I always suggest to my patients that their injury may serve as a tap on the shoulder / kick up the bum to look at their lifestyle, to look at their bad habits. An atraumatic neck sprain is more likely to the be the result of cumulative bad habits (ie. sedentary work, work stress, high anxiety, eye strain from too much screen time, not making the time to exercise, poor sleep habits etc.) rather than from ‘sleeping awkwardly’ one time (which is usually the reason I’m given!). All of these can accumulate to change the demand on a certain area of the body, the tone of the muscle, the sensitivity of the nervous system, the volume of pain we will experience, our capacity to heal.
Our small bad choices compound into toxic results. Inversely, massive success doesn’t require massive action. Improving by 1% can create radical change, as habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
Changing a plane’s heading by a small shift (a few degrees) will have a massive impact on the plane’s destination. Similarly, a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a different destination. Your life is the sum of your habits!
This book gives you a step-by-step guide on how to create better habits. Incase you don’t feel inclined to read a self-help book with your precious spare time, here is a quick summary!
~ LAWS OF GOOD HABITS ~
1. Make it OBVIOUS – this means changing the environment to remind you to do the good habit, eg. put your running shoes by the front door, put the healthier food at the front of the fridge.
2. Make it ATTRACTIVE – Pair an action you want to do with one you need to do, join a culture where the behaviour you want to adopt is the norm, have an enjoyable motivational ritual before the difficult habit.
3. Make it EASY – Reduce the number of steps to the good habit (reduce friction). Downsize your habits to take less than 2 minutes. Automate your habits.
4. Make it SATISFYING – Give yourself a reward for completing the habit. Use a habit tracker, record your streak. Finally, never miss twice. We all make mistakes! Walt Disney says “the difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting”. It’s okay to break your streak, but do not create a new streak of bad habits as a result!
