The 5 Habit Myths Around Health – With Dr. Heather McKee

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, we have a very exuberant audience, people are wanting to make change. And so I really wanted to bring you on to talk about behavior change, and how we can take some of the amazing concepts that that people are learning on, on on a fleet of free platforms like iTunes and Instagram and YouTube, and how do we take these principles and help people put them into action? Because the mind seems to get in the way? What would you agree?

Dr. Heather McKee
Yeah, no, absolutely, totally. And I think we, we all have this intention, action gap, you know, and, and that’s something that holds a lot of us back is that we have all the will in the world, all the motivation in the world, but we can’t manage to make things happen. And I think that’s where behavioral science three kind of forms that role, you know, we we can be told that we need to do these things, you understand the ingredients have changed, but it’s actually taking those ingredients and, you know, understanding the methodology, how do they work in our busy complex lives and how you apply them to our lives? That is the the piece that people are missing? And I feel like that’s what behavioral psychology case people,

Dr. Mindy
yeah, agreed, agreed, I feel like you, all you have to do is go look at read the comments on my social media, and you see all different types of strategies that people will apply to be able to take even a simple concept like intermittent fasting, and try to figure out how to integrate that into their life while undoing behavioral habits that may be holding them back. So can you talk a little bit you have something on your website that really was fascinating to me, and actually, was new information for me around habits and it’s this five, you have hot five habit myths? And I want to tell you that I pretty much think I’ve I think I’ve fallen prey to all five?

Unknown Speaker
Okay.

Dr. Mindy
So let’s start with I gonna start with the first one. It’s about willpower. Myth. Number one, it’s about willpower. How come it’s not about willpower,

Dr. Heather McKee
making a change? Yeah, so interesting, isn’t it? We so often we think you need to white knuckle our way to success. And, and, you know, especially I suppose this time of year, you know, January’s just pass, and people are thinking, you know, you know, we think, okay, we’re going to give sugar, we’re going to run every day, we’re going to be nice to our kids, we’re going to do all of the things. And actually, the more that we added, the more likely we are takeaway, and it’s the concept in psychology known as goal dilution. And, you know, we say loose are affected. And that’s because willpower essentially is a bit like a muscle. So if I went to the gym for the next week, and just train my right bicep, by the time I get to the end of the week, I wouldn’t be able to pick up a cup of tea, you know, but if I went once a week for seven weeks, you know, slowly getting myself rest and recovery in between, I will get stronger. And and the key here is that if we kind of go all in and try and do too much at once, just what we so often try and do with our habits, you know, we try and pick up far more than we can chew. And it just makes us less likely to be successful long term in our willpower to fail. And I like to refocus people and say we need to focus on skill power, not willpower, we focus on system for change, we need to, you know, I think it’s time for people to stop blaming themselves, when they fail that one of their habits, we need to start blaming our systems instead. And that’s certainly something we’ve seen in our cities that those are long term successful at maintaining healthy habits versus those that kind of relapse into old behaviors. Actually, the people that fail they ask themselves, Well, why did I fail? Where did my system fail? You know, did I not have my things set up in the right way? Did I need myself to go to Hungary in this situation? Was I vulnerable with my more emotionally vulnerable? What systems can I have in place to help me next time, and those are the people you know, that are most successful. So a way to overcome the kind of willpower myth is to start small, instead of big and filled for time, because therefore you don’t use up too much of your precious willpower. And actually, what we want to do is, at the start, our motivation is really high. But habits are low. We want to repeat things often enough that they become habitual, and so that we don’t need our motivation anymore, because habits are non conscious processes. And so just like you know, Mindy, you probably didn’t lie in bed this morning. You know, weighing up the pros and cons of dental hygiene or deciding if you’re a two person kind of zone, you probably just brushed your teeth to fit the habit that you had. You probably didn’t have to motivate yourself to make your tea this morning or you know, the various different habits have a shower or whatever the habits are, are in your life because they’re automatic, non conscious process, and that’s where we want to get with our health habits. We want to do them just like teeth brushing. We don’t have willpower weigh, and it’s something that just happens in our lives.

Dr. Mindy
So, so what do we do? You know, I’m the type of person that’s like, if a little bit good, a lot is going to be better. And so when one of the ways I’ve motivated myself is by not appreciating the moment that I’m in, so let’s use, you know, 30 years ago, I had chronic fatigue syndrome, and I couldn’t get out of bed. So I was crazy motivated to do whatever any doctor told me to do, so that I could just get out of bed. So doing one thing on at that moment would have actually been torturous for me, and I don’t know, if it’s just my port, my personality, I needed like 20 things to give me hope, to feel like I was actually going to move myself out of this situation. So one of the challenges I have with doing only a few habit changes when your motivation is high. Is Is it enough? And for me, I worry, I will lose motivation.

