Super Ager. Elise Marie Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ he leads today, teaching others in how to transform their health, have more joy, and have solid relationships, along with aging well. He gives classes at www.mindvalleyacademy.com.

      Habit Guidelines

      Start small. Stanford behavioral scientist B. J. Fogg has branded the practice of starting new habits small as “tiny habits.” Watch his popular YouTube video, “Tiny Habits.” When we start small, we make change doable. We can use the small steps to create momentum. As a Yoga Health Coach, I have seen the opposite happen so often. People want big changes very quickly. They are so sick of their current situation; they want out immediately. Or sometimes it’s the “Dream Big” syndrome gone horribly wrong. It’s like creating a dramatic, bad break-up with their unhealthy habit. Instead, things can be much easier and healthier. And those sudden abrupt break-ups seem to almost always lead to the rebound effect. As the person finds that their big dramatic change doesn’t work, it confirms negative thinking. Often the client decides to go back to the old relationship with their unhealthy habit. They seem to believe that they really can’t change after all. I have seen this pattern of self-sabotage in myself and in others over and over. It is what has made me so committed to small, focused, doable, incremental changes.

      Another habit-changing concept called kaizen comes from a Japanese word that means, “small, continuous improvements.” Kaizen was adapted by Japanese businesses which needed to rebuild and restructure following the chaos and destruction that had occurred during World War II. Kaizen can be applied to habit change in thinking about the smallest tiny improvement that can be made. I have often noticed my health coaching clients wanting to change too much, too soon. This behavior creates a self-defeating loop. When a person wants to change a habit and then thinks about taking too big of a step in that shift, when it doesn’t work, the person trying to change often gives up and believes that changing is futile. An example would be going to bed earlier. A futile step would be to try to change one’s bedtime by one or two hours. While this may occasionally work for some people, most will fail and then give up. Instead of small steps, the person may consider the experiences as cement for their theory that they are a “night owl.” Branding oneself a night owl instead of making smaller steps towards an earlier bedtime is not helpful. A kaizen step towards a new bedtime would be to set bedtime back fifteen minutes for an entire week, then increasing the earlier bedtime to thirty minutes earlier than the previous bedtime on the second week. In this scenario, it would take a month to shift bedtime by one hour. Kaizen has been proven over and over in studies, and I have seen it work as an effective and simple strategy in my coaching clients.

      Habits and patterns are like roads that we have carved out in our life. The big habits may be like paved freeways, creating shortcuts or fast ways of doing things. Our habits may be useful and serve us in many ways. It’s important to be able to objectify our habits. I like to think of my habits as roads. When a habit is brand new, it’s like an off-road trail. I am walking or in an off-road vehicle. Change is scary. New territories are novel and intimidating. I am very present in my emotions on the new road. I may want to give up. Eventually, I cut a trail. Sometimes I pave it and make it real, as in, “I will do this every day for the rest of my life.” Other times my habits may have been great superhighways in my twenties, thirties, or forties, yet as the years roll by, I realize that maybe I need to take a train or walk or dismantle that superhighway. Maybe the destination doesn’t appeal to me anymore, or I don’t need to go so fast. Maybe I can take a bullet train instead. I think you are getting it now. As we age, it is so easy to look back and be supercritical. Why did I do that for so many years? Or I have messed myself up? In this book, we are learning that we can cut new trails and pave new habitual roads. No looking back. No, rather, I mean: look back and appreciate the journey. After all, there have been people that have lived to be 100 who smoked, drank, and swore all their lives. There is no right way. There is only your way and the Wild West of the rest of your beautiful and precious life. Your life is a work of art. How will you live it?

      Dinacharya

      Dinacharya means “daily routine.” In Ayurveda, synchronizing daily activities with daily cycles is one of the most important ways to support health. Western medicine has finally begun to understand the importance of the synchronization of human physiology with daily cycles, especially the rising and setting of the sun. Dinacharya includes activities such as waking time, elimination, hygiene, self-massage, bathing, meditation, study, work, and sleep.

      Science has validated that within our brain, we have a master clock that regulates biological processes. Eating and sleeping at the wrong times can throw off this clock and cause chronodisruption. Other, secondary cellular clocks can be found in the liver, pancreas, and other organs. Chronodisruption or disconnection from the natural rhythms of daytime and nighttime has been linked to cognitive decline, diabetes, obesity, substance abuse, heart disease, and some cancers. In 2017, three researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for understanding and explaining the role of circadian rhythm in health and in treating disease. Scientific American declared that circadian medicine “may revolutionize medicine as we know it.”

      Traditional Dinacharya

      Morning:

      •Wake before sunrise

      •Scrape Tongue

      •Brush Teeth / Wash Face

      •Eliminate bowels

      •Practice Yoga 15–30 minutes

      •Shower/Bathe

      Evening:

      •Eat dinner early

      •Meditate or practice gentle yoga

      •Go to bed by 10 p.m.

      Vata

      As we grow old, we start to enter the Vata stage of life. Vata means air and ether combined. The Vata stage of life can be an inspiring, creative, and productive stage of life because life is about balance. Habits are grounding and earthy, and become more beneficial to our health as we age. As we age, we need habits more than ever. According to Ayurveda, habits contribute more to the energy of earth and provide stability that attracts healthy aging and creativity, joy.

      According to Ayurveda, when we have a structure of daily and even seasonal habits, one can grow old with ease and grace. In many Super Ager cultures such as the village of Ogimi, healthy habits are an integral part of life and aging. If you don’t belong to a community that supports habits, consider finding a health coach or group that will support you in healthy habit change.

      –PRACTICE PLAN–

      Familiarize yourself with habit change.

      Read

      •Force of Habit by Tasmin Astor, PhD

      •The Power of Habit by Charles Duhig

      •The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod

      •Body Thrive, Uplevel Your Body and Your Life with 10 Habits from Yoga and Ayurveda, by Cate Stillman

      •Mindset by Carol Dweck

      •The Neuroscience of Change: A Compassion Based Program for Personal Transformation, by Kelly McGonigal

      •B. J Fogg’s website, resources, classes, and tools on habit change at www.tinyhabits.com

      •For Elise’s courses on habit change, Super Aging, and Yoga Health СКАЧАТЬ