As summer winds down and fall begins, there is a lot of talk in the therapy room about how grateful many of my clients are about getting back into a routine. In summer, we often enjoy letting go of our usual routine and schedules a bit and that can be freeing. But when we live without routine for too long, rather than feeling more free most of us start to feel that we are drifting or stuck. Without the steady anchor that routine provides, we may feel we’ve gotten off course.
Time and again research shows that people are generally happier and more productive with daily structure and routine. Ancient health systems such as Ayurveda and Chinese medicine teach the importance of routine in balancing body and mind. September is a great time to begin crafting a new and improved routine to support you through the fall and winter. In the natural world, fall is a time of letting go and preparing for a time of drawing in (winter). It is a reflective time of year and yet can also be one of the busiest for many of us. There are kids going back to school, multiple holidays and often rushes to get things done at work before the year ends.
So let’s take a look at what makes a good routine and why routine is so powerful. (And then let’s look in a minute at why we resist routine even though we know intellectually that it’s good for us.) I encourage you to focus your routine first on what I think of as the Big Three: sleep, exercise and diet. Without these in place, anything built on top is resting on a shaky foundation and is likely to eventually crumble. Sleep is critical for restoring the body and mind, exercise preserves vitality and provides many emotional and physical benefits, and what we eat is the daily fuel and medicine for our bodies.
But it can be overwhelming to think of all these at once, especially if none of them are in place. I recommend starting with establishing a healthy sleep routine like the one described here. Not sleeping is like not eating- it’s that critical for your health and wellbeing.
Once you have a good sleep routine in place, consider what kind of exercise regime would be good for you in this season. It doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive or “hard” exercise. In fact, it’s more important to start with something you enjoy because the best exercise is the exercise you’ll actually do. Aim for three days a week and take it from there. We all know that physical exercise is good for our bodies but for me the real gold when it comes to exercise is how it improves our mental and emotional health. It simply helps us feel better and cope better.
The final of the Big Three, diet, is the routine that I find people most dread these days. This has a lot to do with how inundated we are on a daily basis with information about the latest diet methods, superfoods, etc. It’s too much for us to take on board. Instead of looking for the latest eating trends, simply start with increasing your intake of whole foods. The advice to consume more whole foods is trendless and has stood the test of time. No matter what changes, this advice remains consistent over time. And because food is medicine that is critical for the proper function of our bodies and minds, it matters a lot that we consume high quality food as much as possible. A great resource for this that I came across recently is this book.
Knowing that routine is good for us, why do we seem to resist it? Sometimes my clients describe this dynamic as “me rebelling against myself.” It’s as if just because someone is telling us to do something, even if it is ourselves, we want to resist. I think this is because we are often framing our routines as something we “should” do rather than approaching structure as a way of caring for ourselves and ultimately freeing ourselves from the nagging feeling that we aren’t being or feeling our best. Instead of tapping into our inner adolescent that wants to resist for the sake of resisting, can we develop the maturity to embrace and practice what is good for us even when it doesn’t feel easy or even natural? There’s some short term discomfort inherent in structuring ourselves (to, say, get up early and go to the gym) but there are real, valuable long term gains for all aspects of our health.
Take a little time this fall to jot down a simple, powerful routine for yourself, focusing on the Big Three and elaborating from there if you’re feeling ambitious! Let’s try our hardest. We won’t always succeed, there will be obstacles, things will come up. At times we’ll have to reset and recommit- that’s only natural. But as long as we’re moving forward we’ll get where we want to go. I think we’ll all be healthier and more fulfilled for it.