Dr. Heather McKee
Yeah, and the thing is, you will lose motivation, you are human, you know, all humans cannot sustain the same level of motivation. And what I would say in terms of you know, and especially when you’re motivated through due to, you know, a chronic illness is something as debilitating, as you know, fatigue. Absolutely, you know, we feel like we want to make all of the changes kind of all at once. And the key here is that, you know, we make changes that are going to support our willpower rather than Cletus. And what I mean by that is that we’re not Sunday, setting ourselves 20 million different tiny goals to follow all at once, that we’re focusing on kind of one key thing, and then the rest of the things that we’re looking at are environmental change,

Dr. Mindy
if that makes sense. Okay, so

Dr. Heather McKee
So, so things, such as, you know, pre scheduling, and are working, so then we know when and where they’re happening in advance, so we don’t have to think about it, things like double batch cooking our meals in Asana, so we don’t have to think about our meals for the next day, things like laying out your yoga mat last thing at night. So it’s the first thing you pick over in the morning. So it’s almost it’s a cue that’s physically in your environment, because habits work off this loop, which is a cue or trigger in response. And then you respond to that with a behavior in response to for reward, so the cue of behavior and a reward. And the thing is, you want the cue to be so obvious that you don’t have to think about it, you don’t have to wiggle your way into it. It’s just like, you know, if you have a glass of water sitting in front of you all the time at all times, it’s much more likely that you’re going to engage in that because you’ve set up an environment that makes it easier to make that choice. And so that’s something that you can do. And then when it comes to the goals, here’s a way that you can check it to make sure if they are small enough to be sustainable. If ask yourself on a scale of one to 10 over the next week, so break them down into the seven day periods over the next week, this small goal that I wish to achieve, how likely is it that I’m going to be engaging in this time next week. So on a scale of one to 10, and if you’re not at least 70% Or more likely to be engaging with it, then you’ve got to make it easier? And even if you’re a 70% Or more likely, but ask yourself well what will take me to 100%

Dr. Mindy
I love that because so one of my one of my favorite quotes is do something today that your tomorrow self will thank you for. So I think a lot when I when it comes to my health habits, I think okay, how I live my life today is really a gift to my tomorrow self. And if I can think about always my tomorrow self in the process of my daily habits that has propelled me along a lot of different health habits, to for the longevity for years being able to do that. So I love what you’re saying because you can get really enthusiastic about something new. And if you could project out if a that tomorrow self will be grateful that you stuck with it and be as the tomorrow self gonna be entertained enough to stick with it. That’s an awesome idea. I really like that.

Dr. Heather McKee
I love that. I absolutely love what you’re saying. Because what I always say in habit changes you want to be your future self best friends. And one way to really, really check in with this as well. And this is from Dr. Kelly McGonigal she talks about think about your most exhausts itself, because that’s the thing we all think about our future selves as being perfect having ironclad willpower, you know, never really giving into temptation, being able to resist everything, but like we live in the real world. We’re going to get in an argument with someone we’re going to get retired at some stage we’re going to be in a bad mood at some stage you know, we’re going to be hungry at some stage all Do you think they’re going to assess this? And so a way to kind of bring that into what we’ve just talked about is well, to say, well, on a scale of one to 10, how much will my most exhausts itself? How likely are they to be able to be still trying to say, a week from now, or my most depleted self, or my most fatigue, self, or my most stressed out so interesting? No, because if you know you’ve got a week coming up, there is absolutely no point in setting up your habit in a way that you can only do it if circumstances are perfect, because Welcome to Life, that’s never going to happen. And so you need to set up your habits in a way that they can weather the storm, because habits are formed through repetition. And so thing if you if you do the same thing, in the same circumstance, enough times, it becomes a habit. And that’s what we want, we want this repetition. But if you can only repeat your habit, when the circumstances are perfect, then you’re not going to allow it to become a habit. And that’s where habit takes over from motivation, when you can repeat it in all circumstances, then you’ll have to be motivated anyone?

Dr. Mindy
Wow. Okay. So if I go to that’s that I love it, and my brain goes to, if my exhausted self, can’t even get out off the couch, she’s not going to want to go for a walk, she’s she’s not going to really, she’s going to want to eat something that is going to give me a dopamine rush, as opposed to something that is just going to be good for my body. So I might not want to eat healthy. Like, what if the exhausted self is depressed? And like how do I how do I create a positive habit for her? If that depleted state feels so low? Like how do you change any habit in that moment?

Dr. Heather McKee
Wonderful question, because that is life. And that is something that we Yeah.

Dr. Mindy
How do you come back out of that?

