I’m a fan of routines. While they give my daily life a sense of predictability, I like the comfort of knowing I will be able to do the activities that matter to me. Prior to working from home, my morning routine upon arriving at the office is to turn on my air humidifier (inhale positive energy!), send or answer a few emails while I wait for friends to arrive so we can have our breakfast together and then tackle the the major tasks for the day.
But of course, much has changed already. Since I do not need to spend time for commute, my morning routine includes having a light breakfast before I jump into yoga, freshen up, and proceed to my little home office. But this kind of discipline did not come easily. At the beginning of the quarantine, I struggled building my morning routine which affected the way I work throughout the day and eventually, my sleeping patterns. Everyone knows that I’m an early to bed, early to rise person. But this was not the case during the early days of the quarantine. I would fall asleep at around 12 midnight but would still be able to wake up early at around 6 AM. At this point, I was not getting my personal optimal amount of sleep which is seven hours. The rest of the day would remain unpredictable depending on my mood or the needs for the day.
That went on until the quarantine prolonged and we realized we would be working from home until the end of the year (or even next year, who knows). As I told you, I’m a fan of routine so I had that wake up call to build a new morning routine. In my previous blog post, I talked about toxic productivity. One reason why I decided to build a new morning routine is the discovery that I was working hard and long hours, but I was not being smart about the way I work.
But why build a new morning routine? What does routine have to do with habits? Aren’t the two the same? Ultimately, I wanted to actually be productive and efficient instead of the toxic productivity I placed myself in. In my previous post, I talked about not being a fan of doing overtime work as it shows that I did not maximize the eight hours of work I am given in a day. So I wanted to break the habit of working long hours or in another perspective, start the habit again of sticking to a work schedule.
First, let’s define things. By definition, a habit is a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior1. While routines are habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure2. While the two words constitute an action, by their definition, the difference lies with the level of awareness of the person in doing such action.
One of my all-time favorite book, The Power of Habit references the simple neurological loop at the core of every habit discovered by MIT researchers back in 1999. This loop has three components: a cue, a routine, and a reward. The book begins with the premise that the key to understanding our habits is to identify these three components which starts with identifying the routine. This is because according to Duhigg, routines are the most obvious aspect of the behavior.
Once we’ve clearly identified the routine, the more difficult task is to isolate the cue through experimenting with rewards. This is difficult because according to Duhigg, “the reason why it is so hard to identify the cues that trigger our habits is because there is too much information bombarding us as our behaviors unfold”. It is important to isolate cues as research have discovered that habits are acquired gradually as people respond in a recurring context3. And to isolate cues, we have to observe your routine, experiment with rewards, until we are able to identify the cue or what actually triggers the routine.
Earlier, I shared with you my morning routine which includes yoga. Aside from the strength training videos from Hasfit, yoga is the only workout I enjoy which allowed me to stick to a daily workout routine. But prior to that, I would squeeze in yoga whenever I “find” the time- so that could be during lunch break, after work, or before I go to sleep. At that time, I felt that I wasn’t getting the full benefits of yoga and was just trying to make sure that I actually meet my daily workout goals. Since I noticed that my brain seems more active after I do yoga regardless of what time of the day I did it, I decided to experiment with my daily routine by making sure I do it in the morning.
When I was just starting out, my motivation mostly came from external rewards such as being able to close my activity rings in my Apple Watch, meet my daily exercise goal, earn badges, and streaks. This is the part of the habit loop where it talks about rewards until we can break it down to what the cue is. And this could also be further explained by another research4 where the researchers explained how habits are influenced either by goals or context cues, depending on the habit strength5. Moderately-strong habits are influenced by goals, such as when I was just starting out with yoga until I was able to strengthen the habit by engaging with it every day which now became influenced by “recurring triggers in the performance context6“.
So where am I now in terms of my yoga journey? Well I just finished about four sets of Yoga with Adriene’s 30-day Yoga videos. It helped me stay active, perform better at work, and more importantly, build other routines and habits. If you wish to read about how ONE habit can actually spill over the other parts of your life which Duhigg calls Keystone habit, I suggest reading his book. There is still much to discover about habits but it’s a good place to start especially if you’re not the academic type but is interested in building your own habits (or even breaking some of them!)
Happy habit- experimenting! 🙂
References
1 habit. 2020. In Merriam-Webster.com.
Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/habit
2 routine. 2020. In Merriam-Webster.com.
Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/routine
3 Neal, D. T., Wood, W., Labrecque, J. S., & Lally, P. (2012). How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(2), 492-498. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.011
4 Wood, W., Tam, L., & Witt, M. G. (2005). Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 918–933. doi:10.1037/00
5 Neal, D. T., Wood, W., Labrecque, J. S., & Lally, P. (2012). How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(2), 492-498. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.011
6 Ibid.
She teaches and she writes 