TUYT 47

Amy Hoyt15min

Amy Hoyt

00:00

We believe in functional mental wellness, a holistic approach to mental health. We know that there's hope for those of us who have experienced trauma, even profound trauma and that's why we created the universe is your therapist podcast, we believe whether you call it God, the universe, source, unity or love that there is something much greater than us that conspires for our good, we envision a world of healing and connection, and we teach you simple but powerful practices that integrate your mind, body and spirit so that you can come home to your highest self and your truest identity. You are not broken, you are loved, and you can heal. My name is Amy Hoyt, and together with my sister, Lena, we will take you on a journey of healing and self discovery. Welcome back to another episode, we're so excited to continue our 30 day challenge of moving our bodies for one mile every single day. And to continue the theme of movement and mental health. So today's episode, we're going to specifically focus on how we can use a concept called micro steps to form habits, because we are very aware that for 40% of American adults, movement is not part of the daily activities. So we want to help us get over that resistance that we're feeling to it.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

01:26

Yes. And what do you think Amy is some are some of the things that help us do micro steps, like what is a micro step.

Amy Hoyt

01:35

So a micro step is a very, very incremental or small step in the direction where we ultimately want to go. So for moving if I want to run a 5k. In fact, there's programs called, you know, couch to 5k, or couch to 10k. And they start with micro steps. So they start with walking for X amount of minutes. And then they walk you through a schedule that helps you build on each of those micro steps. So a micro step is a little step that's going to help you get where you want to go,

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

02:14

it inches us toward our goal. And the the beautiful thing about micro steps is the brain has a very strong natural resistance to change. And so as soon as we even think about a change, that might be difficult, the brain starts telling us all the reasons why it won't work. And our brain gets overwhelmed. And so then we stop before we've started, I have loved teaching the concept of many habits or micro steps to my clients for several years. What I found most helpful is to start so small, one of my clients wanted to exercise more. And I said to them, what if you

Amy Hoyt

03:00

just put on your tennis shoes, right when you wake up, that's all you have to do, but on your tissues. And she came in two weeks later, and she's like, I've exercised eight times in the last two weeks, just because I had my tennis shoes on, I could just go outside and take a quick walk. And that is such a great example of microsteps. Yeah, I love that. And I also want to be transparent with the audience. And this is I'm passionate about this because I am at a point where I need some micro steps to get moving. And so selfishly, this challenge is just about as much about us getting moving as we want to help you all get moving. But I love just putting on the tennis shoes as a way to move towards exercising. And one of the things we talked about in our last episode is the difference between the term Exercise and Movement. And can you walk us through? Not everyone because some people really love to exercise but the 40% of Americans who aren't moving their bodies? Can you walk us through what's going on with the brain when we use the term exercise versus the term movement?

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

04:14

Sure. The word exercise has a lot of connotations, and it has a lot of layer of meaning. And for most of us who have struggled with movement throughout our lives, we're very familiar with going into the doctor's office having them let us know that we've gained two pounds or 10 pounds, and that we really need to start moving and eating better. And although that is awesome advice. What I learned when I was doing my brain training about eight years ago, is that the emotional brain is like no way. It's too hard. It's too overwhelming. We have too much stress, I have too much going on. And so the idea behind the micro habits or the micro steps is, your brain doesn't have anything to resist. If I say to myself, I'm going to do one pushup a day, or I'm going to walk around the block, one time a day. And you mentioned in our last episode, some of the benefit this can be because once you start, it can be much easier to keep going. So if I say to myself, I'm going to walk for five minutes, oftentimes, I will end up walking for 15 or 20.

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