Dr. Heather McKee
There’s two things here. One is we need to look at our what are the habits that we wish to create on a scale. So say you want to eat healthier, or you want to exercise more? What is a tan on that scale? So for example, exercising more, or the perfect exercise routine for you might be to do hit training three times a week. So that’s your 10. So what’s your eight? What’s your seven? What’s your six, what’s your three, you know, is that a 20 minute walk is that a 15 minute walk is that just doing some squats, while the kettle boils, like, we need to look at our habits on a scale of one to 10, because our life is not always accommodating of the 10. Now, and most of the time, our life is much more in the sixes or the fives or the fours in a three. And so we have to get away from this all or nothing mindset where it has to be, you know, hit training or nothing, it has to be the most perfect dietary day or nothing has to be or if I only do 20 minutes of meditation, otherwise, I failed. You know, it cannot, we have to get rid of this all or nothing. And the beautiful thing about actually having the scale, having a scale of one to 10 for any habit that you’re wishing to create, is that it changes the brain that a total or nothing, and actually opens up new neural pathways and says it’s not ruin or rain. If you go outside and it’s raining, it’s like okay, I put on my jacket, and I go out with a killer playlist. And I feel like rock, or I’ve got this online for runners alternative workout that I can do at this time. I’ve got nine other options here right now that are available to me if this happens. And this is a concept in psychology known as implementation intention. So if you know that a certain pain got in your way, time and time again, and we do tend to know it tends to be the same sticky things that get in our way. So if that barrier comes up, you need to start thinking about well, what are my alternatives? One way is to have that scale, because it can really help you see, well, you know, I don’t have to exercise 10 at a time every day, but there are nine other options available to me. And so people need to start brainstorming because we will have those barriers, those barriers will certainly and I always say this to anyone on my habits program, I say there’s one thing I want for you, and I want you to fail, because failure is success if you from it. And it’s all about understanding where that fits in the context of your busy life. And we need to start putting ourselves under pressure to make perfect habits, and to never fail, because that’s not going to teach us anything. And habits are for life not just for January. So we want to be able to create these audits, that we can keep going years and years and years from that. So a great way to process is to scale back your habits to have a look at well what’s a 10 at a time, what’s a nine? What’s an eight, what’s a seven all the way to add an experiment.

Dr. Mindy
I love that and the Edit actually ties really well into the second myth that you have which is ignore your inner critic because my inner critic In that, again, I’m I’m working at, you know, 52 years old to just be live a more balanced life and not be that go go kind of push push person that I’ve been most of my life. But my inner critic would say to that comment, you’re being lazy, you’re not doing enough. So I think when we look at chunking, this down and making the goal very attainable, giving it the scale, like you talked about, how do you handle the inner critic, because some inner critics will say, I’m not doing enough and other inner critics will say, I can’t do enough. So how do we? How do we how do we handle that inner critic?

Dr. Heather McKee
Yeah, and that that is tough, it is hard, because you know, we’ve been taught their habits too. And the more we think it a certain way, the more the stronger that muscle is in our in our brain, the more likely it is to be a default. And so one way to do that is to firstly notice when a critic comes up, and critics have a way of coming up around certain situations. And you might notice that they come up at certain times of day, or in response to you after conversation with certain a certain person, or after you’ve been on social media, or you’ve been triggered by something else. And I say, poets are habits too. So look at what’s the key there, what’s the key word that trigger, first of all, and that actually brings out that behavior of being an inner critic, because that can be something to examine. And I would say to people, they want to do that track that over the next week, have a look at when did your inner critics are to shine a little bit lighter, because that’s going to tell you a lot about how to unlock that habit. And actually, you know, you can really, really learn a lot from that. And once you understand those situations that your inner critic comes to base, that’s when you can start to take action, then that’s when you can start to investigate. Okay, what is this retard? What are they saying to me time and time again. And one thing to do is you can look at catching that language, first of all, because when the first step, the second piece is about reframing. How does your inner critic turn into an inner coach, because what we know from the research is that those that are most self compassionate those like in the moat themselves, and most encouragement, they’re actually people, a six year goes best. You know, we all think that if we’re going to be kind to ourselves, and we’re going to be compassionate, that we’re just going to sit in our PJs all day and order pizza. And but actually the most compassionate people do what they know is going to make them feel best at that time. And so one way to train yourself and compassion because compassion is a skill like anything else, it’s not a switch, you can turn off, I’m not going to promise you that you’re going to be able to turn off that inner critic in like any other habit, it’s a skill that we need to work on need to have awareness first need to recognize the situation that comes up. And we need to look at reframing it as often as we can. But we also then how do we do that? Well, one beautiful way to do that is then there’s an amazing researcher called Dr. Kristin Neff. And she has a thing called a self care checklist, which is several times throughout the day, when you feel yourself triggered when you hear that, quote, you know that critic rather than that coach shouting at you, ask yourself, what in this moment? Do I need to nourish myself? What do I need in this moment to nourish myself? Now that could be physical? Maybe you haven’t had a glass of water? Or maybe you need to eat? Maybe it’s emotional. Maybe it’s that you’re feeling lonely? or tired or vulnerable? or disconnected? Can you reach out to someone? Can you have a phone call? Can you go out and actually chat to someone. And it might be physical in terms of us holding too much tension in your body? Maybe you need to release maybe some breathing exercises. And it’s about actually gone through the spectrum of what wellness is the physical, emotional, social, and ask himself where in that? Am I needing nourishment right now. And then I think that’s important thing to train people in because it’s not always physical. It can often be emotional, it can be psychological. Maybe you’re feeling stress, maybe you’re feeling wind up, maybe you can use your breath. Maybe you bid at the computer all day and you need to take a break. But what that does is it trains ourselves to actually look at, well, what are the physical, social, emotional, psychological needs right now, rather than just listening to the inner critic. And that’s how we can train ourselves in compassion and move away from this critic.

