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Treat Yourself to a Home Spa Day

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The last time I had a spa day in an actual spa was when I was six months pregnant with my first child. I really enjoyed it; I have no idea why I haven’t been back since.

 

Yeah, right.

 

It’s indisputable that few people need spa days more than moms. It’s also indisputable that it’s much easier to find the time and money to go to the spa when the loves of your life aren’t consuming all your time and money.

 

But what mothers may lack in free time and discretionary funds, they make up for in resourcefulness and ingenuity. If mama can’t get to the spa, she can bring the spa right home to her–with the help of Angie of My Four Monkeys, who hosted The Motherhood’s talk on having yourself a home spa day. Angie was joined by guests Liz of A Nut in a Nutshell, Felicia of Go Graham Go, Xenia of Thanks, Mail Carrier, Bridgette of Experimental Mommy, Renee of What Mommies Need, and Jennifer of Mommy B Knows Best to discuss head to toe pampering without leaving the house.

 

Admittedly, it’s difficult to get a full spa day experience at home. For one thing, who has a full day? For another, it may be tough to train your four year old to drape you in fluffy snow white towels she’s rushed straight from the warm dryer. (You may have more success getting your seven year old to peer at you critically and ask if you’re sure you don’t want your lip waxed.) But if you can steal an hour or two after the kids are in bed, you can have yourself a peaceful, relaxing time.

 

 

Don’t forget that a spa experience is for all your senses. If you find candles relaxing, have some at hand in your spa area. Have some favorite music selected and ready to go. Don’t forget a beverage, and not necessarily an alcoholic one. A nice cup of tea, or some chilled water with a few thin slices of cucumber in it, are refreshing and contribute to the spa experience. Get some essential oils and use (sparingly–a little goes a long way) to scent your bath. Some favorites among our panelists were vanilla, coconut and lavender for relaxation. Peppermint and grapefruit are great choices for invigoration.

 

Once it’s quiet and feeling spa-like, what are your favorite ways to pamper? Many of our talk participants really enjoy a facial or a great skin scrub. Of course you can buy that stuff in a tube, but it smells and feels even better (and costs less) if you make it at home. Our panelists provided their favorites, and links to more:

 

Angie’s Honey Avocado Oatmeal Mask

(especially great for oily skin)
½ cup dry old-fashioned oatmeal
¼ avocado
1 tsp honey
1 Tbsp olive oil

1. In a bowl, mix the honey, olive oil, and avocado.
2. Add in the oatmeal and mix thoroughly.

 

If acne is a problem for you, Angie recommends this facial mask:

 

Chamomile and Mint Facial
1 tsp chopped fresh mint
1 Tblsp honey
1 egg

1. Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl.
2. Apply the mixture to your face.
3. Let dry for 10-15 minutes, then rinse with tepid water.

 

 

Angie’s Honey Lip Scrub
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon baking soda
a few drops of olive oil

1. Mix the honey and baking soda till a smooth paste is formed.
2. Apply the mixture on your lips and leave it on for a few minutes, then gently rub the lips to remove dead skin.
3. Wash your lips with water, and apply olive oil to your lips to moisturize them.

 

If you like cinnamon, you’ll love this Cinnamon Sugar Lip Scrub Bridgette recommends, from Deliciously Organized.

 

 

For a more all-over skin scrub, Felicia offers her Brown Sugar Scrub. Angie also recommends Vanessa’s Chiquita Banana Sugar Scrub. (Angie points out that while many of these items make great gifts, ones using fresh perishable ingredients like bananas or avocados obviously do not, since they should be refrigerated and used within a few days.)

 

Essential oils can be used to scent and customize scrubs as well, such as this hand and body scrub offered by Angie:

 

½ cup brown sugar
2 Tblsp almond oil or olive oil
5 drops of honey
3 to 5 drops of your favorite essential oil

1. Mix ingredients thoroughly in a glass bowl.
2. Scrub can be used on the entire body, or just hands and feet (great for pedicures).

 

Angie says, “If you feel like splurging for a special occasion, here’s a scrub that uses papaya and smells like a beach getaway!”

