So here's the deal. I am working part time, I don't have kids, my husband is still travelling and I am living rent free because I am housesitting. This makes for a fair amount of free time. However 2 books and a few pelvic health workshops have been helpful in getting this stretching habit to stick which I am hoping will then continue on when I go back to work full time and have a few more commitments that will take up time.
So the first book I feel I need to acknowledge in helping me with this habit is Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before which is all about habits (thank you again Healthy and Happy creator and good friend for lending me the book). I don't know if I loved the book while I was reading it but it definitely made me (and continues to make me) think about my habits. If I really want to do something (ie stretching because I keep injuring myself) then how can I prioritize the time into my day to do it? So with stretching, I tried to use a few strategies from Gretchen's book - safe guards, convenience and scheduling.
So first off, I put 5 days/week instead of 7 as my goal so as not to put pressure on myself to do it everyday because in past experiences, if I failed at doing it daily, I gave up on the whole process. I think Gretchen would call this safe guarding (if I miss a day, it is okay because my goal is only want to do 5 days/week). Secondly, I started with 3 stretches for 3 minutes each so approximately 10 minutes total. I can do 10 minutes. So I am thinking this is the convenience strategy because I am making it easy to do right by only committing to 10 minutes (as opposed to a 1 hour online yin yoga class). Then as the stretching often calmed me a bit, I did it at night so this was scheduling.
The second book is How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price. I haven't actually read the book yet but I did listen to Dan Harris interview her on his 10% Happier podcast and I thought if I could decrease my addiction to my phone and my need to respond right away to emails/texts or alerts, then maybe I could use the time I saved to stretch. Breaking up with my phone is still a work in progress and I could probably argue that it might still be that I have more time in not working full time that is really making the most impact but I still found the concept of this book inspiring.
The last thing that I think provided the motivation was the Pelvic Health Workshops I have attended recently. I have been fortunate to be in my home town when these free workshops have been taking place. Run by a pelvic health physiotherapist, they definitely give me more appreciation for core strength and flexibility. I had worked with a pelvic health physiotherapist before (I was peeing/leaking when I sneezed) but had sort of resolved the issue with some exercises. However there is something about trying to further prevent incontinence as I get older that really gave me the motivation I needed to get started with the stretching (if you want to know how they are related, you need to talk to a pelvic health physiotherapist who will do a way better job explaining it then I will on this blog). And then once I was able to make the stretching into somewhat of a habit, the stretching itself felt really good. So I feel like this is similar to Dan Harris' argument about starting meditation. In his Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics book, he and Jeff Warren advise to start it, start small, use dailyish as a goal, try to do it for 3 weeks and then see if the benefits of doing it start to take over as something you feel you want to do as opposed to have to do. (I am sure Gretchen Rubin talks about this in her books as well). So thank you Gretchen, Jeff, Dan and of course my friend!
Oh but what about yoga? I included yoga in case I did yoga and that it could then count as my stretching but for right now, stretching seems to be what I want to do so yoga may have to wait for 2020.
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