Dr. Mindy
What would it be helpful to have like a toolbox of go twos when that depleted moment hits and the inner critic shows up? Again, I just can only speak for myself that I know when the inner critic shows up sometimes it takes me a while to unravel it like I can be aware of it but then I I’m an action oriented person, so I need to put another I love this idea of like, what can I do to fill myself Because I need to put myself in some action place for me to turn that inner critic off. So would it be helpful if you like, let’s say, You’re, I’m just gonna use fasting as an example, you’re starting to learn how to fast, a little longer. And then all of a sudden you get hungry, you get dizzy, or your inner critic says, See, you can’t do this. And maybe that inner critic is even you maybe that inner critic is, is a parent that told you, you weren’t enough. And all these things come bubbling up to the surface? In that moment, I have found that sometimes it’s hard to unravel myself. So if I had a toolbox that I could go to and say, Oh, remember, when you get like this, you should breathe? Oh, you should go outside and get in the sun. Like, is that helpful for quieting the inner critic?

Dr. Heather McKee
Absolutely. I love that now. Brilliant. Yeah. And actually there is there is a specific exercise we can do with that, because it’s the same things coming up time and time again. So if you’re trying to stop, and then the key thing that’s coming up is, look, you’re gonna fail at this because you failed and everything else before I say that’s the thought that comes up. So what I would say, and this is what I was encouraging rain tracking, write that down. And then and then once you have that written down, we can capture those same ones that come up, because they tend to be same four or five, you know, retards that we have on our head from our childhood, or from more recent times that keep coming up again, again, capturing those is Braden. And then and you know, the Dalai Lama has lovely quote, which is one of the most positive powerful ways to create positivity in your life is to reframe those negative thoughts, and how we reframe those as we look for the truth. Because the thing is, we have this negativity bias, we have five times as many negative thoughts as we have positive thoughts. And what we need to do is we need to train that coach, we need to train the brain to be on the lookout for that positivity. And I don’t mean this in terms of just think positive point of view. If that, that keeps coming up for you time and time again, you will fail as if you failed many times before. What’s the positive truth that could paint us? Where is the truth? If that’s the negativity, if where’s the truth as well, because we need to balance the night. So maybe it’s tribe a lot of things before that you keep picking yourself up time and time again, and trying because you care about what the outcomes are. And so for each of those negative kind of critics that you have, I want you to like really examine those and actually pull the positive from that pull. What’s true in this situation? Well, here I’m trying again, here. Like what’s happened in the past showing up time and time and time again, because I’m dedicated to my heart, because I care about where this I care about what it’s getting back in my life.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, I love that. And I, and you just gave me a thought about the fact that the brain is negative biased. And I will tell you, you know, in working with hundreds of 1000s of people on our social media, you see that languaging show up over and over, and that the brain wants to tilt towards negativity. What why is that? Why can’t it? You know, what is it? Because if it’s like this is my thought is if our brain is programmed for negativity, can there be good in that? Like, I’ve used negative thoughts to motivate me before? So is there a way to use that negative bias instead of trying to just find the truth? Is there a way to use it to propel you forward?

Dr. Heather McKee
What great question. And so where it comes from is from evolution, and and those that were most anxious of threat were the women survive? And so you can see how that the stack can help you. Yeah, when you’re running from a dinosaur? Yeah. A dinosaur is an email from your boss or, or something else, you can see where it can get quite, quite fraught, and not helpful, but basically, those that were most anxious and those that were best able to receive threats, were those that survived. And of course, then, you know, it was a survival instinct. So naturally, as humans, you know, we’re going to default into negativity. In fact, it’s really interesting, we spend, I think, five more times five times more brain attention on negative emojis than we do on positive and right. For every one negative piece of news, we have to read six, six times as much positive to kind of counterbalance that. And so what we know is that, you know, chronic negativity and chronic negative exposure has lasting negative outcomes and our health makes us more stressed. It causes a lot of inflammation in the body, it can cause all sorts of difficulties long term, and that’s why we try and encourage you know, people to balance the negativity it’s not about not acknowledging it, because like you say, you know, it can can be a powerful skill in some ways. It’s just about using it in a way using it for good, rather than using for harm. And that’s the difference. And I think the way to really understand that is to go back to the very, very start, which is something I always encourage anyone to do when they’re starting out on habit change is asked themselves. Why? Because the thing is, so often we start out and habit change, thinking about just the numbers alone. So we think about the number on the scales, or the number we can lift at the gym, or the number of miles you can get in our fitness tracker, and we let that be the sole indicator of success, we let that kind of be where our motivation hangs literally in the balance of what those numbers are. And it doesn’t matter how much effort we put in that week. If that number doesn’t reflect the effort, we get disheartened, and we can discontinue to go. And that’s called extrinsic motivation. So any goal that’s followed for performance or appearance reasons, for numbers alone, that’s extrinsic, and it can last for a couple of weeks, it can motivate us for a couple of weeks. But long term, that’s not going to work, what we want to do is you want to focus on intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic isn’t the most beautiful word because it translates into Latin as inward or good for the soul. And we want to follow our goals because they’re good for ourselves, because they’re personal meaningful for us. Because they give us something back in our lives, we want to be healthy, because it allows us make a better contribution at work. And I will be a better parent a better role model in our community, whatever it happens to be. And so I always say to people, I’ve stolen this from Simon Sinek. But we want to start with why Yeah, when it comes to any girl, and that can help us tune into our we positively ever doing this for a positive reason? Or are we doing it for a negative extrinsic reason? And so are we doing this in a way that’s going to be most supportive and helpful for us? Or actually, are we undermining our own success by actually doing it in a non positive way. And the thing is, what we know from the research is that those that do think for intrinsic reasons, because they can see the contribution it makes them. So they can see that fasting, gives them more energy long term makes them feel more empowered around their health. So we can see that it gives us all of these amazing long term benefits and be connected, that we’re not looking at missing out on, we’re not looking at what we lose out what we gain, we’re looking at what it gives us back in our life. And if we can connect with what something gives us back the contribution it makes, then use our motive that this type of motivation, sticky in a good way?