 

Tropical Fruit and Sugar Scrub
½ cup white sugar
3 Tblsp coconut oil or coconut milk
3 Tblsp almond, jojoba oil, or olive oil
½ cup fresh pureed papaya

1. Mix the sugar and all the oils.
2. Add papaya to the mixture and stir.
3. Use on skin to rejuvenate, and remove dead skin.

When you create your own spa, you can do as much or as little as you like. Angie says,”I f you want to REALLY get into DIY pampering you can purchase supplies like beeswax, flavors, and coloring to create all kinds of products at home including lip balms, lip glosses, bath bombs, and more! Want to stick to recipes you probably already have the items to make? Look for scrub recipes, face masks, and bath salts.” She offers up this recipe for bath fizzies from Martha Stewart.

 

Sometimes the best part of a spa day is sharing it with someone else. But just because your spa is at home doesn’t mean that you can’t share it. In fact, it’s a great way to spend time with your daughters and create memories without spending a mint. Angie recommends Bonding Over Beauty by Erika Katz as a great source of pampering ideas and recipes for mothers and daughters to enjoy together.

 

 

Home spa days are also a relaxing and inexpensive way to get together with your friends. Jennifer did it for her bachelorette party, as did Liz’s daughter. Jennifer also suggests a spa day for a girl’s birthday party. Whether you have your spa day for a special occasion or no occasion at all, with your daughter, sister, friends or just yourself, relax and enjoy your pampering. If anyone has called you Mom, Mommy, Mother or Mama today, I promise you–you’ve earned it.

 

Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit, and How You Can Too

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To be clear, the “I” in the title of this post refers to Beth Terry, whose book of the same name we discussed in The Motherhood today. The “I” who is writing this post is pausing to stare somewhat guiltily over her shoulder at the plastic clamshell container, plastic zipper lock bags, plastic ballpoint pens and plastic aspirin bottle on her kitchen counter. And that’s just the counter–we won’t even discuss the plastic in the rest of the room. And house.

 

But Beth’s book isn’t designed to make us feel guilty. It’s written with the intent of helping anybody take whatever steps they’re ready for to reduce plastic in their lives, up to eliminating it all together. Beth decided to write the book after she stumbled across an article about the plastic pollution problem in the ocean and saw a photo of a dead baby albatross full of everyday plastic pieces that its mother had fed to it thinking it was food.  Of the article, Beth says, “It broke my heart. And that was my reason for seeing if I could live without buying new plastic.”

 

 

It occurs to me, as a human mama, that I also feed my children a lot of things I think are good for them. But I do worry that the plastic that food comes packaged in could somehow be as harmful to my babies as to that baby albatross. And I know I’m not alone in my concerns. Many of the panelists joining the discussion on Beth’s book feel the same. Panelist Alicia Voorhies says her biggest concern about plastic is leaching chemicals, and panelist Lisa Sharp is worried about “the health effects on us and animals.” Panelists Kitchenstew and Lori pointed out the pervasiveness of plastic–it’s even in chewing gum! Theecochic, another panelist, admitted honestly that her biggest concern about plastic is that she relies on it so much. It’s so easy to do, and so hard to avoid. Panelist Danielle says, “My biggest concerns about plastics are that they are trashing our planet– from preproduction to litter.”

 

It’s everywhere. It’s bad for us, other animals, and the planet, in ways we don’t even fully understand yet.  If it were only bad, it would be easy to get rid of. But it’s so useful and convenient, as we all know. What are health-conscious, environmentally-conscious, busy and cash-strapped moms to do? That’s where Beth’s book, and her blog, come in, with practical, realistic options anyone can use to help get plastic out of their lives.

 

What if you’re just a beginner at this plastic-free stuff? What’s the first thing you should do? Beth says that the best “first thing” depends on the person doing it. “Start with the one thing that is easiest for you and make it a habit. And don’t beat yourself up, but don’t let yourself off the hook too easily either.” You may have started the shift without even knowing it–lots of us have stopped buying bottled water and are using stainless steel bottles. Even more of us are using reusable grocery bags. Lori advises, “Incorporating the change into your routine works. I leave reusable shopping bags in the front seat of my car and now I rarely forget them.” And as panelist PhDinParenting observes, “A lot of the changes we make become second nature after we’ve been doing them for a while.”

