Provision #622: Stress Proof Your
Routines
by Bob Tschannen-Moran
Laser Provision
Tell me your daily routines and I will tell you your future. To stress-proof
our lives we not only need to do inner work, such as we talked about in the last
two Provisions, we also need to do outer work. And that takes many forms. In
this Provision we look at the question of our routines. When we get in the
groove of healthy routines, we don't have to work as hard and we can better
handle the things that come our way. Through clarity, information, connection,
and curiosity we can set ourselves on the right course. That has been my
experience and that is my hope for you.
LifeTrek Provision
Question: how hard do you have to work to remember to brush your teeth on a
regular basis? If you are anything like me, that one doesn't take a lot of
effort. It's not on my Outlook calendar and I don't have reminders popping up on
my PDA. I just do it. I
also go to the dentist for a cleaning, every six months. I make the appointment
for my next visit before leaving the office from my last one. That appointment
goes into my PDA and when the time comes around, it beeps and I'm there. It's
all pretty routine and automatic.
The same goes for my exercise routine. I get up in the morning and do pretty
much the same thing every day. I get dressed in my workout clothes, make a pot
of green tea, read the paper while drinking the tea, check on my appointments
for the day, take four deep breaths, and then go for a
30-90 minute run or bike ride. On Saturdays, I go for a long run that lasts for two hours or
more. When I get back from my aerobic workout, I do some stretches, sit-ups, and, from time
to time, strength training before cleaning up and getting started with my day.
Breakfast is also a routine. 90% of the time I make and drink my
Healthy Fruit
Chewy. I've posted the recipe on our website and I have
updated it over time as the recipe has evolved. It includes an abundance of
health-positive fruits, proteins, seeds, spices, oils, and other ingredients
(like bee pollen and acidophilus). That gets me all the way through to lunch
without hunger or snacking. It really is a great way to start the day (along
with the vitamins and other supplements I also take routinely).
In the afternoon I enjoy taking a break from work with a pot of
Purple Leaf Tulsi Tea,
also known as Holy Basil. This naturally caffeine-free leaf is a sacred plant
from India used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine. In India, Tulsi is considered
an "elixir of life," relieving stress and supporting well being. Recent studies
suggest that Tulsi may be a COX-2 inhibitor, like many modern painkillers, due
to its significant amount of eugenol. It also has a goodly amount of
antioxidants as well as significant antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal
activity.
If I feel tired in the afternoon, which doesn't happen very often, I may lie
down for 15-20 minutes. I can usually fit that in around my coaching
appointments and other work. On occasion, I also do a brief stint (6-12 minutes)
of Heart Rate Variability meditation using the
Healing Rhythms biofeedback training program. It doesn't take much time and
I enjoy the relaxation it brings.
Lunch and dinner also have their rhythms. My wife and I participate in a CSA Farm, which
gives us a steady supply of fresh fruits and vegetables for more than half the
year. You can find a CSA Farm near you by visiting
LocalHarvest.org. Through our local
Farmer's Market we have also connected with local sources of lean, happy meat
such as bison and free-range chickens. So we have a salad for lunch and a
small piece of meat with a side of vegetables for dinner (along with a second
round of vitamins and other supplements).
With the longer days in the Northern Hemisphere, it's easy right now to go out
for a walk after dinner – a great way to settle things down and to reconnect
with those you love. That paves the way for a couple more hours of productivity,
if I want, or relaxation before ending the day with a 30-minute stint in the hot
tub. We bought that tub in 2003 and we still manage to sit in it most every
evening. It has more than paid for itself, since it helped me to avoid surgery
for a torn rotator cuff and my wife to avoid surgery for a frozen shoulder.
Before going to sleep, I take a few more deep breaths, talk with my wife about
the things we are grateful for in our day, and take the melatonin that has been
so helpful to me in the wake of my
2007 panic
attack. The melatonin helps us to fall asleep more quickly and
to feel more rested the next day. That's the function of melatonin: a hormone
produced naturally by our pineal glands at night: it helps us to mop up and
recover from the stress and strains of the day. After considerable research,
personal experience, and talking with multiple doctors (to confirm its health
safety), I am persuaded that everyone over 40 should take melatonin unless there
is a medical reason to avoid it.
Then we go to sleep and get up the next day, only to do it all over again. There
are, of course, variations for travel and special activities (like entertaining,
lawn mowing, gardening, and guitar playing). But even then, we seem to hold on
to most of our healthy routines. I never pack a suitcase without including my
running gear, my supplements, and multiple bags of tea. I also take the
biofeedback device with me for my laptop.
