Hello, friends, and welcome to the Liz Moody podcast, where every week we're sharing real science, real stories, and realistic tools that actually level up every part of your life.

I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and longtime journalist.

Today's episode is all about micro habits.

Microhabits are teeny tiny habits, things that take less than five minutes.

The research shows make a huge

difference in our health and our happiness. I love them for a few reasons. The first being that,

because they are micro, they are quick, so they end up being much easier to actually incorporate

into our lives. Research shows that we are much more likely to do tasks that take less perceived time and effort,

but you probably do not need me to share science on that. It is just very obviously true.

It is much easier for me to convince you to do five squats than to do an hour-long routine at the

gym. It fits into our lives easier and it just feels less hard and

thus way less intimidating. Microhabits are one of the top hacks that high performers use

to transform their lives even when they have very limited free time. First of all, successfully

sticking to a habit, even one that just takes a minute or two, triggers your brain's reward system,

which releases dopamine and encourages you to do other healthy habits in the future. You basically

get a little ping of success, and your brain is like, ooh, I like this. How can I get more of it?

And you can get this with negative habits or with positive habits. We all have likely experienced

dates where we've had like a pastry

or something sweet for breakfast, and that pings our brain's reward system. So we want more of that

and we end up eating more sweets all day long. But if we start the day with something veggie pack,

something more nutritious, we get that ping of treating our bodies well and we want to eat more

veggies all day long. And that is in part due to this feedback system, this reward system.

...