Most of us will face a situation in our lives where we feel helpless.  Whether it’s an unfortunate diagnosis for ourselves or loved one, an accident, or a traumatic event, when bad things happen it’s natural to be overwhelmed and become exhausted, feeling like every day of coping is like swimming alone against the current.  Personally, I have been feeling this way in response to my mother’s decline with her neurological degenerative disease.  Despite her best efforts at fighting the effects of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, it breaks my heart to see her struggle to maintain her ability to swallow or speak even a single word at this point.  I had been feeling like we were both drowning.  Fortunately, I attended a conference in Phoenix this weekend, put on for patients and family members by the CurePSP Foundation.  What I received in terms of knowledge and connection has rejuvenated me, offering me support and resources, and a new perspective.  I share this with you this week in hope it might help someone else feeling beaten and helpless with their own struggle, whatever it may be, find a source of some empowerment.

Knowledge is indeed power.  While there is no cure to my mother’s illness, the series of lectures and presentations filled in many of the gaps I had, some I didn’t even know I had, in terms of understanding what was happening to her.  Some of the quirky behaviors I thought unique to my mother, I learned were actually not uncommon, and now understand why they happen.  In learning about the research of the cause of the disease, it relieved fears about heredity and the feeling she carried that she had somehow done something wrong to expose herself to the illness.  I came away with strategies for some of our challenges and a better sense of what to expect moving forward.  The knowledge I gained already is helping me to shift from helpless frustration to thinking about what I can do.  From little changes in how to interact with my mother to communicate more effectively, to resources that I became aware of, all the way up to the big picture of advocacy, I now have things I can do to help her, help me, and hopefully help others.  I can’t begin to describe the inspiration I got from the people I met, too far along in the disease to benefit from research, signing up to donate their brains for research when they pass.  Each expressed actual gratitude for the opportunity to do something beneficial.

The other incredible source of power I was able to tap into was the connection to others; a common humanity.  There was an immediate sense of intimacy when I walked in the room for the first time, seeing the wide eyed facial expressions (typical of the disease as a result of eye muscle issues), the canes, walkers, and wheelchairs, the bottles of liquid thickeners, and alarms going off to remind people of medication times.  I was able to hear the stories of many others with both similar and differing journeys.  It helped me actually appreciate that while my mother has had a long tragic decline, she has not had to endure hospitalizations from pneumonia or broken bones as many others had.  I felt a sense of gratitude, myself, at being able to share my accumulatd knowledge with daughters and sons whose parent was recently diagnosed.  I was also able to put the anonymous names of Board members on the CurePSP website together with faces, and hear stories of their own losses and motivations to serve.  I spoke with researchers, neurologists, social workers, and caregivers, all dedicated to understanding the illness, finding a cure, and improving the quality of life for themselves and others.

When struggling with a life changing event, it’s easy to become isolated and feel the burden is more than you can bare.  And it is true, because no one can do it alone.  We need others to help us stay afloat, to show us the way, and to follow behind us.  This weekend, thanks to the generosity of people who serve, people who study, people who donate, and people who share, I still feel the power of the raging current, but I have knowledge as a life preserver and others to float alongside with down the unpredictable bends in river.

Sad fact I learned: Dudley Moore, may his memory be for a blessing, died from complications of PSP.

What research shows is that sleep is actually a learned habit.  Our body develops sleep patterns that are easily disrupted with changes in schedules and stimulation.  Repeated nights spent worrying or tossing and turning in bed teaches the body to associate the bed with arousal and alertness.  To address the problem, we need to help our body “relearn” to associate the bed with relaxation and drowsiness.  Sleep experts refer to three types of “learning” that can help re-establish sleep patterns:  sleep hygiene, stimulus control, and sleep restriction.