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, you know, well said, because I always have said that if you are trying to lose weight for a number on the scale it or to fit into your skinny jeans, it will be you’ll you can accomplish that you can use that as motivation, but you won’t find a lasting, sustainable, motivating factor. Because what happens once you hit that goal, what you know, then what do you do, and if or like we see people who try to lose weight to, you know, win back relationships, or, you know, all those extreme extrinsic reasons, really, you can use them to get to the goal, but you can’t use I find you can’t use them to stay at the goal, you will constantly fall backwards. And this is why we’ve got this dieting culture because it’s like, you have a extrinsic goal, you go for it, you achieve it. Now, what do you do? So I love what you are saying like, if it’s intrinsic, then it really has the power to help you create lasting change, not just a momentary Hi, would you agree on that?

Dr. Heather McKee
I’m like, there’s like, a lot of this research comes from a theory called self determination theory. And it’s over 40 years of research, you know, that they’ve shown that this is what makes habits stick this is what makes changes in our life stick. But also, as you were talking there, and it was really profound what you said, but it made me think of something else, which was that this can also help us decide if this is the right type of goal for us. If we’re following it for our to impress our axe or to do whatever else, you know, maybe that’s not the thing that we need to be following right now. And this is where discernment comes in. And a lot of people don’t do this when they think that because everyone else is following a certain goal, I have to do it and I have to do this way. But the thing about behavior changes we have to find what works for us in the in the kind of beautiful tapestry of the complexity of our lives. And so we need a certain level of discernment to be able to ask ourselves, is this the right goal for me right now? Because often people set themselves goes out of places like you say, have heard of, you know, relationship fails, okay, I’m going to transfer my life. I’m going to make all of these changes. And then when we can’t make them because we’re are obviously quite emotionally stressed at the time, then we get even harder on ourselves. And that’s where the credit is strong, everything else. But if we can discern that this is truly for us that this is something because it’s going to make me feel healthier, contribute more to my life, do more, go further, it’s giving me back something, then we know that that’s a goal for us, it’s making a contribution to our life, we’re not doing it to impress someone, we’re not doing it for the social media likes, we’re not doing it for some external reason, we’re doing it for us. I love that.

Dr. Mindy
I love that. Okay, number three, this one also, again, I have your big habit myths was that repetition is the only way to create a good habit. So you you can’t, you can’t create a good habit by just repeating the same thing over and over and over again, the good habit.

Dr. Heather McKee
Repetition is one of the most beneficial things, but it’s got to be in the right way. So what I mean by that is, you’ve got to think about when and where, and is best for me to perform my change this week. So when we talk about, you know, we choose one small change, we want to make it so small. So there were at least 70%, or more confident that we’ll be able to carry it out over the next week, and even think about our most exhaust itself or most deplete itself, how do we make it easier on that? And then you want to ask yourself well, when and where we can perform it. Because instead of exercising more, or eating healthier, it becomes it’s, you know, Tuesday and Thursday, I do my online cycling class at 7am. So we need to take our habits kind of added the esoteric added the clothes and put them into the context of our lives. So it’s not just repetition, it’s actually about understanding, well, where do they work? Where do they show up what’s most beneficial for us, and again, you know, like, we all think that, you know, just because, you know, X guru gets up at 5am, and has this perfect morning routine, that I must do all of these things in the morning, if you’re trying to get the kids out the door to school, that is not the time for you, you know, maybe lunchtime is a quieter time for you, maybe it’s more of a time for that. And that’s why I always say to people try and use the first few months of the year to experiment rather than perfect. And what I mean by that is, look at different times where your habits can happen and how flexibility because what we’ve seen in cities are, is that, you know, once you kind of find that time of day that works for you in the context of life, then it makes it easier to repeat your habits. But if you’re trying to set things up in a way that’s only supportive of how your lifestyle revolves, and how you, you know, operate, then it just makes it really, really difficult for yourself. Yeah, and there’s also another piece that’s really interesting, and I can fast track it, or habits success, but I’ll stop there.

Dr. Mindy
Come on, you got to tell us how to fast track our habits.

