CHANGING HABITS FOR BEGINNERS (part 1): The 3 tools

It’s difficult to change what we don’t know exists. To change we need to know “what” to change, and for that we need to have an experience that contrasts with our habit: the experience of another possibility.

But once we have that new experience, how to we make it into a new habit? In general, the sole experience of a new possibility does not establish the change. It is necessary to record in your brain the new option as a stronger neurological connection than your old habit.

For that we need three tools: desire, inhibition, and memory.

The tool of desire moves us to recreate the new experience, even when it would be “easier and more comfortable” to indulge in our habit. Change is destabilizing. Therefore we need to become familiar with this power of “I want”: What do I want? Why do I want it? How do I achieve what I want? What consequences would come with getting what I want?

The tool of inhibition allows us to choose which actions to allow manifestation and which to deny said permission. Inhibition is intrinsically linked to desire, for it implies “saying no to” that which we don’t wish for anymore, and being able to “say yes to” to the new wish. You need to know “what things” to inhibit. Therefore we need to know: What elements make up my habit?

The tool of memory allows us to remember what we want and what we don’t want when it really matters. The ability to recruit your desire and your power of inhibition to change your habits rests on your ability to remember. F.M. Alexander once said that our greatest problem when it comes to changing habits is that “we forget to remember.”

Remembering what we want depends, above all, on 2 factors: the strength of our wish and external conditions that help us to remember our wish. How can I be more mindful of my wish throughout the day? How can I make it easier for me to satisfy my wish instead of my habit?

To sum up, the first step to being successful in changing habits is to become familiar with your three basic tools: Desire, Inhibition and Memory.

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To anticipate or not to anticipate? That is the question…

We all anticipate; we prejudge based on our previous experience of similar situations.

This isn’t something bad per se. It is normal and biological. It is the job of our brains to anticipate situations in order to ensure our continued survival.

However, if you’re not awake and aware that your pre-judgments might be a bit (or a lot) off the mark, and you’re not adjusting accordingly, you may be limiting or arresting your physical and mental-emotional development.

Allow me to illustrate how your brain anticipates, and how this manifests in your body.

1. Sitting there where you are now, become aware of the amount of tension or muscular activity that is going on in your neck, shoulders, arms, torso and legs.

2. Now imagine that in front of you is a 30lbs. weight which you are going to lift with your hands.

3. Return your awareness to your body and notice if the degree of tension or muscle activation in your neck, shoulders, arms, torso and legs has changed.

Do you notice a difference? Why is there a difference if it all happened in your mind?

Your brain stores memories of what it means to lift a heavy weight and how much muscle effort it took you to accomplish it before. Therefore, when you gave your brain the order to imagine lifting a weight, it took the instruction literally (brains or not very good at distinguishing fact from fiction) and prepared your body for the coming effort and strain.

Is this a bad thing?

By no means. In fact, this anticipatory activity is what protects you from hurting your back when you lift weights in real life.

And yet, it is not always to your best advantage.

Sometimes we do not allow ourselves sufficient freedom to change our pre-judgment of the situation, even when circumstances contradict our anticipatory action.

When I ask you to imagine lifting a 30lbs weight, your brain makes a quick estimation of what that weight means and anticipates accordingly. You brain does not calculate exact weights, and will generally over-estimate the amount of necessary effort.

If I should then give you a real 30lbs weight, you need to be open to perceive how much effort is really necessary and adjust your reaction accordingly, in order not to waste energy.

This also applies to mental-emotional situations.

When you have a meeting that is worrying you, your brain is preparing your body to go into defense or attack mode. If you notice the amount of tension in your body that this pre-occupation is creating, you may realise that you are preparing for an uncertain situation in the future with perhaps way more energy that the present moment requires. 

If the meeting is tomorrow, and you are already muscularly anticipating it today, how effective do you imagine your pre-activation for the present tasks is?

Anticipating is something our brains do, but we can learn to monitor our anticipatory activities, and thus be able to adjust them according to what the REAL PRESENT situation actually demands, and not what our imagination calls for.

APPLYING THIS IN YOUR LIFE: Learn to recognise your anticipatory reactions

In order to notice when you’re using more effort than is really necessary, you first need to develop more body awareness.

1. A first step in this direction is to get into the habit of routinely scanning your body for unnecessary muscle activation that may have crept up on you unawares.

Check to see how much of that tension you can let go of, how much you can stop doing, what is the minimum necessary tension required to keep you poised upright while sitting or standing.

2. Once you have released (to the best of your ability) any unnecessary muscle activity, imagine the next action (physical or mental-emotional) that you need to undertake. Become aware of how much anticipatory activity this imaginary act has generated. Take a minute to recognise if you are really anticipating the next step, or if you are really anticipating step 4 or 5 further down the line.