Sleep hygiene involves creating a routine that will best enhance sleep.  Physically, we need to avoid caffeine 6 to 8 hours before our bedtime and avoid nicotine, which is also a stimulant.  Also avoid alcohol after dinner.  While alcohol can promote the onset of sleep, it often disrupts your natural sleep patterns, so you should avoid it up to 4 hours before you go to bed.  Regular exercise is really important to getting good sleep, but if done within two hours of bedtime, it can elevate your nervous system instead of relax it.   Your bedroom environment should be very dark, using dark out shades or eye masks can help, cool in temperature, and quiet.  White noise or earplugs are good for this problem.  Give yourself time to wind down before going to bed, and do the same routine each evening so that it becomes associated with sleep.  Avoid sleep medication.  Sleeping pills work only very temporarily and create sleep problems when used over time.  

Stimulus control involves the goal of reconnecting your bed with sleeping through learned association.  The bed should only be used for sleep and sexual activity:  no television, phone, computer use, or reading in the bedroom or in bed.  These activities, especially ones that involve a screen or stimulating material (yes, you Scandal fans) get in the way of associating relaxation with your bed.  Also, you should delay going to bed until you are sleepy.  If you don’t fall asleep relatively soon, get out of bed and return when you are drowsy.

Sleep restriction is also about training your body into patterns of healthy sleep.  It involves restricting the amount of time you spend in bed to the amount of time you currently spend actually asleep.  Research shows sleep restriction to be extremely effective for improving sleep, even though initially you may experience mild sleep deprivation as a result of the technique.  Sleep restriction involves calculating and keeping track of your sleep efficiency, which is the percentage of time you are actually asleep during the period of time you are trying to sleep.  For example, if you usually go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at 6 am, you are in bed for 8 hours.  Of this time, it takes you an hour to fall asleep, you wake for 30 minutes in the middle of the night and are up 30 minutes before you get up.  So, your actual sleep time is 6 hours of the actual 8 hours you are in bed, so the sleep efficiency is 75%.  Sleep restriction would mean reducing your time in bed by 2 hours.  You could either go to bed late, or get up earlier.  After sleep efficiency reaches 85% or greater, the time in bed can be increased in 15 to 20 minute blocks.  Time in bed is increased each week if you achieve 85% or greater.  The pattern is continued until efficiency starts to fall below 80% at which time you decrease sleep by 15 to 20 minute blocks.  You continue the process of increasing or decreasing sleep time by 15 to 20 minute blocks until sleep efficiency falls between 80 to 85% on a regular basis.  This is usually achieved in just a few weeks.

When people have sleep problems, the mere anxiety about sleep can be stimulating and make it difficult to get to sleep.  When you go to bed afraid of what the night will bring, you reinforce the wakefulness and alertness.  Before going to bed, try listening to a relaxing visualization that you can download from a meditation app, or just listen to soothing music.  You can listen to a classical music piece and pay attention to one instrument at a time.  This is mediation without having to even focus on meditation.  And if all else fails, try listening to a book on tape about a subject that doesn’t interest you. Personally, listening to tax advice tends to do the trick for me!

Before handing back a very challenging Spanish test, my daughter’s teacher gave them a handout entitled “Eight Reasons to Celebrate Mistakes.”  While my daughter and her classmates were not so amused, I, as her mother, appreciated the intention.  We live in a culture that values success and winning so much so that we lose sight of the process of learning and put tremendous pressure on ourselves to always be “right.”  When we put so much emphasis on avoiding mistakes, we lose sight of the learning and can become paralyzed, afraid to take any chances.

I wish we had a better word than “mistake.”  According to the dictionary, it means “an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.”  I often wish we could call them “learning efforts” to avoid the judgment.  Especially when it comes to the bigger efforts of living, such as talking a new job, moving to a new place, or ending a relationship.  How often I hear people berate themselves for making such a “huge mistake,” discounting the courage of taking a chance and the experience obtained from trying something new.

So often we value and applaud “change” but set ourselves up by expecting that every change has to be for the better.  If things don’t work out as planned and hoped for, we often go beyond disappointment to the burden of shame.  How painful that is and often how unnecessary.  Sometimes we do make mistakes that require us to apologize or even feel guilty or ashamed, but these are situations that involve moral failures, or true lapses in our judgment, when we act on impulse or in a selfish manner.  These are the times we most certainly must make amends and acknowledge our error.  But I often see people generalize the notion of a mistake to a choice that was made with the best of intention.