 

Those are some of the easier changes to make.   But as Kitchenstew points out, having kids makes going plastic-free very challenging. Two big challenges are toys (since most little kids’ toys are made out of plastic) and goody bags at parties (the bags are made of plastic and they’re often filled with cheap plastic toys). For the former challenge, consider buying used toys on eBay or Craigslist, as Danielle does. As for goody bags, if you can’t bear to eliminate gifts for party guests entirely, why not try something plastic-free and still fun, like flower seeds in compostable planters or cotton thread friendship bracelets?

 

Perhaps the biggest challenge to plastic-free living with kids is containers for their food, especially on the go. Fortunately, as more of us raise our voices to ask for options, more choices appear. Lunchbots are a great stainless steel alternative. The Extraordinary Baby Shoppe carries several stainless steel feeding options for the smallest kids. For reusable food storage bags, check out Lunch Skins or Three Little Birds Design Company. More great ideas can be found in this blog post about traveling plastic-free with snacks.

 

Those are some great ideas for keeping plastic out of the garbage–but what about what we put the garbage itself in? Some municipalities require trash bags. One solution is to reduce your trash (and therefore, the number of trash bags you use) by composting and recycling whenever possible.  Another is to use corn-based trash bags or using plastic bags, like bread bags, that you were just going to throw out anyway.  Panelist Diane Mac suggests wrapping wet non-compostables in newspaper. If you aren’t required to use bags, consider putting your trash in a metal can that you can rinse out as needed with a hose. And check out Beth’s blog post on collecting garbage without plastic bags.

 

It’s all very well to contribute to a cleaner planet by using less plastic, but try to get yourself clean without plastic? You’re facing a challenge. Let’s play a game: you run out to the grocery store, find a non-plastic container of shampoo or mouthwash, and run back. First one home gets a prize. Go on. I’ll wait here.

 

(crickets chirping)

 

Couldn’t find one? Not surprising; it’s hard to do. Our panelists were able to come up with some choices  for those truly committed to kicking the plastic. Shampoo bars, especially those not wrapped in plastic, are a good option. Lisa Sharp uses concentrated mouthwash so that the bottle is smaller and lasts longer, creating less waste. You can make your own hygiene products, too, and Beth’s book and blog offer ideas for plastic-free alternatives. You may even find alternatives to plastic in places you didn’t even realize plastic lurks, like books. But Beth has even found a way around that: “FYI: This book was created without plastic materials. My publisher found a way to do without plastic coating, plastic glue, synthetic thread, etc. It’s really cool looking. But it’s also available in Kindle and NOOK. “If you’re interested in a signed copy of the book, they’re available through Beth’s website, with a portion of the proceeds to the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

 

The Naptime Chef: Fitting Great Food Into Family Life

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Is there anything more enjoyable than sitting around with your women friends, talking about family and trading recipes? Not for me. That’s why I loved our talk today in The Motherhood, when we sat down with Kelsey Banfield, known around Internet parts as The Naptime Chef, who’s got a new cookbook out. Kelsey was joined by Winnie Abramson of Healthy Green Kitchen and Angie McGowan of Eclectic Recipes … and a bunch of moms hungry for a good discussion about cooking foods we love for people we love.

 

My first dinner after bringing my first child home from the hospital was Chinese takeout. My second was lasagna, made by a friend, and fed to me forkful by forkful while I tried to nurse a newborn. After those early days, I had more time to cook (and eat) … but not much. That’s why the premise of Kelsey’s blog and cookbook is so welcome: we can feed our families well, in the little snippets of time we have.

 

 

Kelsey’s cookbook features breakfast, salads, snacks, dinner, dessert and pantry staples – what she refers to as “all the food we consider family food.” In other words, the types of recipes and tips we all turn to for everyday eating. And like cooking for family, it sounds like the creation of the cookbook was a labor of love. Kelsey said, “It was a ton of work, but I loved it. I tested each recipe several times, used a recipe tester and then wrote everything down. It took a lot of work to keep the voice and work consistent throughout. I loved the process!”

