s not that I don’t WANT to do the next thing. It’s that if I am already doing something it feels incredibly hard to stop. And then it feels hard to start the other thing. And all of that creates a lot of static around the task I plan to do.

I imagine that this happens to everyone sometimes. Especially if you are enjoying (or are committed to) the task at hand or if the task ahead is poorly defined.

My ADHD brain has been known to get caught in a task switching loop for ages. I might keep telling myself that I will do ‘just this last part’ of the task at hand. Or I may know that I need to start something else but I can’t quite make myself do it. The task ahead could be something I love doing or something that is very important to me, and I still struggle to start it.

Whether or not you have ADHD, I’ll be that something similar comes up for you, at least sometimes, when you are trying to practice your new habit.

Your habit may be important to you. Your action may be relatively easy. You may not even be enjoying your current activity. But you are still a victim of inertia, you still feel unable to get started.

That’s when a ritual* can come in handy.

A ritual gives you somewhere to start, an on-ramp, and it lets you see the path ahead as a series of steps instead of sheer drop into (insert ominous voice here) THAT THING YOU MUST DO.

Your ritual doesn’t have to be complex and it doesn’t have to involve anything from beyond the veil (but feel free, if that’s your sort of thing), it just has to give you a way to get started.

Let me give you an example.

Story Time!

One day last week, I was caught in a can’t-get-started loop about one of these posts. I knew what I wanted to say. I was interested in writing about it. And I knew that it had to be posted that day at 2pm EST. My brain wasn’t having it.

I tried logic-ing my way out of it but still no go. And since I couldn’t write this, my brain wouldn’t let me write anything else. So, I went to my back-up back-up plan and started to draw.

I drew a gold star, of course.

And then I realized that I could use the drawing as the star for my post.

So I took a photo and uploaded it into a draft post. And I gave the post a name. And I set up the tags and categories. And did an image description.

And, as I sat there, looking at a screen with all of the detail-oriented bits already done, it was suddenly much easier to start writing.

The next day, I started by drawing and then I went through all the same steps. I’ve used this same little ritual for 5 out of the last 6 posts. (My post for Saturday was about going easy on yourself and it was pretty easy to write, I didn’t need the ritual.)

Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk to write but instead of actually writing, I was putting pencils away and tidying all the stuff on my desk. Instead of just trying to push myself to start, I actually said aloud “Oh, right! I start by drawing!” and I grabbed one the half-index cards from the box on my desk and drew a gold star and surrounded it with lines. Once that was done, I knew the next step was to take a photo.

Having the ritual doesn’t remove all the challenges of getting started but it does reduce them and there is momentum built into the process.

If you have trouble getting your practice started, having a ritual could really help.

Today’s Invitation

Today, I’m inviting you to prepare for a time when it is hard to get started on your practice. Even if today isn’t particularly hard, it can be useful to use the ritual so it becomes part of the momentum of your practice even sooner.

So, what kinds of things could help you get started?

Could you play a specific song (or part of one) as you set up or as you do the first parts of your practice? Or could you have some specific phrases that you say to get you started?

Is there a specific piece of clothing you could put on or furniture that you could move/close/open/cover that could signal that you are getting started? Would it help to write out your practice like a checklist?

Could you make a ceremony out of putting out your mat? Or maybe light a candle or turn on a specific lamp? Would it help to tell someone else you plan to do your practice? Perhaps your ritual could involve putting on a specific TV show or podcast?

The details of the ritual will differ from person to person, of course. The important thing is that you have something that prompts your brain to accept that *this* is the time when you do your practice.

Gold Star!

Here is your gold star for your efforts today, no matter what they were.

Please be kind to yourself about the things that feel hard and celebrate the work that you have put into everything you did today.

(My ritual for writing these posts includes drawing. It doesn’t include worrying about whether the drawing is perfect. Please apply that to your own rituals and may those rituals serve you well.)

a drawing of a person perched on a stone wall lifting a gold star on to a hook hanging from the sky.
Image description: a small drawing of a long-haired person in a pink dress perched on a stone wall reaching overhead to a gold star on to a hook hanging from the sky. The drawing is on a small card that is resting against a black computer keyboard on a white desktop.

*You might prefer to call it a routine and that works marvellously. I chose ritual because I like the connotation of invoking great power and because I like the idea that people might use ritual words or movements as a starting point.

Wordless, with blue circle and three blue dots. Mostly-wordless Wednesday
fitness · Wordless

Mostly-wordless Wednesday

catherine w1 Comment

For immediate release: If fish are driving now, how soon before they’re cycling?

Has everyone seen the story about the fish who were taught to drive by dedicated (but clearly bored with their regular research) scientists? Just in case you haven’t (or want to see it again), here it is.

