Using routine to bolster health
Supercharge your routine with health promoting "add-ins"
For most of my adult life, my health routine consisted of exercise, cooking, and eating well. I don’t consider these habits. Instead, I have weaved them into my life, and they require some planning.
During midlife, I've introduced activities that require a moderate amount of time, falling between simple habits and more demanding tasks.
The good news is they don’t take too long, from less than a minute to 15 minutes at most.
The bad news is I easily forget to do them.
My goal is to integrate these activities into my daily routine, ensuring they get done in a systematic and simple way.
As I wrote that sentence I thought, “Yeah, I’m getting old.”
But first, let’s briefly touch on the difference between habits and routines.
Habit vs. routine
I realized the importance of routine and structure after having children. There’s the bedtime routine, which is a must for kids' sleep.
I wrote for years about structuring meals and eating. When kids go to school, there’s the importance of a predictable routine for homework and social time.
Research suggests kids do better both mentally and physically with structure and routine. The benefits of routine extend to adults, too.
In this piece in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, routine is defined as “as a repeated behavior involving a momentary time commitment task that requires little conscious thought.”
Habits, on the other hand, depend on a cue, like washing your hands immediately after using the restroom. They can happen anytime, as long as the cue is present.
In short, habits are cue driven and routine is the predictable order in which you do things. I also believe most habits are short in duration.
A UK study determined that it takes on average 66 days to develop a habit. But routines are a bit more complex and often take longer.
Although there are multiple strategies to form a routine, an important one is to help patients develop a structure to their day such that fewer decisions need to be made. - Arlinghaus, AM J Lifestyle Medicine, 2019
So, it just makes sense to take our established routine and “add in” health promoting activities. It also takes a load off our brain.
Let me walk you through my first attempt at doing some add-ins to my routine.
Morning
When creating a routine, it’s important to make it easy, enjoyable, and to start small. I’ve already been doing most of these activities, but now I’m just planning them into my day.
I’m using a chart I created on Canva (below) which separates activities into morning, afternoon, and night.
Let’s start with morning.
Most mornings I get up early (5-5:30) to workout. I have daily physical therapy exercises and I’ve been staying after to do some of them (or sometimes during). Read more about my hamstring injury.
I come home and before I eat; I take out my Invisalign, which I recently got to improve crowding on my bottom teeth. After I eat is the best time to take my supplements. I usually just take them randomly, but right after breakfast makes the most “routine” sense.
I also am adding a time to get water with ice to put at my desk. I plan to write more about this soon, but sensitivity to thirst changes with Aging Pause making midlife women prone to dehydration. I realize I’m probably not getting enough water.
After eating, I brush and floss before putting my Invisalign back on. Because I have to do this, I’m also doing this gum massage exercise my hygienist has been trying to get me to do for a long time.
I then shower and get ready and sit down at my computer. I am notorious for going straight to work and not planning my day or looking at my goals.
So, I’m adding in a 5-minute check to look at my calendar (a longer one on Monday), to do list, and add anything that needs to be done. Then I sketch out my day.
As I take breaks during work, I’m aiming to add a slow breathing session (15 minutes) and then walk for other breaks.
Afternoon/Evening
I’m saving the rest of my PT exercises for later in the afternoon.
I’ve added cleaning out one small area of my home each day. Cleaning entire rooms can be overwhelming, so I'll tackle small areas one at a time in about 10 minutes.
Also, I’d like some focused time alone. I can meditate or just read something. Putting little old me on the to-do list.
I need to do my resistance breathing when my Invisalign is out, so I picked the time right before dinner. It only takes 5 minutes and I'm storing my device in the kitchen.
WATCH: Transform your health in just 5 minutes a day
Then it's a walk after dinner and if I feel it’s needed, another slow breathing session. But mostly, I just relax or watch something before bed.
Printing it out
Of course, I wanted to add more, but knew this was already too much to start. This sounds great, but I also have teens who need things at odd times. The school year hasn’t started yet, so I’ll need to change this in a few weeks.
I’m also not sure how to handle weekends, which are less structured.
But it’s a start and I won’t know what works until I start. If you want to do it with me, print out the form or make your own.
I’ll give an update in a future roundup post.
Let me know in the comments what you think! Are you a routine person?
I appreciate knowing the difference between habit and routine. I have recently upped my exercise and write the minutes on a calender, but I might like to try your system. I also watched the interview and left a comment there. Thanks again for your research and helpful information.
That is definitely a good idea. Although there's a part of me that would rebel against a routine lol