Building Positive Habits 

27 Oct 2020

During this whole pandemic thing¹ I’ve not learned how to knit, or play the guitar, or even read more books. It’s mostly been work, family, and trying to stay sane.

The one thing I have focused on is trying to build more positive habits. For me, that’s mostly meant:

• Focusing on eating better (easy, since my home office is 2 floors away from the kitchen, and there’s not free food everywhere), and
• Exercising (without 90 minutes a day commuting, I’ve been able to spend more time with the family and get a 2-4 mile run in most days)

After the first six months of these habits, they really are habits. I can tell when I’ve eaten more than normal, or had a particularly unhealthy eating day. I feel it physically and emotionally when I don’t run.

The downside of these habits is that I started to develop some knee pain. I don’t stretch very often, and I’m not very flexible, so the downside of working from home (less daily movement aside from exercise) has lead to more aches and creakiness when running.

This lead to my third habit, and the one I never thought I’d develop: yoga.

I’ve spent the last month doing a 30 day beginner’s yoga program. I can do it in the morning while the kids eat breakfast, and, after 3 or 4 days of not being able to sort of take the yogi-ness of it seriously, it clicked for me. I don’t think I’m a devotee, but I do find that the 20-30 minutes a morning that I do the yoga starts my day off with a bit of calmness, and I think it’s following through to the rest of my day in increased patience and understanding. ² At a minimum, I think my knee hurts less.