In order to avoid mistakes of living, we would have to avoid taking any chances.  And the point of the hand out the teacher was trying to make was that learning happens through mistakes.  We try and we get feedback.  Feedback is how we learn not only Spanish, but also about ourselves.  It is the feedback that is the key to self awareness.  Sometimes we  try something new to see if we can expand our capacities, such as building the stamina to climb the mountain, or go to a group to learn how to tolerate the desire to drink.  And other times we try something new to see if it is a better fit for us, such as dating a new person or taking a job in a new environment.  Regardless of the outcome, which is seldom so black and white as being “right or wrong,”  we grow and change through the effort.  If we can avoid the embarrassment and the judgment, we can embrace the learning and the experience of expanding ourselves.

I love that the Spanish teacher walks her talk.  She gives the students a chance to re-submit their test with new answers.  The point is to use the feedback.  When we see the player score the touchdown or the musician accept the grammy, we only see the tip of the iceberg.  Ask anyone who has had success to tell you about the effort it took to get there and the non-successes it took along the way.  And then, after their moment of fame, they have to go out and start again, putting themselves out there with the chance that things won’t go as well the next time.  Learning to live with risk is the only way we can move forward.  So, instead of hanging our head in response to a mistake, why not celebrate the chance to learn?

I love texting and being able to shoot off an email late at night when it’s convenient for me, so I am truly not one of those anti-technology people  My iphone is almost always with me.  But as a person who also spends a lot of time analysing and working with communication, I have observed some real consequences that you might want to think about before you hit send.

Only 7% of human communication is through the content or words of our message, according to UCLA researcher Professor Albert Mehrabian.  The majority of communication is through sight and sound:  58% through body language and 35% through vocal tone, pitch, and emphasis.  Think about any sentence you can utter.  By using a smile or a scowl, a friendly tone or a sarcastic one, you can completely change the meaning.  This being the case, it is no wonder how often miscommunications happen with texts or emails.  It is truly a terrible way to create understanding and resolve an issue or settle a dispute.

In fact, I find that people often use these forms of communicating to, maybe without even realizing it, avoid resolution, or at least sabotage it.   By using email, we often say things we wouldn’t say face to face.  We don’t have to be in the presence of the person and deal with the response. We can protect ourselves from the other person’s distress, whether it’s anger, hurt, or strain in their voice.  When we type and send, we remain in control of the conversation.  While it feels powerful, it can also be a form of manipulation, especially if you don’t offer a follow up of a phone conversation or in person meeting to attend the other person’s point of view.

I often wonder if this is one of the factors contributing to our countries divide and people’s increasing sense of isolation.  When we can “say” things without consequence, limit actual dialog, and “share” a rant on facebook, we have no chance of finding common ground or creating understanding or at least connection.  In fact, when we express our anger by email without a follow up of conversation, it might feel good in the moment to tell someone off, but in reality, we leave ourselves in a place of victimhood.   It makes sense that over time a compounding of this victimhood could slowly erode our sense of connectedness and our capacity for intimacy and mutuality.  It takes courage to tell someone how you feel, especially when you are hurting.  But to do so in a vacuum robs you both of the profound grace and healing that reconciliation can create.  There is no substitute for hearing the words “sorry” and feeling arms around you in an embrace.

On the other hand, sending a text is so easy, it can create a false sense of connection and intimacy.  A woman I worked with was falling in love with a man she thought was so caring.  He texted her early each day to say good morning and throughout her day to say he was thinking of her.  But the truth was, when it came time to showing up for her when she needed help, a text was all he had to offer.  And he was offering it to more than just her, she came to find out!

I know that I personally have become lazy.  I use technology too often in place of conversation.  And in some cases, emails and texts do provide a great way to stay in touch and keep a connection with people I rarely can see, especially when we live in different parts of the country or world.  A clever phrase or aptly chosen emoji can bring a lot of humor into my day.  But we should all remind ourselves, that for anything nuanced, complex, or difficult to say, 7% is not using our full tool box for effective communication.  And if we find that we don’t want to say something in person, just as Thumper reminds us, we might best not say anything at all.