Dr. Heather McKee
Yeah, so this is about you know, we think that again, we think we can critique our way into into habit change and but you know, telling ourselves not do it not doing something so saying all I’m gonna give up sugar, I’m not going to drink alcohol, but not doing something doesn’t give us a positive boost. Basically, you know, habits are created, or can be fast tracked for emotional responses. So you change best when you feel good. So feeling bad about the changes you make feeling like you haven’t done enough, like say you only do 10 minutes meditation when you said you’re 15. And this is the reason why small goals are so powerful because if you say or even do five and you do 10, it feels like a positive bonus. But the reason behind it is neurochemical. It’s about the dopamine boost, you get best when you feel good, because when you feel good, you release dopamine in your brain. So when you do something positive, immediately, you know, after you feel positive asks you perform your habits, and makes it much more likely to tell you it tells your brain basically dopamine for learning hormones is like a pat on the back. So each time you engage in a positive behavior, it says yes, it’s something good. But to do it again, you know, we think about a child like learning, you know, to fit shapes into a certain toy. And when they get it, they do it right the parent class and then they’re just like, yeah, and then they celebrate and they learn, okay, this isn’t good to do, I want to do it again and again and again. And therefore if we want to fast track or how fast we want to feel good about our habits. And so that’s why it’s really important to have this game focused about what do I gain, but also, there’s a beautiful there’s a wonderful research called researcher called BJ Fogg from Stanford University and he talks about we want to create this feeling of shine. So shine is a feeling that you get you know, when your team scores in the final minute the league to win the whole thing. Or you know, when you wrote that piece of paper and you got it into the trashcan, first time you think you should have been drafted for the NBA. Or, you know, when your child holds your hand and you get that really In a positive lump in your throat, it’s that beautiful, warm feeling. And if we can create that after the habits that were received to create, so, you know, every time that we finish our thoughts, and you know, we have our first bit of food afterwards, if we can kind of stop and take a moment and say, you know, I’ve done this, you know, I’ve gotten this far, look how good this feels, and tune our brain into how great we feel for doing this. If we can create that feeling of shine, then it’s much more likely that we’re basically telling our brain This isn’t good. Let’s do it again. And again, and again. And again. You know, if we’re teaching ourselves to drink more water, we just take another sip of water, if we take a second and say there’s loads of ways you can celebrate this, you can, you can celebrate like sports stars, celebrate, you know, we’re a big gesture afterwards. Or you can just mail a nod, I like to, like, draw a smiley face on my to do list, or do drum roll on my table. And but there’s whatever way you want to celebrate if whatever is true to you. But if you can do that, when you’re starting a new habit, it makes it much more likely that you’re going to be able to repeat it or not. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
I love that. And Dopamine is a fascinating neurotransmitter, I’ve, I’ve spent a lot of time studying dopamine, because I definitely want to go for the dopamine. And one of the things that I have been wrestling with in my own mind is, if we are constantly chasing dopamine, since dopamine is the molecule of more, there’s never, there’s never enough. So I’m just thinking, let’s say, let’s use fasting, again, somebody wants to fast 13 hours, what I hear from your strategy is saying, if you’ve only fasted eight hours, go eight hours and 15 minutes, so that now you’ve at least gone a little bit longer than you normally fast, and you’re going to have a win, which is going to give you dopamine. Now, what I understand about dopamine is whenever you get a dopamine hit that the ante goes up, and you have to get a little have the win has to be a little bigger for you to get the next level of dopamine. So is there a point where now those the the little wins that you’re getting from the small repetition of this new habit isn’t as dopamine satisfying? Does there hit a point where the dopamine win has to be a number on the scale has to be something bigger than just I pushed my fast back another 15 minutes?

Dr. Heather McKee
Yeah, good question. I think that it depends on the individual. Because we all kind of have a different dopamine tolerance. But also, I think the key here is that we can vary our rewards. So we can vary how we kind of congratulate ourselves, we can vary it in terms of we can celebrate, like physically, to release that dopamine response. Another thing that we can do is we can actually create a craving for that particular habit. So what I mean by this is, you know, I said, when we pause me take a moment, and when we finish our fast, let’s just say, and we and we think about you know, because when we get to the end of the fastest simulation, isn’t it, it’s like, this is an incredible feat. And so if we can pose in that moment, we’re training our brain to attend to those feelings. And then next time, when we’re finding it difficult in our Foss, if we can bring to mind that feeling that feeling of that elation, because what we find in studies is if you can prime people to that end states for how they feel when they finished that workout, or when they finished a fast or how they feel after they’ve eaten a healthy meal, if we can prime that end state, it makes it much more likely that people are going to be able to stay on track. So there’s a couple of different things that you can do to take the dopamine boost in a different way. You can physically celebrate, you can emotionally celebrate. Or you can train your brain to actually look for that positive feeling because we crave good habits as much as we can have bad habits to crave and sit and savor that feeling then that can really help boost it too.