Goldfish operating a fish tank on wheels, hopefully on a side street. One wonders how they got informed consent to conduct this research.

This got me to wondering: if fish are learning to drive now, can they also be taught to ride a bike?

A unicycle makes more sense, as fish don’t have hands for the handlebars.

You heard it here first, folks…

Go Team! January 18: Give Yourself Some Credit
fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team! January 18: Give Yourself Some Credit

Christine Hennebury

I hope that you have been collecting your gold stars for your daily efforts but have you been taking a moment to really give yourself credit for your hard work?

Whenever I chat with people about their efforts to build a new habit or routine, I usually discover that they are not giving themselves enough credit for the work they are putting in and they dismiss the impact of the challenges they face to do that work.

Since I really want you to be able to recognize all of your efforts and claim your well-deserved credit, let’s have a closer look at your work and at your obstacles.

Dealing With Obstacles Takes Effort

Lots of motivation-minded people try to cheer us on by saying things like ‘we’re all in the same boat’ or ‘we all have the same 24 hours to work with.’ And then they follow that up by some comment that implies that if the reader just focused and got their act together, they too could achieve the ideal results on display.

This is bullshit, of course.

Aside from the glaring lack of awareness of the privilege on display in those phrases, no two people are living the same life or facing the same obstacles. Even people with the same size families living in the same economic conditions with the same educational background and the same basic daily routines are not facing the same challenges. From a strictly chronological sense, we have the same 24 hours in each day but in a practical sense some people have a lot to deal with minute to minute while others have a very smooth path.

You may see yourself as being ‘just like’ your friend who can easily get up at 5am for yoga and chastise yourself for not being able to do that, too. But maybe their internal clock is set to different hours than yours. Maybe their children sleep through the night. Maybe your body is structured differently than theirs and yoga isn’t accessible for you. Maybe you have early morning obligations that prevent you from focusing on yoga at that point in the day. Maybe you are dealing with all of that and your morning starts at 7 and you do a few neck stretches before plunging into your day.

Sure, from a energy burning standpoint, you have put in “less” effort with your stretches than they put into their yoga.

But from a giving-yourself-credit standpoint, you are putting in far more effort. They can roll out of bed and hop on their mat, you have to overcome a bunch of obstacles to do a few a neck stretches.

I don’t really mean to frame this as a competition but since we tend to compare ourselves to others and find ourselves lacking, I thought it might be useful to be at least a bit more realistic about it.

For some habits, on some days, it will be easy to do what we planned. On other days, we have an uphill battle to do our placeholder habit. That is not a failing on our part. That is a victory. And we need to give ourselves credit for that.

In fact, we also need to give ourselves credit for the days that we decide to NOT include our new habit so we can get more sleep, connect with someone important to us, or just to rest. Making that decision is a victory too. After all, we’re not building these habits for their own sake, we’re building them to enhance our experiences in our own lives.

So, instead of being hard on ourselves for doing something “less” than what someone else did, let’s give ourselves credit for the effort we put in to be able to work on our habit.

It’s Still Hard Even If You’re Used To It

And, for heaven’s sake, please object when your brain coughs up things like ‘But it has been this way for so long I should be used to it!’

That ‘should’ in there is a clue to pay close attention.

Even if you are used to things being this way, THEY ARE STILL HARD. Give yourself credit for those efforts. You are still busy. You are still spending a lot of energy just to get through your day.

Denying that is like telling an Olympic weightlifter that their weights must be light because they can lift them. The weight is objectively, measurably heavy. Most people couldn’t easily lift it. It took training and a lot of effort on the athlete’s part to reach that point and no sensible person would suggest otherwise.

The energy and effort you need to do the things required of you every day are unique. What feels easy for you is hard for someone else. What’s hard for you might seem easy for someone else.* Or it might LOOK like they find it easy but they are like the proverbial duck, floating along on the pond with their feet paddling furiously beneath.

The key here is that you give yourself credit for all the effort involved in adding your new practice to your life, even if you are used to challenges in your day to day.

Don’t pretend that the obstacles weren’t there, give yourself credit and make those obstacles part of your celebration of your efforts.

Coax yourself out of saying things like ‘I’m so worn out from getting dressed that I could only do neck stretches.’ Instead, try ‘I’m so worn out from getting dressed AND I still managed to do these neck stretches!’

It will be weird at first but I think you’ll like it over time.

Today’s Invitation

Today, I’m inviting you to notice the challenges you are facing on your path to incorporating your practice into your life and to give yourself credit for them.