 

When you’re talking with a cookbook author, the conversation necessarily turns to meal planning – and the lack thereof. Kelsey says flying by the seat of your culinary pants can be a great way to generate recipes you never would have thought of otherwise – reassurance for those of us who sometimes look up to see it’s 5:00 and realize we don’t have anything planned, much less prepared. Pinterest is a new favorite tool for both finding and keeping track of recipes we’d love to try.

 

Several people commented that planning about three meals a week works out well – plan too many, and you can’t eat all the leftovers; plan not enough, and you find yourself at the drive-thru. Winnie has a designated noodle night, Asian night, and Mexican night. She noted, “This helps direct my shopping but there’s still lots of room for creativity.” A perfect metaphor for motherhood: structure and flexibility are both needed for things to work.

 

Of course, we just had to ask Kelsey what her favorite recipe from her cookbook was. Like all good mothers, she had trouble identifying a favorite among her babies, but allowed that she really likes  asparagus with feta, browned butter asparagus risotto and couscous salads for spring and summer. Artichoke lasagna is a beloved cold weather dish. I’ve never had it or even heard of it, but it sounds so good I think I’d pick up the cookbook for that recipe alone.

 

It’s possible to cook well, and it’s possible to cook easy foods, and it’s possible to cook healthfully. It’s just difficult to do them all at once. Kelsey, like so many of us, is hooked on fresh summer produce from the garden or the farmer’s market, which helps achieve the nutritious/delicious/efficient hat trick. I had to ask about convenience foods, too. As much as I prefer not to rely on box, bag, or can, sometimes your back’s against the dinnertime wall and you have no choice. Kelsey avoids canned foods as much as possible because of BPA, but finds boxed POMI tomatoes and boxed chicken stock useful, healthy, and tasty. Angie seconded the recommendation for POMI, and also depends on olives, beans and refried beans as staples.

 

Of course that launched us into a discussion of go-to meals when time’s short. Deborah says her family will eat “anything wrapped in a tortilla.” Cooper makes marinated grilled flank steak, Emily makes risotto with whatever veggies are on hand, and Erin makes ravioli with sauteed zucchini and Parmesan. And because our kids love dessert, even when we don’t love making it, we shared ideas for that, too.  Lots of fresh fruit, of course, but surprising presentations – Emily said her kids have actually learned to make pavlovas, big fancy looking meringues that she swears are easier than pie. And Erin shared her recipe for one-minute chocolate cake!

 

Kelsey has an automatic popsicle maker that’s a big hit at dessert time at her place. She wondered what appliances the rest of us love and can’t live without.  Angie swears by her food processor, Winnie and Deborah by their blenders. Immersion blenders are popular favorites, as are slow cookers, and everybody loves a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

 

I could have sat forever at my (virtual) kitchen table, trading tips, tricks, recipes (and confessions) with everyone, but these talks, like all good things, must end. Maybe in a few months we can have another one after we’ve had a chance to try out Kelsey’s cookbook, so we can share our favorite Naptime Chef recipes. Cookbook club, anyone?

 

Read the stellar reviews for Kelsey’s cookbook, The Naptime Chef: Fitting Great Food Into Family Life, here.

Writing Your Way Through Motherhood

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Many women, including myself, have always expressed themselves in writing.  After I had children, I noticed two things happening – I felt I suddenly had so much I wanted to say, and I felt there were so many more barriers to my saying it.

 

Today in The Motherhood, we were joined by Kate Hopper, whose book, “Use Your Words: A Writing Guide For Mothers” aims to help women mine for the stories of their lives and bring them into the light. Kate was joined by Marilyn Bousquin, Kara Thom, Janine Kovac and Mary Hill, other writing mothers, to discuss the challenges to writing as a mother and  what is gained by overcoming them.