I mention all this not to boast or to show off what a good life I have. Indeed,
you may look at my routines and not find them attractive at all. "A Healthy Fruit
Chewy, every morning, for breakfast!!!" I can hear you exclaiming and see you
shaking your head right now. That's fine. I'm not trying to persuade you to
adopt my routines. I just want you to know that I have them and that they make it easier for me to support the kind of life I am building for
myself.
That's what routines do. They eliminate the hard work of deciding anew, each and
every time, each and every day, what we will do. And the secret of our future is
hidden in our daily routines. Perhaps that explains, at least in part, why my
"real age" is almost 20 years younger than my "chronological age" according to
those virtual age calculators
on the Internet. My routines help to support my health.
Twenty-five years ago I had a friend in his mid 50s who worked in a downtown
office building and who had the then-obligatory, mid-life heart attack for
white-collar workers. After being treated by his doctor and after recovering
sufficiently to go back to work, my friend showed up in the office with a
prescription, written on a physician's Rx pad, for a 20-minute nap every day
after lunch. Now this man had never taken a nap in his life, and there was
certainly no nap room at the office (let alone a culture that supported naps).
He nevertheless talked to his boss and they agreed that a 20-minute nap after lunch
every day was better than another heart attack. So my friend brought in a yoga
mat, loosened his tie, and found a place to go and lie down for 20 minutes on a
daily basis. To the best of my knowledge he's alive and well today in the state
of Kentucky.
I'm glad I didn't have to wait to have a heart attack and to get a doctor's
prescription / permission before developing my healthy routines. They work
better preventively anyway. Especially when they become habits that work on
autopilot. We don't want to have to think about these things. We just want to
set them and forget them, like a thermostat that regulates the temperature of
the environments in which we live and work.
If that sounds boring to you, then you're missing the distinction between a rut
and a routine. Ruts are mundane, random, boring, life-depleting, and going
nowhere. Routines are vital, chosen, satisfying, life-enriching, and spiraling
upward. That's exactly how I feel about my routines. They not only organize my
life and make it easier, they also fill me with joy because they are meaningful
to me and because they support my values and goals in life.
No wonder good habits have such stress-proofing potential. The more you can get
in a positive rhythm, the easier life will be. Of course, bad habits have the
opposite effect. Smoking two packs a day, to mention only one example, will lead
to health problems more often than not. Everyone know this, but not everyone
sets up their routines accordingly. That makes me sad but it also keeps me in
business as a coach. Setting up what one coach calls "personal ecosystems" is a
lot of what we do. We help people design the habits that make life work.
So how do we develop good habits? There's no surefire method, but it does help
to become clear, informed, connected, and curious:
- Clarity. What's important to you? What do you value? What's alive
in you? What needs do you want to meet? Until we can answer questions such as
these, there's no way to get started on developing good habits. Clarity is
motivation.
- Information. Once you know what you value and what's important,
then there's usually a body of knowledge to learn and master. If
snowboarding is the most important thing in the world to you, then you
better learn about snowboarding. If green energy is the most important
thing, the you better learn about green energy. And if you want to live a
long time, so you can do what you want and contribute what you can for as long as
possible, then you better learn about living a long time. Information is
power.
- Connection. No one is an island and that's especially true when
it comes to life-enriching habits. My wife tells me that I have greatly
influenced her lifestyle since I share my habits with her. That's probably
true, but it works the other way around as well. We support each other. So
too with personal trainers, massage therapists, running buddies, or anyone
else who has similar interests and services. Connections are wonderful.
- Curiosity. Don't take my word for it, figure things out for
yourself. Habits start out as experiments. What healthy routines would
relieve your stress and make your life better? You'll never know until you
try. Once you find one you like, repeat it. Play with it. Modify it. Adapt
it. Amplify it. Before long, your experiment will become a healthy regimen.
Curiosity didn't kill the cat. Curiosity is what makes life possible.
Coaching Inquiries: What habits make you feel good? What habits make you
feel bad? How could you develop more good habits? What values would that
support? Where could you go for information? Who could support you on the
journey?
To reply to this Provision, use our
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LifeTrek Readers' Forum (selected feedback
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Editor's Note: The LifeTrek Readers' Forum contains selections from the comments
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Email Bob..
Really enjoyed the brain talk in your last
Provision!! The whole article was informative. Thanks!
Here's a couple of YouTube videos of Dan Gilbert, author of
"Stumbling on Happiness". I love this guy! So intelligent, and with such
a great sense of humor. I'm listening to "Stumbling on Happiness" on CD,
read by Dan Gilbert. Excellent!
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May you be filled with goodness, peace, and joy.
Bob Tschannen-Moran
President, LifeTrek Coaching International,
www.LifeTrekCoaching.com
CEO & Co-Founder, Center for School Transformation,
www.SchoolTransformation.com
Immediate Past President, International Association of Coaching,
www.CertifiedCoach.org
Author, Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time,
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