If you don’t take the time to notice these things, it can be easy to feel like you aren’t working hard enough on your practices and then you can get into a whole negative mental tangle.**

The truth is most of us have a lot of things to deal with every day and the impact of those things will vary depending on all kinds of factors. Acknowledging their impact is not making excuses or letting ourselves away with anything, it’s being realistic and choosing to have compassion for ourselves.

Here’s your gold star for your efforts today, whether those efforts are applied to your practice, to getting to your practice, to thinking about your practice or to taking the time to notice the obstacles to your practice.

You matter. Your struggles matter. Your efforts count.

A small white card with a gold star outlined in black lines rests against a black keyboard on a white desk.
Today’s gold star was fun to draw and I am mesmerized by looking at it. Image description: a small white card with a gold star drawn in the middle. The star is surrounded by black lines that outline the star at regular intervals to the edge of the paper. The card is resting against a black keyboard on a white desk.

*They might also be PRETENDING it is easy but that’s a whole other issue!

**A few years ago, I was having extra trouble focusing on my work and for some reason I decided to make a list to see what might be affecting me. I felt a bit foolish and like I was complaining too much but I made a huge list of everything that was bothering me, even in the slightest. When I looked the length of the list, I had the helpful idea to put it on a timeline. That’s when I realized that I had some challenges that I had been going on for at least 5 years that were still requiring effort at that moment, others were 2 years, 3 years, a few days, weeks or months. Some of those challenges were internal, others were things I was supporting other people through. It was incredibly enlightening and I could immediately conjure up more self-compassion than I ever had before. If your brain is crowded, you might not realize how much you are trying to handle on a day to day basis. Trying something like this could help.

For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.

Christine Goes Medieval On Her Sleep
health · sleep

Christine Goes Medieval On Her Sleep

Christine Hennebury6 Comments

When my kids were babies, they never quite got the knack of sleeping. For 5 years of my life, I was awake every 90 minutes (or less) until they both were finally (mostly) sleeping through the night.* Ever since then, it takes only the smallest interruption in my sleep pattern to throw my mind back to that time when I was doing the best I could, managing on very little sleep, and just feeling a little out of it all the time. Even a single night of weird sleep sends some part of my brain into a spin about getting stuck in that situation again.

A few years ago, I was having trouble sleeping and I figured out that using a sleep mask was the solution to getting better sleep and feeling more rested. I’m still using a sleep mask but I’ve been through a few different ones since then. My current favourite is an Alaska Bear sleep mask which is not shaped like a bear, covered in a bear print, or made of bear fur and it neither transports me to Alaska nor does it turn me into a bear but it does, despite all of that, it help me sleep.

I’ve been having a good go of it with my sleep since the sleep mask discovery. The occasional bad night, like everyone has, but no recurring issues. Until the last month or so when an external factor has been weighing in.

A gif of Dean from the TV show Supernatural leaning in between two people having a conversation and asking ‘Am I interrupting something?’​
A gif of Dean from the TV show Supernatural leaning in between two people having a conversation and asking ‘Am I interrupting something?’

The Situation

One of my family members semi-regularly needs my help with a minor but persistent health issue at some point between 1am and 2am. It’s not every night but it may be a few nights in a row, or every second night for a while, or a couple of times in a week. You get the idea.

Technically, I *could* let them deal with it on their own and just get my sleep. But it’s really important to me to be able to support the person who needs my help. And the whole thing is temporary so I’d really rather be there to help and just figure out how to minimize the effects on my sleep until the situation passes.

Solution Attempt #1

Since, under normal circumstances, I go to bed at 11:30 or 12, I tried just staying up later and just managing with less sleep.

That was not ideal.

A GIF of a baby sitting on a pink couch, the baby falls asleep and tips forward to ​land on their face on the cushion. (There is an adult next to them, don’t panic!) text at the bottom reads ‘I’m sooo sleepy.’
A GIF of a baby sitting on a pink couch, the baby falls asleep and tips forward to land on their face on the cushion. (There is an adult next to them, don’t panic!) text at the bottom reads ‘I’m sooo sleepy.’

Apparently, I need at least 7 hours sleep to be relatively human the next day and for my ADHD meds to work the way they should. My meds do make things better even when I am sleepy but the sleepiness is an added obstacle that I do not need while I am trying to focus on the work of the day.

Solution Attempt #2

Then I tried taking what I was calling ‘a nap’ from 10:30 or 11:00pm and getting my family member to wake me when they needed me.

This worked a lot better. I was getting enough sleep overall but I was finding it challenging to get back to sleep once I was up. (I think this is a carry-over from when the kids were small. 99% of the time, once I am up for more than a few minutes, I am AWAKE and I could stay up for hours.)

