Be kind to yourself.

At the end of my 30 days of healthy habits I wanted to reflect on how best to use these tools, which are all things I speak to my patients about every day.

Some key points:

Don’t try and do all of the healthy habits at once, if they are new to you.  Pick whichever seems like it will serve you best, and build it into your routine.  Once it is a habit, and less effort to do, then pick another one.  Making one change at a time is more likely to succeed than overwhelming yourself and trying to do too much.

Each healthy habit on its own may not seem like much, and you might not see immediate benefits.  Patients frequently tell me that they tried meditating/exercise/going to bed early and it didn’t work for them.  When I dig a bit deeper they’ve tried once or twice, maybe a handful of times, but because their problems weren’t immediately better, they gave up.  Unfortunately for many problems, there is no instant fix.

These lifestyle changes are small, but used persistently, over time, they can be incredibly powerful.  All you need is a little bit of patience to persevere and keep doing these healthy habits that we know will help, even though it may not always feel like it in the moment.

Some days it will all just go to pot.  You will start the day with the best intentions, with your goals in mind, with a plan of action.  Then, for whatever reason, or for no reason at all, it just won’t happen.  If things don’t go to plan, be kind to yourself.  Beating yourself up about it doesn’t help anything, and all that happens it that you make yourself feel bad.  Instead, try accepting that nothing ever goes perfectly, learn from anything you can identify as something to change next time, and try again the next time.  Like any new skill, healthy habits take practice.  You wouldn’t yell at your child when he can’t ride his bike the first time he tries, so don’t tell yourself off when your new self-care skills aren’t right first time.  Just keep going, you’ve got this!