Every-Day Wellness: Building Habit Loops & Health

You’d think that school administrators would be quite healthy. You walk countless steps in hallways, classrooms, and common areas throughout the day and often into the evening. You’re surrounded by curriculum that touts self-discipline. You observe teaching practices that help make tasks manageable. You understand how important movement is for our bodies and brains.

Despite having tools and information for being healthy, many of us fall short of our ideal health markers, such as low cholesterol, ideal blood pressure and resting heart rate, ideal nutrition, and consistent movement.

I was a school administrator from 2004 to 2020. Drawing on twenty-seven years as a certified aerobics instructor, a yoga practice, and lessons learned in schools, I had strategies that kept me healthy. However, I faltered on days when the stress was greater than my will power.

We’ve learned how the brain functions since we teach students about self-control. Cravings originate in the center of our brains, and we override these cravings in the pre-frontal cortex.

To train our pre-frontal cortex, we need beliefs and tactics. As educators, we believe in the power of growth mindset. We just need doable tactics.

School administrators might be too busy for wholesale change, so healthy habits or tactics are best when broken down, much like learning is chunked into manageable parts, such as:

• Drink enough water,
• Move every day, and
• Reduce sugar intake.

If we follow Charles Duhigg’s advice, we can succeed, one doable habit at a time. Duhigg, in The Power of Habit (2014), describes what are called “keystone habits,” which are bite-sized shifts that impact other areas of our lives. Duhigg describes “habit loops” as a series of cues, routines, and rewards. The solution is to choose a habit that is sustainable amid your workload. Choose one of the three listed above.

Water

Drinking enough water takes little effort and has a high reward. Find a cue for sipping water throughout the day.

Water makes up about three-fourths of our body and lubricates our joints and gets rid of waste. Ourreward is that our mood is elevated, our body functions more efficiently, and our cognitive functioning is enhanced.

The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine suggests that an adequate daily fluid intake is:

• About 15.5 cups a day for men and
• About 11.5 cups a day for women.

Water isn’t the only source of hydration. Fruits, vegetables, and other foods offer fluids as well.

I brought two glass reusable water bottles to work each day, which contained three cups of water each. By the end of each workday, both bottles needed to be empty to consume an optimal amount. Continue this cue, routine, and reward loop until it becomes a habit. Then, start on another habit.

Read about hydration in this Heathline article (2023) or watch this four-minute NBC video.

Movement Daily

Let’s say you’re so busy you can’t make it into the gym or go for a run. Sometimes it’s not just time but chronic injuries or other factors. Nonetheless, you can still move daily.

No excuses.

We can strengthen our abdominal muscles, achieve better balance, and counteract our hunched posture at our keyboards.

Abdomen

Right now, contract the space between your belly button and pelvic bone for a count of four. Then release for a count of four. Contract, two, three, four. Release, two, three, four. Exhale when you contract and inhale when you release.

Your cue could be every time you walk in the hallways, stand in the lunchroom, or supervise at a sporting event. Your routine will be to contract and release. Repeat as many contractions as time or your body allows.

Between Your Shoulder Blades

Let’s also contract and release our rhomboids and latissimus dorsi––our shoulder blade area. These muscles get stretched out and weaker when we hunch over a keyboard.

First, lower your shoulders away from your ears. Now, squeeze your shoulder blades together like you’re trying to hold onto a tennis ball back there. Squeeze, two, three, four; release, two, three, four. Repeat up to fifteen reps. Inhale when you release; exhale when you squeeze.

Ankle, Knee, and Hip Joints

While you’re standing in the school hallway or lunchroom, plant one foot firmly on the floor. Picture your foot having four corners. Press your big toe, your little toe, the inside and outside of your heel into the floor. Then lift the other foot off the floor just a fraction of an inch and balance for a slow inhale and exhale. If your balance is poor or you’re wearing heals, make sure you’re near a wall as a “safety net.” Switch legs. Repeat this sequence up to fifteen times.

Skeptical?

Try these contractions for a week. Every day. Your reward will be feeling stronger and more aligned. Another reward might be a sense of accomplishment and positivity about self-care. This could be your “keystone habit.”

Cut Back on Sugar

No doubt the stress we experience as administrators pushes us to reach for sugar, salty chips, or alcohol (after work).

To create opportunities for celebration rather than feeling the pinch of scarcity, I focused on the sugary treats I choose not to eat. In Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch (2012), they share psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s findings regarding positive emotions. Fredrickson explains that “negative emotions have a narrowing effect on our thoughts” whereas positive emotions open us to even more joy.

Rather than tell myself I can’t have something, which typically makes me want the junk food more, I recite, “I choose health.” My replacement routine became a walk around the building and visits in classrooms, which released endorphins and dopamine. Deep breathing was another option. I would say, “I deserve a break to walk” or “I deserve to close my door and meditate for a few minutes.” In Switch, Chip and Dan Heath explain that “to spark movement in a new direction, you need to provide crystal-clear guidance… You’ve got to think about the specific behavior that you’d want to see in a tough moment” (2012). Having this plan to take a walk or deep breaths helped me stick to my replacement routine.

The optimal grams of sugar to consume per day for women is 25 grams and for men, it’s 36. One serving of peanut m&m’s has 25 grams. A Mountain Dew has 65 grams, and a bottle of Arizona Iced Tea has 59. A Starbuck’s grande mocha has 35 grams.

I wrote a blog about my struggle and victories with sugar. If you don’t have time to read or listen to an audio book about sugar, consider watching a documentary listed in my blog.

Doable Habits with Others

Create a workplace that encourages people working together for better health.

Duhigg says, “There’s something really powerful about groups and shared experiences. People might be skeptical about their ability to change if they’re by themselves, but a group will convince them to suspend disbelief. A community creates belief.”

If you need help, contact a guest speaker for a staff meeting, such as a nutritionist, a yoga instructor, or certified personal trainer. As a retiree, I’m willing to volunteer as a guest speaker at your school nearby, which would include teaching people proper form for the daily movements. Reach me through my website, click on “Contact,” at fedorewriter.com, or email me at fedorewriter@gmail.com.

Sources

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York: Random House. 2014.

Heath, Chip and Dan. Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard. New York: Broadway Books. 2012.