The Amazing Effect of Good Habits on Decreasing Stress
4/25/2016
Good habits make you happier, healthier, and chemically work to decrease stress levels.
There’s another way that good habits reduce stress, however, and it’s not commonly known.
The Interesting Relationship Between Stress And Habits
Did you know that when we are stressed out, we are more likely to perform habitual behaviors? Why do you think that is?
In researching for the Mini Habit Mastery course I’m creating, I found a study on habits and emotions. In
this study, researchers found that the more nonhabitual behaviors a
person was doing (also known as multi-tasking), the more stressed out
they were. Picture an office worker on the phone, answering emails, and talking to a coworker about another project. Sounds stressful, no?
Habits are the opposite of that.
Have you ever known a person of remarkable routine? The person that
comes to mind for me is actually fictional, though I’m sure there are
real people like him. In the classic book, Around The World In 80 Days,
author Jules Verne tells us about the eccentric Phineas Fogg, a man of
perfection and impeccable routine. The one character trait of Fogg that
wowed me throughout the book is his extraordinary calm, even in the most
dire of circumstances. And I think the reason for that is because he is
a man of habit, down to the way he thinks about and solves problems.
Research says that a little less than half of our behavior is habitual, but Phineas Fogg seemed to be more like 90%!
What percentage of your total behavior is habitual?
Is Work Life Or Home Life More Stressful? The Answer Is Shocking
Why is work more stressful than home life? It turns out, it isn’t. Media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal here,
are reporting about a to-be-published study by Penn State researchers,
which measured cortisol levels in people while at work and at home.
People of all types—married, single, male, and female—had lower cortisol
levels at work compared to home, “significantly and consistently.”
Work can be very stressful, of course, which is why I think this data
doesn’t necessarily say that work is not a stressful aspect of life in
general. It’s notorious for being the key source of stress in many
people’s lives! Perhaps, then, this data shows the power of routine
in lessening our cognitive load and stress response. Even with the
stressful demands of work, cortisol levels are lower because we’re on
autopilot.
According to research on our emotional response to habits vs.
nonhabits, the more (good) habits you have in your life, the more stable
you’ll be emotionally; the less stress you’ll have. Think about how a
9-to-5 job provides a person with structure. They don’t always enjoy the
confining nature of having to be there, but they often do enjoy the
structure it brings to their life. Even if everything else goes crazy,
having a stable job and routine can be comforting. Good habits do the
same thing for our energy: they provide a sustainable structure
that—even if we have an off day—ensure we continue to make progress and
take care of ourselves.
This also shows why bad habits are so damaging. It’s like building
your life’s foundation with rotten wood. Instead of the general
variability in life that will bring you fortune and misfortune, bad
habits are guaranteed doses of misfortune (usually daily).
Is “Stressful Habit” An Oxymoron?
The most stressful habits are certainly bad habits. But the stress response doesn’t happen during
the habit, it happens afterwards. It’s a conscious reflection on your
subconscious action. When drug addicts take drugs, they enjoy it. It’s
afterwards (even immediately afterwards) that they might regret it. The
stress isn’t from the habit, but from your reaction to the habit.
We know habits are the least stressful behaviors because of their
familiarity and our low resistance to them. It’s why we automatically
prefer them when we’re stressed out. Habits are the brain’s way of
cooling off—they require the least amount of cognitive energy. And it
all fits together:
Less emotion means less stress, which means less energy
expenditure, which means habits are a great way to “actively relax” the
mind.
A strategy I find brilliant is to purposefully increase your life’s
total percentage of habitual behavior. Some people have done it, and
their entire day is highly structured. These are often successful people
(if we’re talking about good habits here) because they’ve programmed
their brains to do the work and tasks that bring them success.
I’m not going to say I’m successful according to the world.
But I have succeeded in my own eyes, because I make enough money doing
what I love to support my simple lifestyle. I’m more successful than I
ever have been in the past—financially, productively, healthwise, and in
developing skills—because I have instilled daily good habits. I owe a
lot to my good habits.
In addition to guest posts like this one, I write an article every
Monday for Deep Existence (my blog). What many people wouldn’t guess is
that even the 4,000 word, detailed articles I write aren’t difficult for me to write.
They are challenging on some level and I work hard to make them useful,
but it’s easier for me to write a 4,000 word article today than it was
for me to write a 1,000 word article even one year ago. Back then, I
didn’t have a writing habit, and that made it tough.
When Sunday evening comes around, I don’t have to worry about scrambling to get a post together because I’ll have five or six nearly-completed posts waiting for me, and I can choose which one to finish and polish up. My drafts folder has more than 100 posts in it.
This is so strange when I look back, because I distinctly remember
stressing out about “needing to post to the blog because I haven’t
posted in 3 weeks.” Now? Ha! I’ve had to restrain myself to not
post more than once a week. I’m 5x more productive with 5x less
stress (those numbers are not inflated). This is the magic of habits.
To Decrease Stress, Add More Healthy Habits
Studies and research clearly show that habits offer decreased stress. Also lower stress levels is a keystone habit that can actually help you to succeed with other habits. It is all circular.
What I’m proposing is that we consider how much of our
behavior is habitual, and if we can purposefully increase that
percentage in order to decrease our overall stress levels.
Good habits can reduce stress by their numerous merits (exercise
directly reduces stress, for example). In addition to that, adding a
single good habit increases the total percentage of your behavior that
is effortless and therefore not stressful. In a sense, I’m suggesting
that we become more like Phineas Fogg, who is seen as eccentric because he’s so habit-driven.
What is one area of your life that you could habitualize in order to
decrease your stress and preserve your mental energy? Think about
something that stresses you out, and see if there’s a trigger and
routine you could set up to take that load off of your mind. For
example:
If you’re stressed about forgetting work assignments, you can set up a
habit of instantly documenting new work tasks as they come in. Save
them in a place that you habitually check every day, and you won’t ever
have to worry about it. This adds power to the already-powerful concept
of writing things down. When you make a non-habitual behavior into a
habitual one, you’ve essentially delegated the task to your subconscious
brain (and it’s built to repeat processes!). That’s smart living.
I recommend writing down the process of what you intend to habitualize.
- Boss wants report on Kapersky files in 2 days.
- Open calendar app, and put in deadline.
- Set up 4 reminders before deadline: 30 minutes prior, 2 hours prior, 12 hours prior, and 24 hours prior.
If you habitually did this for all of your work tasks, not only would
you get lightning fast at doing it, but you’d have no worries about
forgetting about it, as your reminders would automatically “ping” you at
key points. It would be one less activity to stress out about. And it’s
a prime example of a good habit decreasing your stress on multiple
levels.
So I’ll ask you again: what is one area of your life that you could
habitualize in order to decrease your stress and preserve your mental
energy? Think about a current stressful area: that’s probably the
area you’ll want to address first.
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