Dr. Mindy
I love that. The subtleties I think that’s like that’s like the message I keep hearing in life in general lately is the magic is in the subtleties and all those little small things that show up that we tend to not look at, because we’re always looking for the big Hi, we’re looking for the big win. And it’s in the small little nuances of each one of our day that like a healthy mind and a healthy body is is really built and I feel like every person I brought on this podcast keeps saying the same thing just with different language. So

Dr. Heather McKee
yeah, and you’re so right. And I think the key here is as well though, with the dopamine thing, it doesn’t have to be forever because actually it’s just often enough to get you to repeat the habit till it becomes a habit. And then once it’s automatic, you don’t need to congratulate yourself anymore because you’re range looks for that fit like that in mind. So you don’t have to think about if a nonconscious prices. So that’s the thing about, like, you know, you can only need to step it up to a point. Because once you get to that crossover where the habit starts to get stronger than the motivation, then you don’t even have to work on anymore. I love that.

Dr. Mindy
I love that. Okay, so the fourth myth you had was, and you’ve kind of touched on this was that big goals lead to big changes. So what I’m hearing you say throughout everything here is actually don’t chase the big goal chase the small goal?

Dr. Heather McKee
Absolutely, yeah, it’s small changes that bring big results, because small changes make it easy enough to repeat them often enough. They feel rewarding, and they’re positively framed, so we feel like we’re achieving each time. And they don’t negatively affect our self esteem. And therefore, they’re the ones that help boost our motivation help us gain momentum. And the interesting thing about small changes, and it just kind of goes back to something that you said at the start Monday, which was like, we can when when what we find in our cities, and I’ve certainly seen it with people in the course as well, that is that when people focus on that making that one small change, and they start to feel successful, they actually non consciously start making other changes. focused on what it’s like, you know, if you think about keep Keystone, or linchpin habits, like exercise, or sleep, you know, if you’ve got a good night’s sleep, was it things that seem to fall into place more naturally. And this is the exact same, when you start creating good in your life, when you start creating things like giving back what you want in your life, they give you back energy that give you back vitality, it starts to trigger as a trickle effect, and he’ll start to change things non consciously. And then that’s the beauty but you’re only focusing on one, you’re not using up all your willpower you’re not trying to force or strangle change into submission, you know, it’s happening naturally for you.

Dr. Mindy
So what could you I just had this thought, if you’re trying to go from a body that you don’t love living in, and you’re trying to build a body that you do love living in through good habits, instead of looking at I need to exercise I need to eat differently, I need to go to sleep, I need to fast I need to take supplements, like all the I needs could does it work to just in the morning go. I have I know what I the systems are already there. Like To your point, I’ve already set up the system. So now my job is every time I follow through with any little habit, one glass of water. One positive vegetable I put in my mouth that I stop and honor that and look for the a way to applaud myself in those little moments. And if you do that, then at the end of the day, maybe there were 20 moments like that is that literally how you start to build yourself a brain that just wants more and more of that good because you’re stopping in the small moments to create

Dr. Heather McKee
wonderful, I’ve never actually broke my sign in that way before. But I think that would be a wonderful place to start. And, and again, it depends on how you’re driven as an individual like, but I think that a lot of people would get a lot of benefit from that. And that’s kind of in line with the evidence base,

you think I would say is the healthy habits that you enjoy are the ones that you stick to.

So if you’re starting to create all of these changes, like often what I say to people is, you know, the first step is that we want to find joy. And there’s cities where they’ve shown you know, where people, you know, people go to the gym, and they’ve seek out the most punishing Stairmaster because they’re like, well, that’s the hardest thing, therefore, that’s the thing I need to do. Or you know, when they’re starting a healthy diet, they’re like, well, I need to just eat kale every day, because that’s the thing that everybody does, even though they can’t stand the taste. And ultimately, you know, what they show in cities is that people that stick with things aren’t the people that seek out the ones that they think they’re going to, you know, is going to be the hardest and the people that seek out the one that’s going to be fun. And if you can find the joy in your healthy habits, then you’re going to stick with them. And then a way to do this is to look at you know, all of the changes that you wish to create in your life and ask yourself well, what are the healthy habits I enjoy? You know, is it going for a hike of my dog because it makes me feel revitalized and refreshed? Is it having, you know, a lemon water in the morning because that makes me feel energetic? You know, if you know that, you know getting into bed at half an hour earlier in the evening just feels like the ultimate luxury for me. You know if you can start to look at well, what are those habits I actually enjoy? Because those are much more likely going to be the ones that you stick to. Or maybe the ones that you are a little bit harder work. How can you layer Joy onto them? So is it that you know you only listen to your favorite podcasts when you’re meal prepping? Or what’s your favorite? You know, stream your favorite TV show when you’re meal prep? thing is that you know that you go for a walk with your like, favorite person you know and like what think about all the fun that you can love that your existing habits because yeah, ritually seeking humans you know and nifer enjoying something, we’re much more likely to stick with it.

