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.
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.
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,
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
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?
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.
Absolutely. I mean, it's basically tricking your brain, which I'm all about, when we use the term movement, it's very purposeful. I also am aware of toxic diet culture, and in the Western world and other places. And so it's also a recognition that this is not to lose weight, so that you are aesthetically a certain body type or style, or you have a certain look, this is that could be a benefit, if that's what you're seeking. But our motivation is to help your nervous system and your brain heal. And so when we are talking about movement, it's very intentional, that we are looking at a clinical and a non aesthetic benefit. And so I just really prefer the term movement. And that's one of the reasons, one of the things we are aware of is that the other term that gets talked about a lot is habits, and forming habits. And a habit is a automatic behavior. So it's pretty, it's pretty amazing once we get our behavior to be automated, and we know that it is possible. Most of us brush our teeth every day, most of us brush our hair every day. Most of us eat every day. I mean, that also has a different biological drive where we're hungry. But we are able to form habits and habits are repeated behaviors that are automated. So the the real challenge is how to get our brain to make this into a habit. And Lina we were talking before we started recording that one of the most interesting parts in the research for you is how these habits get formed when we move our body. Can you talk about that?
Yes, I was so intrigued by this concept. So the idea is that there are certain behaviors that will always be beneficial for our health. And that if we can learn how about automate those behaviors, then we don't have to rely on interest. And we don't have to rely on motivation in order to have those behaviors a part of our daily life. Your example of brushing the teeth is great, because when we wake up and get ready for our day, most of us will automatically brush our teeth first. And we don't leave the house without brushing our teeth because it can be awkward. And so we have built a habit. And the interesting thing about neural pathways and habits is that once you have a behavior that's linked to an external cue, so I wake up, I brush my teeth, or I get ready for bed, I brush my teeth. And when you can link a new behavior to an external cue, and just practice doing it consistently. It actually forms new neural pathways in those neural pathways become what we call myelinated, which is when they're wrapped in a layer of fat, and they are very, very difficult to break. And if we understand that the building of habits through micro steps, and repeating the micro step consistently for several weeks, based on external cues, then pretty soon we don't even think about it consciously we just do it.
I love that because some of my habits I'm trying to unmei eliminate.
Me too. And
so I just it feels very hopeful for me that we can make these changes and we can incrementally move, no pun intended but move towards the person we want to be right. And we all have those things we want to Stop, and we want to and other things that we want to include in our core priority list for the day. So what what you're talking about with myelination is the not just the learning phase, when we first start a new behavior, there's a learning phase, right. And during that time, we need to repeat the behavior consistently over and over. And that's one reason we think the challenge is so important, because we can consistently move for a mile each day. So that is the learning phase. And then we go into a stability phase of the habit where we're starting to form the habit, and it starts to strengthen. And that's when we're gonna get some of the myelination going on. So what happens when it's myelinated as well is it's like a shortcut in the brain. So we don't have to think I have to go move my body for a mile. It's like, it just, it's not even a question anymore. It's just something you do. And that's exciting to me. So one of the one of the pieces of research that we have really grabbed on to and we use in our program is this idea of self reporting. And what that looks like when we're starting a new behavior, or doing micro steps is kind of tracking how we're doing. And so we want to encourage you, in order to do this micro step of just simply getting outside or getting on your bike or jumping in the pool, however you choose to move for a mile, we want to encourage you to record each day, what you did, and it's okay, if you skip this is not a way you have to have 100% challenge or you fail this is we are it's progress over perfection. And so we are going to continue to work on our habit formation one little micro step at a time. But when we self report, and we have our own accountability just between ourselves and a piece of paper that actually can help, which is amazing.
Yes, there's a ton of research on that. So that's a really great point to bring up. I'm thinking of a challenge that you and I are going to be starting on July 1 with a member of our community here in Missouri. And the challenge is 45 minutes of exercise a day. And my brain is really resistant to change certain habits. And so what I've decided to do is that first week or week and a half, I'm going to commit to doing 20 minutes a day. Because the consistency is more important in in habit formation than the amount of time. And so being able to take a look at what you desire or what the challenge is and then adapting it so that your brain is not so resistant. That is a way of taking a shortcut around the brain that hates change. And it's a brilliant idea. Because something is always better than none thing.
Exactly, exactly. Thank you for that. And I love that I was thinking about some of my good friends that absolutely love to move their body. And I want to just issue a challenge if you're a listener. And this is such a no brainer, you've already got all of this movement myelinated it is auto firing in your brain. Think about something else that you've been wanting to tackle and choose a micro step for that you can still follow along all month with our challenge and just in your head instead of moving a mile it could be scrolling for 10 minutes less or whatever it is you want to substitute. One of the myths we want to kind of bust here is how long it takes to form a habit. And the research actually shows that it can take up to 10 weeks. So the 21 days, the 30 days. Those aren't necessarily accurate based on research, but it is a little bit longer. And that makes sense when you think about a habit needing a learning phase and then a stabilization phase and then finally myelination with the brain, so just hang in there and understand that again, a little step is better than no step. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you want to go deeper on this subject or any other subjects we've covered in the podcast. We are so excited to be launching our signature membership program at mending trauma.com This is a trauma informed mental health membership where we can be On clinically effective practices, courses and mentoring while putting you in the driver's seat we teach you how to heal your trauma with the latest research combining mind, body and spirit. We want to walk you through a healing journey while also empowering you. If you have felt this episode is helpful, we would absolutely love if you would go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your pods and give us a review. We'd also love it if you would share it with someone you think it might help tag us on social media at mending trauma.com Or at Amy Hoyt, PhD, we would love to reshare and also if there's anything we can do to help we would love to hear from you email info at mending trauma.com Give us your suggestions or topics you want to hear about. We would absolutely love to be of more service to you. We're so excited because we have so many good episodes coming up in season two, and we can't wait to go on this journey with you