 

One obstacle mothers find to writing is a perceived lack of time. As mothers, we know that our free time often comes in increments that can be measured with the second hand sweep of a watch. The solution is to use the time you have, even if it’s just five minutes. Mary has “taken to keeping a blank document open on my computer and a stack of post-its in the kitchen. I’ve started a few essays with notes from a post-it!” Kara tries to keep a notebook in her “take everywhere” bag.

 

Like so many moments of motherhood, inspiration is fleeting; capture it however you can or it evaporates. Kate also noted, “I think it’s important to figure out when you’re freshest, and put aside ten or fifteen minutes then. Sometimes that means getting up really early for me or heading to the coffee shop on the weekend.”

 

 

Marilyn brought up Kate’s encouraging women  “to write their experience of motherhood despite the cultural myth of motherhood.” She questioned how we can separate the two. Kate suggested, “I think it helps to begin with what you perceive to be a mother failure. Write it in as much detail as possible and how you felt about it. then start asking questions. Why did you feel like a failure? Where were those messages coming from?” What an amazing idea – using what feels like failure as a gateway to your truth!

 

Erin echoed a wish many of us share – to have a record of the stories of our mothers and grandmothers – and asked how to know where to start in telling our own stories. Kate’s advice was to begin with a single detail, and to capture moments first by focusing on sensory details (imagine the smell of your grandmother’s kitchen).  Once you’ve captured one moment in detail, Kate said to move on to another, and recommended keeping a list of memories so you can be ready to work when you have a few minutes.

 

Janine pointed out that a lot of “mom-oirs” and mom blogs sound the same – how do you find your voice? Kate cautioned that voice doesn’t always magically descend; sometimes it comes late in the writing process, and sometimes it can be crafted. Mary said sometimes she gets tired of her voice, questioning whether that means it’s not authentic. Marilyn responded, “Many of us women become ‘distant’ from our authentic voices as we move through adolescence, and writing to your pre-adolescent self can put you back in touch with the part of you (your voice) that is still there!”

 

Then there is the question of what to share, and how to share it. Sometimes, as Kara pointed out, the stuff that resonates with readers is “the hard stuff,” the tales of struggles and feeling like a failure.

 

What about the need to speak about the joys of motherhood? Those are an equally true part of our stories, but they can feel hard to write without coming off as sappy or shallow.  Kate cut to the heart of the matter when she said, “I think there needs to be room for all of our experiences to exist on the page, but if the subject or voice doesn’t feel natural to you, it’s not a fit.” We need permission to write the truth as we know it, not as we imagine an audience wants to see it.

 

 

Privacy issues can crop up as our kids get older. Their lives are so interwoven with our stories, but they may not want us to share them, as Deborah pointed out. Kate offered that one solution may be to refocus a piece on you, rather than on your kids. She allowed that it’s a tough call, and that she bears in mind that one of our primary jobs as moms is to protect our children. In the end, as with so many parts of mothering, we may just have to listen to our gut.

 

Writing and motherhood have much in common. Doing it well is difficult, but you have to keep at it anyway, day after day, with an uncertain outcome looming in the hazy distance. The work comes out better when it’s done with a full heart. And both are journeys of discovery.

 

Kate put it so beautifully: “I think discovery is inherent in writing any memoir. If you are really searching for answers, it’s inevitable. I think as mothers we’re so caught up in the day-to-day that it’s hard to take the time to process our experiences. Writing slows us down enough to allow us to discover what we know.”

Book Party: Dare, Dream, Do

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What is your dream? Do you have one?

 

If you said “no,” don’t feel bad – many people have trouble identifying and articulating their dreams, much less achieving them.  According to Whitney Johnson, author of the new book Dare, Dream, Do, one of her motivations for writing the book came from women telling her they didn’t have any dreams.

 

“When I took a sabbatical from Wall Street in 2005, I was so excited to be talking to women about dreams,” she said. “But when I asked what their dream was, I’d often hear, I don’t have a dream, or I don’t know how to achieve my dream. That saddened me deeply.”

 

Whitney talked with a motivated group of women in The Motherhood this afternoon about her book, daring to dream and making things happen.  She was joined by co-hosts Melanie of Modern Mami; Jenna of A Mom’s Balancing Act; Amanda of Parenting by Dummies; Amie of Mamma Loves; and Morra of Women Online.