A GIF of a lemur (or marmoset?) with huge eyes who is chewing on a snack while facing the camera. Text beneath reads ‘WIDE AWAKE.’​
A GIF of a lemur (or marmoset?) with huge eyes who is chewing on a snack while facing the camera. Text beneath reads ‘WIDE AWAKE.’

Even with being fully awake shortly after going to sleep, it was still better than staying up extra late. And I figured out how to optimize that nap – doing some of my before bed routines earlier in the evening so I could shorten the time between ‘I should go to bed’ and actually lying down, making sure that I had the right weight and texture blankets, using my mask but leaving a small light on so I slept well but not too deeply and so on.

Basically, I was using one of my most useful skills – making the best of a tricky situation – and applying it to a temporary challenge.

All The Feelings, Damn It

But, I was still finding it a bit tricky. I didn’t love the fact that, when I settled in at 10:30 or so, I was going to be interrupted so soon.** It didn’t often stop me from falling asleep but it made me feel a bit cranky about the whole thing, even though I have willing signed on to support my family member. I didn’t want to feel cranky and I certainly didn’t want them to think that I resented their need for help.

Obviously, my feelings are valid and I can feel however I feel about the situation. But I didn’t want to get so caught up in those feelings that I generated any extra distress – not for me and not for my family member.

A GIF of a small child banging on a window and looking overwhelmed with their feelings. The word FEELINGS is in red text below.
A GIF of a small child banging on a window and looking overwhelmed with their feelings. The word FEELINGS is in red text below.

After all, I can’t choose my feelings but I can choose how I act on them. I knew I needed to reframe how I was thinking about the whole situation so I could act more effectively.

Samantha To The Rescue

On Saturday, Samantha saved the day by posting this BBC article about bi-phasic sleep by Zaria Gorvett: The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

The funny thing is, I have read about bi-phasic sleep before. If *you* had told me that you had to sleep in two chunks and that you felt weird about it, my brain would have tossed enough facts from that old article at me that I could have used them to help you reframe your thinking.

My brain did not choose to cough up those facts for me until I saw Samantha’s post.

But as soon as I read ‘bi-phasic’ sleep, I thought ‘OH! That’s what I’m doing!’ and my brain immediately began to reshape the story I have been telling myself about how I am sleeping.

Suddenly, I wasn’t having interrupted sleep, I was having bi-phasic sleep.

I had gone medieval and I didn’t recognize it!

A GIF created to look like a ​medieval tapestry. A group of people in medieval clothing are dancing in a jerky fashion while the words’ frolic hard’ flash on and off at the top.
Okay, so I’m not thinking of being awake at 1am as a party but recognizing it as a possible sleep pattern is helpful. Image description; A GIF created to look like a medieval tapestry. A group of people in medieval clothing are dancing in a jerky fashion while the words’ frolic hard’ flash on and off at the top.

I was getting up after my first sleep to support a family member and perhaps do a little reading or drawing before starting my second sleep.

That reframing puts a whole new slant on things.

It takes away the idea of the interruption as a problem and makes it a structure for my night’s sleep.

And, as mentioned in the article, it removes any anxiousness about being awake in the middle of the night. This is probably not how I will sleep forever but it is one way that people *can* sleep. I’m not sleeping ‘wrong’ and I am not doing something detrimental.

I’m just practicing bi-phasic sleeping at the moment and, by framing it that way, my brain can settle in around the pattern and stop trying to solve the ‘problem’ of being awake at 1:30am.

A GIF representation of my brain since reading the article. Image description: a small white dog sleeps in a red hammock as the hammock rocks slowly back and forth over some green grass dappled with sunshine.​
A GIF representation of my brain since reading the article. Image description: a small white dog sleeps in a red hammock as the hammock rocks slowly back and forth over some green grass dappled with sunshine.

*If you are warming up your fingers to type some advice about what I *should* have done back then, save your energy because I won’t play. I tried everything. I did all kinds of research. There are all kinds of things you can do to encourage sleep but sleep is neurological thing and sometimes all you can do is wait for the situation to change or a baby’s brain to mature a bit. If you know someone whose baby is not sleeping, don’t give them advice, give them support. Zip over there early in the morning so they can get back to sleep before they fully wake up for the day. Stay late at night so they can grab a nap before the evening circus starts. Run errands for them. Take the baby for a walk so they can do some yoga nidra. Just don’t offer more damn advice. They have tried it already and all the advice is starting to feel judgmental and aggressive. Trust me on this.

**I imagine that everyone hates interruptions and I can’t speak for how the neurotypical brain deals with them. For someone with ADHD, knowing that you will be interrupted (whether that interruption is scheduled or just impending) can put you into the dreaded ‘waiting mode‘ which prevents you from immersing yourself in what you are doing because you know that you are going to have to switch tasks.