I came across a phrase this week that I wanted to share, as it describes an inspiring phenomena that I have been fortunate to witness, especially this past year.  The term is “post traumatic growth” and according to the research group who named it, it refers to a “positive change experienced as a result of a struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event.”  

According to the PTG researchers at the University of North Carolina, post traumatic growth tends to come in five general areas.  Some people who go through a major life crisis realize that opportunities emerge through the struggle, creating new possibilities that were not available before.  Some people find their relationships change, making them feel  closer to specific people and a greater sense of connection to others who are hurting.  A third area of change possible is an increased awareness of one’s own strength, developing a confidence from surviving something traumatic.  A fourth area is a greater appreciation for life in general, and a fifth is a deepening of spiritual awareness.  This shift is not necessarily in expected ways, as sometimes people experience a significant change in their belief systems as a consequence of a deepening spiritual awakening.

Distress and significant pain come with crises and unfortunately, few of us can avoid the inevitability of some type of major life event.  If we are living and loving we will face loss and random misfortunes that create physical and/or emotional chaos.  In no way is anyone implying that traumatic events are good, for I wish no one ever had to have have one.  But I have noticed and been tremendously moved in watching people come through a tragedy with new insight or skills that can have a positive effect in their lives.  I have witnessed friends suffer through cancer and treatment only to express deep emotional healing from the experience as it brought up many areas of their lives that needed attending to.  I am working with a woman who became homeless, literally having to sleep in her car in order to keep her cat.  She shocked me when she came in smiling, telling me that her back pain was much better since she was sleeping in an upright position, and that she in many ways hadn’t felt so good in a very long time.  She is going to get a special bed, she tells me, when she gets back to having a home.

Just as we can’t predict when a tragedy will occur, or how we will react to it, it makes me feel hopeful to know that suffering and growth are not mutually exclusive.  If I have to go through a horrible event, at least I can know that I can both suffer and experience positive change through the process.  As we support friends and family overcoming something difficult, it might help us to feel less helpless to know that people can and do experience positive transformation in a profoud way.

I like to think of Valentine’s Day as a celebration of love of all kinds.  Besides Eros, which means passionate love, Ancient Greek had three other words for love:  philia refers to the love of friendship, storge refers to familial love, and agape refers to selfless love or charity.  So even if you are not in a romantic relationship this year, take inventory of the love you do have and know that experiencing love is actually good for you.

It’s so important to remember that love comes in many forms.  This helps stave off the blues when you are not in a relationship and takes the pressure off of your romantic relationship if you are in one.  The happiest people report love of all kinds as being key – love of nature, love of learning, love of friends, and even a love for loving.  Incorporate love into your life.  Reach out to hug and hold hands with people. (This brings an instant mood boost.)  Look for opportunities to be playful with the people around you – laugh, dance, sing.  This tends to increase your connections and makes people feel closer.  Even something as simple as smiling at someone can make you both feel good.  Doing something kind for someone else and showing love is always the best way to ensure more love in your own life.  The more love you give, the more they you to receive.

Researchers lucky enough to be studying loving feelings have found many benefits.  Love actually creates happiness by causing the production of norepinephrine and dopamine in your brain leading to increased feelings of joy and pleasure.  Love helps boost self-esteem, leading to engaging in activities that contribute to better nutrition and decreases unhealthy lifestyle choices.  Feelings of love can lower the production of the stress hormone, cortisol.  In fact, love encourages your body to produce oxytocin, the “bonding” or “love” hormone that reduces overall stress, improves immune functioning, and decreases cell death and inflammation!

And don’t forget yourself.  It is hard for people to love you if you don’t feel you deserve it. Being able to receive love is an important part of psychological health.  Treat yourself like you would treat another person you are deeply in love with.  You are the best person to make you feel loved!