 

On “Daring”

 

“In my experience, women are actually pretty good at the do, the executing of a dream, and even know what that secret place, is — it’s really the daring that is tremendously difficult, because we’ve forgotten it is our privilege to dream,” Whitney said.

 

“I think our daughters, especially, need to see us daring to do. So often, girls hold back on challenging themselves,” added Melanie of Modern Mami.

 

Several people noted that fear of failure held them back from daring to dream, but as Whitney pointed out, failure gives you information – not a bad thing. “It does seem that we learn from our mistakes and failures,” said Jenna of A Mom’s Balancing Act. “An important thing for us to understand and to help our children understand as well.”

 

 

On “Dreaming”

 

“Sometimes we can’t articulate a dream because we don’t know what it is… but more frequently, we are afraid to say what we really want for fear of the social cost,” Whitney revealed. “Anna Fels, a Cornell psychiatrist, discovered that women don’t lack ambition. But because we are only considered feminine when we are giving up resources, whether time, money, or praise, then we are in a double bind if we want to dream.”

 

“I think I am still trying to figure out what my dream is,” said Amanda of Parenting by Dummies, expressing a popular sentiment. “I have a good idea of where I want to be in my life, but not a lot of certainty about how I plan to get there. My birthday is tomorrow though so I’ve been doing a lot of that so-another-year-has-passed thinking lately!”

 

“Birthdays are great milestones to take stock, I find. You can set intentions for you next year- even little ones!” replied Morra of Women Online.

 

So how can you effectively discover your dream? Whitney suggests “mining your innate talents (what you do reflexively well), acquired competencies (you’re good at because you’ve practiced), feminine strengths (how do your relational skills and emotional attunement inform your dreams), and deeply-held beliefs (what do you believe about the world).”

 

“My favorite thing about the book, is that it provides a pattern to follow. That way, when we work and make dreams come true, we start again with the process,” said macyrobinson.

 

It never hurts to write it down, too. As thienkim said, “2012 is the first year I’ve made a list of things I want to do. Just writing it down puts it out there in the universe. It’s encouraged me to ASK (my word for the year) for things. I’ve accomplished many things from my list already.”

 

 

On “Doing”

 

“I think once you figure out what your dream is, figuring out the next steps on how to achieve it, is the hardest part,” said Melanie of Modern Mami.

 

Amie of Mamma Loves pointed out that it’s especially tough for moms “to balance our dreams and our responsibilities. There is that constant battle between doing what we can to provide for our children v. doing what we love.”  And Amanda at Parenting by Dummies agreed, “I always am afraid of making a time commitment or a financial commitment b/c that takes away from my family.”

 

“It wasn’t that I didn’t have dreams, as much as it was that I didn’t know how to go about reaching them,” agreed CGKoens. “They seemed so huge and the steps to get there were blurry. What I discovered was that sometimes, all it takes is encouragement from one person.”

 

And Becki pointed out, “I am willing to work harder and persist longer if I believe I have a chance of success. That’s why encouragement (not just empty praise) is so valuable.”

 

We wish you well in achieving your dreams and leave you with this beautiful sentiment Whitney expressed during the live chat:

 

“We dream so our children can dream. 1) By dreaming we model for our children how to dream; 2) By dreaming, we avoid foisting our own ambitions on our children because of our unlived life. Paraphrasing, psychologist Carl Jung said, ‘one of the largest influences on a child is the unlived life of a parent.’ When we dream our own dreams, we can let our children dream theirs, and simply bear witness to the lives they will live.”

The Power of Habit: A Conversation with Charles Duhigg

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Quick, name your worst habit. How long did it take you? If you’re anything like me, you can name a handful of your own bad habits in under ten seconds. Naming good habits (at least for me) takes a little longer.

 

But here are the questions that stop me in my tracks: What IS a habit? How did I get the ones I have? And how, oh, how can I change some of them?

