How to Use Atomic Habits to Improve Your Health — 2 Minute Rule
Have you ever tried to make a big change in your life, only to find yourself quickly slipping back into old habits? If so, then you know that improving your health can be difficult without small, sustainable changes. That’s why many are turning to the concept of “atomic habits” for help. Atomic habits is a term coined by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits. They are small, consistent actions that add up over time, leading to big changes.
In the moment, our small decisions about things such as what to eat, or whether or not to send off that email now rather than later, may seem insignificant. But even the smallest habits can have a massive impact on our lives. By applying atomic habits – tiny daily changes that seem minor at the moment yet have a remarkable impact over time – you can achieve your biggest goals through consistent progress! Applying atomic habits is an effective way to empower yourself and create lasting, positive change in your life – one small action at a time.
How Habits Work
By understanding this cycle, you can use it to your advantage…
Habits are behavioral formulas that we follow to reach an immediate goal. All habits follow a sequence of four events:
Cue
The cue is a stimulus that prompts the habit.
Craving
Your craving is your desire for the reward that follows your habit.
Response
Your response is the action that you take to execute the habit, and which leads to the reward.
Reward
The reward is the benefit you get from performing the habit. This encourages your brain to repeat the behavior in response to similar cues.
By understanding how this cycle works, you can use it to your advantage and create habits that will benefit your health, and eliminate habits that aren’t good for you. But first, it is important to understand a special type of habit, called atomic habits.
What Are Atomic Habits?
An atomic habit is a tiny action that you can make each day that add up to major long-term results. It’s about working smarter, not harder – so instead of trying to overhaul your entire lifestyle in one go, focus instead on making small improvements every day. By focusing on tiny wins and forming positive routines, you can start building atomic habits that will help you accomplish your biggest goals.
How to Change Habits
To change your habits, you need to understand what drives habits in the first place, and what extinguishes them.
Building Good Habits
To establish habits that you want to perform again and again, they should have these four features:
- Obvious: your environment should be set up so that the cues for your new habits stand out. For example, if you’re new habit is to drink a glass of water first thing in the morning, you could place a glass of water next to your bed.
- Attractive: your new habit should be something that you actually want to do. It could be because you surround yourself with people who also have that habit, so you join a culture of performing that habit, such as exercise. Or you could pair your habit with something that you enjoy, so that you are motivated by the paired habits.
- Easy: your new habit should be simple, or frictionless for you to perform. You can make your new habit easy by removing obstacles to performing it, and by breaking it down into smaller steps. For example, if you want to vacuum your floors more frequently, it will be easier if you store your vacuum somewhere easy to access, than somewhere that is difficult to reach.
- Satisfying: your new habit should make you feel good when it is complete! Keeping a vision board that puts your habit in the context of your goals is one way to make you feel good about completing your habit.
Breaking Bad Habits
To break habits that you don’t want, all you need to do is invert the features of the good habits. This means you should make bad habits:
- Invisible: remove the cues that prompt the habits that you want to break. For example, if you want to break the habit of checking your phone too often, turn off notifications or keep it out of sight.
- Unattractive: make the habit less appealing by changing your mindset about the habit. For example, create a list of the benefits of avoiding your bad habit.
- Difficult: add an obstacle or make the habit harder to perform. For example, if you want to break the habit of mindlessly eating snacks, put them in the back of your cabinet so that it is more difficult for you to access them. That way, you will have to consciously seek them out, rather than just start munching on them because they are the first foods within reach.
- Unsatisfying: create a consequence for yourself when you do engage in the bad habit. For example, get an accountability partner who you will honestly report your actions to.
Creating an Action Plan
Decide what you want to create…
The first step in creating an atomic habit plan for your health is deciding what kind of behavior you want to cultivate. This could be anything from drinking more water each day or getting more sleep at night – whatever it is, it should be realistic and achievable within the short term (no more than 30 days). Once you’ve identified your goal behavior, break it down into smaller tasks (e.g., if drinking more water is your goal, set a goal for how many glasses per day). Then create a plan for tracking progress and hold yourself accountable with rewards (e.g., if you reach 5 glasses per day for one week reward yourself!).
Here are some examples of atomic habits for your health:
- Increasing your exercise frequency or intensity
- Drinking more water
- Using red light therapy every day
- Listing things you are grateful for
- Brushing your teeth three times per day instead of just two. This will keep your gums healthy, and minimize the bacteria population in your mouth, protecting your teeth and minimizing body-wide inflammation.
- Flossing at least once per day. This keeps inflammation down in your entire body.
- Rinsing your mouth with water after having acidic foods or beverages such as coffee. Doing so protects your enamel from erosion.
- Using First-Aid Stress Tool (FAST) multiple times per day
- Taking nutritional supplements
Alternatively, you might want to replace a bad habit with a good one. For example, if you are in the habit of sleeping in excessively, you could create a morning ritual that you look forward to, like preparing a steaming matcha latte that you will enjoy while reading.
Breaking Big Goals Down into Small Steps
When you have large goals, or goals that are far off in time, then it helps to break them into smaller steps. This makes them more approachable, and the behaviors that you need to perform to achieve them more clear. To get started establishing your new atomic habit, it starts to shorten it to something you can do in just two minutes.
2-Minute Rule
Your desired new habit will be easier to form when you compress it to a shorter version to get started. For example, if your goal is to cook a healthy meal, the 2-minute version would be to set up your mise en place, which means to arrange the ingredients, dishes, and utensils that you are going to use. In Atomic Habits, James Clear refers to this as a “gateway habit,” that leads to the action that you want to follow. It makes getting started easier, and remember, Easy is one of the four features of a new habit that is easy to take up.
Gaining Momentum
The key to atomic habits is consistency; even if it’s only a few minutes at a time or just one glass of water per day – doing something consistently over time leads to lasting change. Set reminders or triggers throughout the day and make sure they are tied directly to the behavior you are trying to cultivate – this way when the reminder goes off it will serve as a cue for action rather than simply being another distraction! Also, consider finding an accountability partner who can help keep you motivated, or investing in a habit-tracking journal to remind you why these small steps matter in the grand scheme of things.
Conclusion
Creating healthy habits doesn’t have to be hard – with atomic habits all it takes is planning and consistency! Start by setting realistic goals with measurable outcomes, create an action plan with rewards built-in for extra motivation, and remember to build momentum by creating reminders or finding an accountability partner! With these strategies in place, anyone can start making small changes today that will have big impacts down the line!