Let go one again of any unnecessary tension and reconsider what the next action really is… the immediate next step.

For example, if your next action is to send an email, do not jump ahead to the moment of writing and hitting send, before even lifting your hands to the keyboard. Or if your next action is talking to your boss about a problem, do not jump ahead in your mind to the middle of the meeting when you’re already defending your point.

Stay with the immediate next step and adjust your response to what the present situation calls for.

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See you next week.

Victoria

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If I can’t get a movement right: Is it due to lack of technique, lack of practice… or am I missing something else altogether?

Image by Tina P.

Anyone who practices a sport, or any other type of physical activity, has at some point been in the situation where a certain movement seems “undoable”. Maybe it’s a yoga pose, or the roll-up in Pilates, or the serve in tennis, or the butterfly stroke in swimming. We practice, and practice some more, get some advice on form and technique, practice, and practice again, and end up frustrated and believing that, “This is just beyond my capabilities. I’d better find myself another hobby”.

What are we doing wrong? Why are we not ‘getting it’? After all our invested effort, why are we still struggling?

No doubt the element of technique and coordination needs to be learnt. That’s why we take lessons or hire a personal trainer who teaches us correct technique and corrects our form.

No doubt there is also the element of practice (good old repetition) to learn the necessary muscle coordination to get the movement sequence right. And for some exercises there is also the need for muscle strength, and that takes time to build up.

However, there is an element that is generally overlooked, but should go BEFORE any discussion about correcting technique or increasing practice hours. When this element is lacking, you are setting yourself up for frustration and possible structural damage to your joints, bones and muscles.

In order to avoid these psycho-physical ailments, I suggest that, before you start practicing the same thing over and over, you acquire a good grasp of the following three items:

1. Your general “postural” state

The foundation of all movements is in your “posture”.

The word “posture” has a bad rep, but mostly because it is a greatly misunderstood term.

We tend to think of “posture” as something static, rigid, tense, as something to be attained and held onto by sheer muscular effort.

However, our “posture” is determined by the RELATIONSHIP that our bones keep with each other. Our bones meet at the site of our joints. To have “good posture” means nothing more than to have enough space at those joints so that our bones can freely move and change their relationship to each other. It is a generalized state of free expansion, not one of tension and compression.

Your posture is not made up of the ‘position’ of your bones, but of the ‘relationship’ they keep with each other. This relationship allows (or not) your muscles to function at their optimum length and maximum potential.

Therefore, when you just can’t execute a movement correctly, the first thing you need to check is your postural state. Are you contracting or expanding? Is there enough space in your joints for your bones to move freely and your muscles to act at their optimum length?

Trying to correct your execution of a movement before freeing up your general postural state, is like trying to drive your car with the hand-break on: possible, yes, but at a huge energetic and structural cost. If you insist on driving in this manner, you’ll surely end up with a broken car in the near future!

2. Your ability to keep this expansive postural-state during movement.

Once you establish this state of expansion and joint space, you need to learn how to keep it going while you move. This is not easy to achieve at first.

If you’ve been practicing a movement for any length of time, chances are you already have a learnt way to execute it that “feels correct”, even if this way isn’t delivering the desired results. I can assure you that you have this recorded sensation in your memory because while you were learning to perform the movement, and were rehearsing it over and over again, you were doing so not from this new expansive postural set-point, but from a different starting postural state.

For your “sensory-muscular memory” the movement has to “feel” a particular way, and your brain (more specifically, your cerebellum) will do everything possible to guide you towards the manner of using your body which produces that feeling.

Correcting this “sensory-muscular confusion” is going to take some effort from your consciousness and your attention. This can be more exhausting than doing push-ups and pull-ups!

But don’t be disheartened, for with this practice you’re killing 2 birds with one shot. On the one hand you’re correcting your faulty execution of the movement you so much want to ‘get right’. At the same time, and with no extra work on your part, you are becoming more intelligent, learning to focus your attention, and increasing your capacity forself-control. All in all, not a bad bargain!

Items 1 and 2 are what an Alexander Technique teacher can best help you with. But the 3^rd item will depend exclusively on you, and it is:

3. Remembering to never start to practice the movement without previously: a) releasing into your expanded state, b) having a clear idea of what the movement requires, and c) having an action-plan to carry out your movement without losing your expanded state.

This is perhaps the most important point: Remembering to stop before starting.

It is only if you REMEMBER to apply points 1 and 2 before executing the movement, that you’ll be able to achieve conscious control of your execution, and thus finally correct any deviations from optimal form.

How important is this conscious control in correcting your execution of a movement?

Well, if you’re distracted, or in a hurry to get immediate results, you’ll be less able to control your impulses. And your impulse, if there is no conscious control, will always be to do things according to your established habits. And your established habit is exactly what you want to change. Hence: conscious control is vital!