1-800-273-TALK (8255)  SUICIDE PREVENTION HELP LINE

Having worked in community mental health for three decades, I see a pattern each year.  Beginning in early February we get more calls and more people presenting with suicidal thinking.  Research shows that spring, rather than winter,  is the time that most people attempt suicide.  That is the bad news.  The good news is that people are coming to us for help.  Because of this important trend, I felt it important in this week’s post to share some information about suicide prevention.  Given that at any time approximately 25% of the population is suffering from depression, someone you know and love may be at risk.

According to Diane Sprice, the director of Suicide Prevention Services of the Central Coast, “The myth is that Christmas is the most high risk time for people to become suicidal, but it is actually springtime.”  Brice cites relationship troubles as the most frequent reason people call the suicide help line, followed by financial insecurity.  A Missouri hotline reported roughly 200 more calls on Valentine’s Day each year.  Once we get through the stress of winter, and the holiday, Brice says, “February comes and you’re supposed to be in love and you’re supposed to feel better…that’s when it gets really difficult for people, because of the expectation to feel better.”

For those who are lucky enough to have never experienced depression or suicidal thinking, it is very hard to understand why someone would think this way.  Especially when people externally seem to have success and so much to live for.  But depression has a way of distorting people’s thinking, bringing about a severe sense of hopelessness and despair that seems unending.  Thoughts of suicide are not a way of getting sympathy or attention, but a desire to end physical or emotional pain.  Most people who attempt suicide do not really want to die, they just don’t see any other way out of their suffering.  They actually convince themselves that others will be better off without their burden.

Only half of all Americans experiencing an episode of major depression receive treatment according to the National Alliance of Mental Illness.  They may be too hopeless, fear the stigma, or not have easy access to care.  The good news is, however, that 80 to 90% of people that seek treatment for depression are treated successfully using therapy and/or medication.  (This is what makes my work so rewarding!)  Therapy can help people find new ways to approach their problems and give people a sense of agency again while giving them a safe place to talk about their feelings.  Antidepressant medication can work on brain chemistry that has been affected by chronic stress or depression.

Some of the warning signs that someone is considering suicide are:  expressions of hopelessness, risk taking behavior, substance abuse, personality changes such as withdrawal, a lack of interest in the future, giving things away, lack of interest in future planning, and statements such as “you’d be better off without me.”  If you think someone is at risk, trust your instincts.  Talk with the person about your concerns, listening with empathy and a non-judgmental attitude.  Ask direct questions, such as if they have thoughts of hurting themselves and if they have a specific plan.  The more detailed the plan, the greater the risk.  Remove any means of carrying out the plan, such as medication, guns, or knives.  Never swear to secrecy or act in a punitive manner.  Even if the person resists, get professional help.  Remember and remind the person, suicidal thinking is a symptom of depression, not a personal failure.

Some Statistics:

• Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 1% of all deaths
• More years of life are lost to suicide than to any other single cause except heart disease and cancer
• 30,000 Americans die by suicide each year; an additional 500,000 Americans attempt suicide annually
• Suicide rates are highest in old age: 20% of the population and 40% of suicide victims are over 60. After age 75, the rate is three times higher than average, and among white men over 80, it is six times higher than average
• The highest suicide rates in the U.S. are among Whites, American Indians, and Alaska Natives
• Females attempt suicide three times more often than males, but males are 4 times more likely to die by suicide, as they tend to use more lethal methods such as firearms.
• An estimated quarter million people each year become suicide survivors.

An interesting article came to my attention this week.  It described studies showing that people who brought their own shopping bags to the grocery store purchased both more environmentally friendly products, but also more unhealthy items, such as potato chips.  Say what?  Helping the environment leads us to eat more ice cream?  With further investigation it turns out it is actually not the shopping bags, but the reward we feel we deserve in remembering the shopping bags, that leads us to indulge.  (Being required to bring the bags eliminates the entitled behavior).  This indulging tendency is known as the licensing effect, and can subtly sabotage our good health behaviors.