Dr. Mindy
That and we’re in the fasting world there are six different fasts that I teach my community how to follow. And they go from anywhere from 13 hours of fasting all the way up to 72. And one of the things that I’ve noticed is that food is a state changer. So what do you do when you’re in these moments where you’re like, Okay, I have this goal to go 48 hours of fasting. Food was the my go to for making me feel better. I don’t feel very good right now. So I love this idea of stacking it with a habit, like calling a friend watching a Netflix series, listening to music dancing in your kitchen. Like that’s what I heard there is like stack it was something that is enjoined to get you through the unenjoyable task. That’s, that’s brilliant. So do we even need this brings me to the last one you had, which was, you know, is having a goal important. Like, and I’ve actually been thinking about this in my own life lately. Do we need goals? Like should? If we don’t have a life that’s driven by goals? You know, is that a bad thing?

Dr. Heather McKee
I think that’s a big question. Lately, yeah, no, I would say well, like, arguably, I’m going to be on one side of the argument, which I say that we, we need to any goals that we have, we need to break them down into habits. Because it’s easy to set a goal, you know, I could say, oh, I want to make a million dollars in the next week. You know, that’s, that’s so easy. But if I have to break it down into the habits that I need to do to create that are actually realistic. And I’m so that’s what I say to people, I say make habits, not goals, because goals can be so flippant, and they don’t require the same level of commitment, we need to look at what our days look like, we need to be realistic. Where does this fit in my day? What are the actions? So anytime that you are thinking about setting goals? What are the actions that you need to perform day in day out? In order to achieve this? Is this realistic? Is this going to fit within the context of your life? You know, and from there, then it’s about asking yourself, you know, the key questions, what’s my slide behind it? Is it going to be small enough? You know, how do I scale it back? If I need to? How do I find more joy in this and, and all of the things that he’s been talking about?

Dr. Mindy
I love that. I love that. Well, this, this was fascinating. I really appreciate you letting me pick your brain. And I want so badly for my community to not just take the information that I give, and go, Oh, that was entertaining. I want them to actually put it into action and really move their health forward. I think one of the really cool moments about this life word this world we’re living in whatever we call it. The Metaverse or whatever we’re they were giving it is that there’s so much free information and like conversations like this. So. So couple two, two last questions I have for you. One is where do people find you? Because it sounds like you have a free challenge that will get people helping with their habits. I’d love for you to share that with my audience. And then I have one more ending question for you. So let’s start with that. How do people find dairy.

Dr. Heather McKee
So they can go to bite size habits code, so that CEO, and so that’s bite sized habits. And there’s a free five day video challenge there, which is the kind of five key basically foundational habit changes that will kick start any habit that you wish to create life, both habits co

Dr. Mindy
great. And we’ll put the link, thank you so much. And we’ll put a link to it in the show notes. My last question for you it might this is our third season of my podcast. And this year. Yeah, thank you. Oh my gosh, I love it. I love having conversations like with brilliant minds like yours. It’s, I learned so much from it. And it’s just been really enjoyable. But the theme of this year is gratitude. I really overlooking over the last two years if the world feel like we’ve lost sight of the importance of gratitude. So the questions I have for you is do you have a daily gratitude practice? And what is one thing that in 2022, you are immensely grateful for

Dr. Heather McKee
my love first, and all of your questions. So I really got me thinking I was. Yeah, thank you. So do I have a gratitude practice? Yes. And actually for this year, I’ve changed it a little bit. So I used to have a gratitude practice which was three things I’m grateful for. In my day, and I would stop and do that twice in the day, now I am cultivating a long sigh of self compassion and experimenting with it for this month about what I’m grateful to myself for. Because I find that it was quite easy to be grateful for their for what they do and what do people know the situation. And now and kind of going back to what you said in India to start about being grateful for your for your two past self in a way, I’m grateful for my past self for doing this, you know, preparing my lunch, so then I, you know, when I’m when I’m busy at work, I don’t have to actually get up and do this thing. I’m grateful that I didn’t, you know, stay up that extra hour and watch that TV program. And actually, I got more sleep last night. And that makes me feel a lot much a lot better today. And so that’s how I’ve kind of fit my gratitude practice. Love. And the second question was about if it’s something that I’m grateful for at the moment,

Dr. Mindy
yeah, yeah.

Dr. Heather McKee
So many things. But yeah, I’m grateful for conversations like this, because it gets my mind ticking, I want to write down all your questions. Now. It’s like, it’s awesome stuff. But I think I’m grateful that I have had this opportunity to spend so long researching and this topic. And now you know, the reason that I’ve kind of moved out of academia is because I really wanted to be able to share the message for people that don’t read the journal articles that, you know, I feel like a lot of it, you know, in academia is, is really like the academics get to benefit from it, but the rest of the world doesn’t always and I think it’s such a privilege. And I don’t mean to be an advanced beta, but I do feel like a drive to be able to, I know things that maybe not everybody does, because I spent so long studying it and I feel so grateful to be able to share that with other people. And like you say, you know, in an action oriented way, as well so that we’re giving people the tools, not just the knowledge, but giving them the tools, they can build the skills to create those lasting habits and

Dr. Mindy
I love that I love that it’s, I feel the same way. You know, when you get excited about a topic you want the whole world to understand, you know, you want them to see it through the lens in which you’re seeing it. So I love that