Although you have the ability to do the harder thing (that which requires self-consciousness and self-control), you are biologically programmed to do exactly the opposite (the easier thing, the recorded and memorized program that requires no mental energy).

There is nothing wrong with living according to your habits. The problem is when those habits are getting you into trouble or stopping you from achieving what you want. The only way of changing a habit is by using your ability to pay attention, focus, concentrate and be self-aware… it is not a muscular task, it is a mental one.

DO SOMETHING CONCRETE WITH THIS: Choose a movement in which to apply this sequence of thoughts.

• Choose a movement you want to correct. Example: I want to correct my tennis serve.

• Investigate the different movements that make up that bigger movement, and choose one of them. Example: lifting the arm above shoulder level.

• Take note of all the different circumstances in which you do that movement in your daily life. Example: when I try to reach something above me on a high shelf, when waving to a friend, when hugging my tall partner, etc.

• Of all those situations, choose one or two, and commit to applying the 3 steps before executing the movement. Example: each time I have to reach over my head to grab a plate from that high shelf, I shall stop before starting to lift my arm, expand by releasing into my full free posture, consider what is and is not required for the action (no need to lift my shoulder), and smiling and breathing I shall lift my arm.

The first thing you may discover is that you forget to stop, and only remember you meant to do so when the action is already complete or underway. Nevertheless, if all you manage in this week is to catch yourself once or twice before hurling yourself unthinkingly into action, you will have achieved a lot: you have started to break the habit… consciousness prevailed!

Let me know what you discover.

See you next week.

Victoria

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If I already know WHAT I need to do… WHY am I not doing it?

Tell me the truth, how many times did you see an article that starts with “how to…,” you quickly scanned it, “liked” it on Facebook, shared it with your friends, mother, cousins and sister, recommended everyone try it out… and you… DID NOTHING with it?

You’re not alone. We all do that. We collect books and articles, we enroll in courses, workshops, and classes, and we clip out the recipes and exercise routines that appear in magazines… Ready! All set! Now we know what to do. So… Why is that we’re not doing it then?

What super-powers do I need, to finally do what I intended to do?

It turns out you need to use your 3 super-powers:

1. The Power of Knowing WHAT to do:

You need to know what to invest your energy on, and how to do so in the most efficient way, in order to achieve your purpose.

2. The Power of Knowing what NOT to do:

Once you’ve decided what to do, you need to find out how it is that you sabotage yourself from actually doing it. Surely there are things you do, of which you are currently unaware, but that interfere and hinder your journey towards your goal. Here is where self-observation will become your greatest ally.

Knowing what to do and what not to do are the first steps. However, for you to finally do what you set out to do, you’ll need to use a third power:

3. The Power to REMEMBER what it is you want to do, and what you don’t want to do, when it really matters:

All your self-observation and analysis will be pretty useless unless you remember to make use of the information you gained from your observations and conclusions. Most of the times we don’t do what we intended to do the problem can be traced back to our INABILITY TO REMEMBER OUR OBJECTIVE! You need to make it a priority. Your brain needs to know that this activity is important to you. If not, it won’t be on the lookout to remind you what your real purpose is, when another activity threatens to interfere with your original objective.

So, it’s all very nice with words but, for this information to be really usefeul…

DO SOMETHING CONCRETE WITH IT:

If your objective is to do more physical exercise, but you’re finding yourself unable to stick to your plans…you need to investigate what sort of challenge you’re facing:

1. KNOWING WHAT TO DO: If you don’t like exercising, perhaps you need do re-define your relationship to it. In this article I tell you a little about how you can do just that.

2. KNOWING WHAT NOT TO DO: If you like to exercise, but you’re finding it difficult to do it with any degree of constancy, you need to investigate what’s causing the interference in your flow. Are you too tired? Are you afraid of looking ridiculous? Is it pain? Are you lacking basic technical knowledge? Is it the group, the teacher, or the venue that is putting you off? The sooner you discover what the hurdle is, the sooner you’ll be able to find a solution to it.

3. REMEMBERING: If you have already re-defined your purpose to get moving, you’ve chosen form of exercise that motivates you, you’ve already fished out the obstacles that were stopping you and have taken steps to remove them, but you still find yourself doing something else when the time comes to go workout… you’ll need to help yourself REMEMBER your purpose.

You need to turn i tinto a priority: put reminders on your phone, fridge, computer, highlight and circle out the time slot in your daily planner, leave everything ready way in advance. Do anything and everything necessary to tell your brain that, “This is IMPORTANT to me, so PLEASE remind me about it when I’m about to fall into my old habits.”

This is all for today. Now you’re free to go “like” the blog on Facebook, share it with your friends, tweet these recommendations to the tweetosphere. But don’t forget that YOU also need to do something with this… and then tell me in the comments box below how it worked out.

See you next week.

Victoria

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