 

Today in The Motherhood we had the great good fortune to discuss habits with Charles Duhigg, award-winning New York Times business reporter and author of The Power of Habit, which is currently 7th on the New York Times Best Seller list.

 

Joining him was a panel of featured guests, including Jen of The Suburban Mom, Jill of The Diaper Diaries, Liz of A Nut in a Nutshell, Holly of The Culture Mom, and Asha of Parent Hacks.

 

Charles identified a habit as “a decision you made at some point, and stop making, but continue acting on.” It’s something that’s become automatic. Emily asked Charles what his biggest takeaway was from writing the book. He responded, “That ANY habit can be changed. It doesn’t matter how ingrained the behavior, or how long it has been a part of your life. What we have learned from recent neurology studies is that any habit can change, if you know how.”

 

 

Naturally, we all wanted to know how. And Charles obliged, with this beautiful three-step process:

 

“First, diagnose the cue. Most cues fall into one of five categories: a time of day, or a certain place, a certain emotion, the presence of certain people or a preceding behavior that has become ritualized. Once you know the cue, you know when the habit starts.

 

“Second, figure out what reward the habit delivers. Are you eating cookies because you are hungry? Or bored? Or want the burst of energy the sugar provides? Look for what craving the habit is feeding by conducting experiments (for instance, by eating an apple for hunger, or drinking coffee for energy. Then ask yourself: are you still craving the cookie?).

 

“Third, figure out a new behavior that can be triggered by the old cue and deliver the old reward. If you previously had a cookie every afternoon at 3:30 because it gave you a chance to take a break, then start scheduling a walk with a friend for 3:30 every day. It doesn’t have to last more than 10 minutes, but it will replace the cookie habit!”

 

 

Adrienne asked about the biggest mistake people make when trying to change a habit. Charles said that it’s not giving themselves the reward they really want. (Note to self: stop trying to pretend a rice cake is a “treat.” A two-year-old can see through that one.)

 

Liz wondered, “How long does it take to make something a habit or change a habit?” Charles said it varies from person to person and behavior to behavior, and offered this encouragement: “The good news is that it will get easier each day. Our neurology is programmed to latch onto habits, and so they get easier each time we do them.”

 

Asha noted that there’s often a nagging, scolding internal voice that often accompanies our attempts to change a habit. Charles acknowledged this, and said that the key is to remember you’re on a journey, and that we shouldn’t expect change to occur all at once.

 

Jill observed that she finds accountability to someone else helpful when trying to break a habit, and Charles confirmed that studies back her up: “Dozens of studies have shown that if you commit to a goal with a partner or group, you are much more likely to achieve it.”

 

Liasynthis wondered about how to ramp up one’s internal motivation to make a change. Charles recommended allowing yourself to really envision the change you want; as the goal seems increasingly real, he said, motivating yourself will become easier.

 

 

Once you’re in the groove with a new habit, how do you keep that groove from becoming a rut? Charles had this to say: “The secret is to give yourself evolving rewards. Every routine becomes boring at some point – so spice it up by choosing future rewards. When you start exercising, focus on a small reward – but after a month, choose something big and nice to give yourself if you stick with the work outs. Our brains love novelty. They assign reward value to something new. So vary your rewards, and it will be easier to stick with the plan.”

 

Holly and EllenRonnie both wondered, what if it’s not your own habit change you’re looking to motivate, but someone else’s? Charles acknowledged how difficult this can be, and offered that studies suggest the best approach is to explain “why YOU want them to change: how their habits impact your life, or why you are scared what will happen if they don’t change. Show your own vulnerabilities, and it will help them feel safe enough to admit to themselves that something isn’t working.”

 

I found it incredibly empowering to know that an expert in the field firmly believes that ANY habit can be changed. And it was so heartening to know that it’s better if the process of habit change feels good, not bad. Regarding the role of enjoyment in habit change, Charles had this to say: “Rewards are powerful because we enjoy them. If you berate yourself for enjoying a piece of chocolate or 10 minutes watching television, then you rob a reward of its influence. It’s okay to INDULGE yourself! Go ahead! That’s how you create new habits!”

 

Further reading and resources: