In this episode 25 protocols
▶ 1:39 Zone 2 Cardio Behaviors “So maybe you're somebody that wants to get more of zone 2 cardio for instance. That would be an immediate goal-based habit. If your goal is to get that cardio maybe four times a week, every time you do it,” ▷ 6:27 Choose Healthier Foods Diet “things like hydration, things like making sure that I eat the foods that are better for me than maybe some of the other foods that I would more reflexively reach to if I weren't doing that training.” ▷ 6:27 Hydration Behaviors “Things like being alert for work, things like making sure that I get good sleep the night before, things like hydration, things like making sure that I eat the foods that are better for me than maybe some of the other foods that I would” ▷ 10:49 Procedural Visualization of a Habit Behaviors “So for those of you that just want to be more habitual about certain things, be able to perform certain things more reflexively that you would like in your life, simply take the time, do it once, maybe twice, and just sit down, close your eyes if you like, and just step through the procedure of what it's going to take in order to perform that habit. The psychology literature as I mentioned and also the neuroscience literature strongly supports the fact that it is going to make it far easier for you to adopt and maintain that habit.” ▷ 17:38 Place High-Friction Habits in Phase 1 Behaviors “So as you list out or think about the various habits that you'd like to adopt in your life, take the habits for which you know there's the highest degree of limbic friction. They are the hardest for you to engage in. they require the most activation energy and put those in this zero to eight hours after waking.” ▷ 19:11 Taper Bright Artificial Light in the Second Half of the Day Behaviors “First of all, as the day goes on, you should try if you can to start tapering the amount of really bright light that you're getting, unless it's sunlight.” ▷ 19:18 Evening Sunlight Exposure Behaviors “Talked about this before on the podcast, but if you haven't heard, viewing the sun as it's at what we call low solar angle, so as it's headed toward the horizon, but getting some sunlight in your eyes in the second half of the day can also be beneficial for a number of brain systems and psychological systems.” ▷ 19:35 Sauna Tools “Things like heat and sauna, hot baths, hot showers, those are terrific things to do in the second half of the day. They tend to support this serotonergic or high serotonin-like state and lend themselves to more calm and relaxation.” ▷ 19:35 Hot Bath or Hot Shower in the Second Half of the Day Behaviors “Things like heat and sauna, hot baths, hot showers, those are terrific things to do in the second half of the day. They tend to support this serotonergic or high serotonin-like state and lend themselves to more calm and relaxation.” ▷ 22:07 Optimize the Sleep Environment Behaviors “Those things are very low to no light, meaning keeping your environment very dark or very, very dim. I don't think it's necessary to sleep in a room that's complete blackness, but for most people, keeping the room dark” ▷ 22:25 Leave a Gap Between Final Bite of Food and Sleep Behaviors “A lot of people recommend putting a gap between your final bite of food and when you go to sleep at night. Some people will say that gap should be four hours, other people say two hours.” ▷ 22:37 Avoid Big Meals Close to Bedtime Diet “If you're me, I generally have something, I don't know, within two hours or 90 minutes of going to sleep, but it's not a big meal.” ▷ 23:01 Use Minimal Light if You Wake in the Night Behaviors “Very important if you get up in the middle of the night to use a minimum of light in order to navigate your surroundings. just as much as you need in order to safely do so because light inhibits the hormone melatonin.” ▷ 23:25 Avoid Bright Light and Stress During Phase 3 Behaviors “So, if you're not obeying this phase three, if you're not giving phase three the materials it needs and you're and you're not avoiding the certain things like caffeine and bright light and stress during phase three, you're simply not going to be able to build those habits” ▷ 23:25 Avoid Caffeine During Phase 3 Diet “So, if you're not obeying this phase three, if you're not giving phase three the materials it needs and you're and you're not avoiding the certain things like caffeine and bright light and stress during phase three, you're simply not going to be able to build those habits” ▷ 25:17 Move a Habit Around Once It Becomes Reflexive Behaviors “And in fact, moving that particular habit around somewhat randomly can actually be beneficial to you because actually moving it from one time of day to the other is that context independence that we're we really are seeking by being able to do the same thing that we want to do regardless of time of day or circumstances.” ▷ 28:21 21-Day Habit Protocol Behaviors “And so this is at least for sake of this example a 21-day system. I picked 21 days because that seems to be the average or most typical system for engaging neuroplasticity as it relates to the formation of new habits.” ▷ 28:33 Write Down Six Habits Per Day for 21 Days Behaviors “So basically what this involves is you set out to perform six new habits per day across the course of 21 days. The idea is you write down six things that you would like to do every day for 21 days.” ▷ 28:47 Complete Four to Five of the Six Habits Daily Behaviors “However, the expectation is that you'll only complete four to five of those each day. Okay? So, built into this is a kind of permission to fail, but it's not failure.” ▷ 29:24 Running Behaviors “So another reason for not necessarily performing all six is that some activities probably shouldn't be performed each day. For instance, in my case, if I were to weight train or even run every day, I'm of the sort or my biology is of the sort that I don't recover so well.” ▷ 29:34 Resistance Training Behaviors “So I wouldn't want to do resistance training every day, but I might want to do it four days a week, for instance.” ▷ 29:45 Do Not Compensate for a Missed Habit Day Behaviors “If you miss a day, meaning you don't perform four to five things, there is no punishment. And in fact, it's important that you don't actually try and do what in the literature is called a habit slip compensation, which is just fancy psychological language for if you screw up and you don't get all four or five in one day, you don't do eight the next day in order to compensate.” ▷ 30:11 After 21 Days, Stop the Deliberate Schedule and Assess Autopilot Behaviors “After 21 days, you stop engaging in this 21-day deliberate four to five things per day type schedule and you simply go into autopilot. You ask yourself, how many of those particular habits that I was deliberately trying to learn in the previous 21 days are automatically incorporated into my schedule?” ▷ 32:12 Do Not Add New Habits Until the Current Six Are Reflexive Behaviors “But it's only once you've achieved all those six habits as reflexive that you would move forward.” ▷ 33:07 Use a Replacement Behavior Immediately After a Bad Habit Behaviors “So it turns out that the key to generating long-term depression in these pathways is actually to take the period immediately following the bad habit execution and in that moment capture the sequence of events not that led to the bad habit execution but actually to take advantage of the fact that the neurons that were responsible for generating that bad habit were were active a moment ago and to actually engage in a replacement behavior immediately afterward.”