The licensing effect is a term used in marketing and social psychology to describe the subconscious phenomenon wherein an increase in our self image tends to make us worry less about the consequences of subsequent choices, and therefore increases the likelihood to act in more negative ways.  In other words, people will allow themselves to indulge after doing something positive first. Drink a diet soda – order dessert.  Go for a hike – have a cheeseburger for lunch.  Licensing has a permissive effect and can lead to poor choices and eventually unintended consequences.

Well, I’m thinking, that explains a few things I’ve always wondered about, such as why every time I pay off a large bill I order myself a little something from Amazon.  Or why my husband always has a chicken burrito for lunch the day he weighs himself and is happy to have lost a bit of weight.

According to the change expert BJ Fogg of Stanford, even the most successful among us are starved of feeling successful.  In his research, Fogg found that the feeling generated by success is disproportionately greater than the size of the accomplishment itself.  Using celebrations, then, as positive reinforcement can increase behavior change.  It builds motivation naturally.  In fact, BJ Fogg recommends creating a tiny celebration each time you engage in even a tiny step toward a larger behavior change.  His prescription is to say “I am awesome,”  fist pump, or raise your hands up in victory whenever you engage in a small victory of a step toward your behavior change.  Do a few push ups, tell yourself how great you are.  Floss your teeth, smile in the mirror and give yourself a thumbs up.  Not only do you acknowledge your behavior, but it actually releases chemicals in your brain to reinforce the neural loop of the behavior.

So, in applying this to our grocery bag to potato chip behavior chain, it occurs to me that licensing is a natural response in which we create a reward for the success of remembering our bags.  We are hungry for the feeling of success, not the potato chips (or the new book when I pay off my credit card bill).  Therefore it makes sense that in order to avoid the unintended consequences of “indulging,” we could actively create a reward that will fill the need, such as Fogg’s “celebration.”  If we give ourselves the reward and “atta-girl” feeling, it will bring our attention to our “licensing” attitude and help us avoid the trap.

How about we try out some small celebrations of our own this week?   Let’s see how it feels to add a little touchdown endzone dance when we take out the garbage or decline a piece of cheesecake.  It might just help us to avoid the self sabotage of indulgence and if nothing else, it will make our lives a little more fun!

We usually think about role models in terms of our children and who they are being influenced by and how.  But as our country moved through another peaceful transfer of power, it made me reflect on the last eight years of President Obama.  I have been surprised at, separate from the politics, how much I will miss the man.  His leadership style and his behavior have quietly affected me and provided a role model for my own behavior and attitudes as both a leader and as a citizen.

Psychologists have studied and documented for many years how much our behavior is influenced by observing others.  We are huge copy-catters, without even realizing it.  But we not only copy individual behaviors, but we tend to take on sets of behaviors.  Public figures most often become role models because they have such visibility in our culture, especially with social media.  We are exposed to images and words about what they are doing and thinking most every day, and this has a big effect on what we wear, what we purchase, what we think is appropriate or acceptable, and what we ourselves will choose to do.  If they are successful, they must be doing things in the “right” way.

So I want to acknowledge President Obama for his influence on me.  He became an example of a calm and assured, yet compassionate leader.  He understood the importance of words, in how they can motivate and how they can hurt.  He was careful in showing his strength when necessary, in speaking strongly, and in showing his vulnerability, shedding a tear or even being fiesty when challenged.  I did not always agree with him, but I never doubted that he had put a lot of thought into his decisions.  He took his responsibilities seriously not only for his fellow citizens,  but for future generations. I always trusted he had considered consequences, had consulted with others, and was making a decision for the best possible outcome for what he believed to be the common good.   And he demonstrated that being smart, articulate, and studious was not mutually exclusive to being cool.  I enjoyed reading about his basketball games and watching the way he seemed to effortlessly saunter down the steps of Airforce1 while smiling and buttoning his jacket. (I have to defer on that one, I will never be able to be that cool).  Who can forget how he snatched that fly out of thin air during an interview or how he could poke fun at himself while breaking into his “I got game” toothy smile.

