Adrenaline and cortisol are structured to help us get through bursts of intense activity, but the effects of long term production of cortisol can block out the good feeling hormones serotonin and dopamine. These “happy” hormones help us feel calm and joyful which deeply affects our sleeping pattern and heart rate. The jittery feeling is often the imbalance. Good news is that we are the cause of this imbalance and have the potential to change habits, patterns, and behaviors.
Our cognitive health and physiological adaptation have simply been hijacked by digital disruption, nutritional stress, and poor quality of sleep. When adding in alcohol, caffeine consumption, and minimal exercise, you begin to understand this is not a beneficial brain recipe. The constant bombardment to the neurological system is making your nerves raw, literally, and tanks your concentration levels.
Good news again is the finger points to you. It takes about three weeks for a repeating behavior to form a habit, says Jeremy Dean, a psychologist and author of Making Habits, Breaking Habits. “Getting into a new habit will not happen overnight and adaptation can be incremental. Start by switching off smartphone alerts, taking social media apps off your phone, then switching off the device for increasingly long periods.” Now extend that to any area of your life where you want to see improvement. You have the capacity to change your surroundings, pick your friends, select a healthy lunch, stop smoking, drop weight, start a business, etc. You have the ability to choose a new path in your life when you let go of the old way and start taking steps in a new direction.
Remember when a habit is formed, it dominates our wakeful hours. It is automatic, completed without really thinking about it (like brushing your teeth, making coffee, driving to work), and so ingrained in us that we think it defines us. Even Ben Franklin is quoted in saying, “It is always easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.”
Frankly, they are all very breakable.
You can mitigate and stop old habits with more thinking, observing, and awareness rather than expelling more energy using force and resistance. The reference here is using more mental energy (willpower + awareness) versus physical (movement + established intention). You will need a lot of introspection to make a lifelong change. Whether it’s a race, client preparation, or emotional eating, you also need preparation, practice, patience, proper support, and structure. Knowing how to reprogram the brain will set you up for success because you will be gaining the soft skills of willpower, intention, and determination.
These skills take you much further along to reaching your goals and even better…no one can take them away from you.
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