What I also appreciate about President Obama was how he carried himself with such composure, but also never separated himself from being an everyday man.  His relationship with Michelle and his children was so obviously close, respectful, and he lived a family dynamic that was mutual and collaborative. He integrated and reflected on his many identities as a father, husband, son, black man, and fellow American.  And I will never forget how he spoke about his difficulty when he quit smoking.  His public battle with his smoking habit has been mentioned by a participant in every quit smoking class I have taught in the past eight years.

But most of all, for me personally, it is his respect and inspiration around public service that I have been most influenced by.  His belief in leadership as service directly impacted my own perspective in how I approach my work and my life.  I am more thoughtful, more ego-less and more willing to risk my own interests for the pursuit and responsibility of the common good as both a leader and as a person.  I am grateful for his example as a human being and for providing so many young people, as well as us older people, with a broader range of what is possible for them and for us all.

It is our nature as humans to be social and to absorb the attitudes and behaviors of others.  We worry about this for our kids, seeking out opportunities for positive influences and guarding  them from negative ones.  But perhaps in our role as their role models, we need to acknowledge our own influences and be mindful of how we choose them.  We show them through our own behavior who to pay attention to and who to admire.  I am so very thankful to President Obama for being a President I am proud to watch and learn from.

I stopped at the store last night to pick up a few things, and what I thought would take just  two minutes took fifteen because of having to sort through the fifty brands and options of each item.  Who knew there could be so many choices in just buying tangerines and beans?  Our lives are so busy and full of constant competing demands that sometimes our exhaustion at the end of the day is simply from the number of choices we have to make.  It is no wonder that research shows that in order to be successful in sticking to a routine or enacting a new one, simplicity is a key.

President Obama, in making his transition to leader of the free world, decided he would only wear two colors of suits, blue and gray.  According to the President, “I’m trying to pare down decisions.  I don’t want to make too many decisions about what I’m eating or wearing because I have too many decisions to make.”

So when we think about adding in a new behavior that we know will be good for us, how do we make it simple enough not to add to our overwhelm?  One technique is the “add on” technique, which is a way to link a new behavior to one you already do, starting small and building up to the goal desired.

Let’s say I decide I want to start doing some strength exercises, but I keep forgetting or avoiding them.  The first step is to decide what point in my day would be best to build it in.  I decide it would be good in the morning before I get dressed, because my schedule gets out of control and I am tired at the end of the day.  Also, I like the feeling of having done something I feel good about before I leave the house.  Next, I decide just one exercise I would like to do.  I am going to start with push ups.  Now, I link it to a behavior I already do each morning.  For me, I alway go to my dresser when I get dressed in the morning, so I put my push up bars in front of my dresser.  This way, each morning when I go to get dressed, there is a cue there to remind me to do my push ups.

I need to start small, which is fortunate, because I can only do a few.  It only takes a minute or two and is something I can do.  After I get used to doing these push ups, I plan to add one more.  Then I’ll add one more, until I reach my goal of 20.  Then, when I have built in my push up attempt routine, I can add a few sit ups.  Then I can alter my days with a few squats.  The point is to take a behavior that is already a part of my routine and link something very small and manageable to add to it.

Another example would be flossing your teeth. Choose the time of day you already regularly brush your teeth and would feel best about adding it in, like the evening.  Now, when you put your toothbrush away in the morning, just pull a short string of floss out and wrap it around your tooth brush. This will cue you to floss when you take out your toothbrush in the evening.  Then, start with just a few teeth, like your molars.  Then add on a few more as you become used to laying out your floss and flossing your molars.  Over time, you will build up to flossing your teeth and it will become your new habit.

The Add On Technique involves the qualities of behavior change that have proven to bring success, or what is known as the 3 R’s.  It involves a Reminder and a Routine.  The third R is Reward.  So make sure after you reach a goal, for me it will be 20 push ups, to add in a Reward!  And while everything else is simple, perhaps this is the area we can have a little fun. While doing my push ups I can dream about what I will do when I hit my goal.  As of now, I am at six full push ups (with the other 14 on my knees), so I think I have some time…