Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Musgara, and today we're going to talk about why periods of upheaval are actually great opportunities for new habits.

More to come on that in a moment, but first let's settle in together with the sound of the bells. So many of us at the time of recording this are in a period of upheaval and destruction to our normal way of living and being in the world.

Specifically, our usual habits and routines have been disrupted considerably.

I am talking, of course, about everything that has resulted from COVID-19.

And while it is true that it may feel frustrating to have our normal habits disrupted and that that may be getting

in the way of your usual way of taking care of yourself or managing your well-being. It doesn't all have to be a negative.

Research by Wendy Wood shows that these periods of upheaval, destruction,

transition, are actually really powerful opportunities to create some new habits.

This is primarily because we don't have our usual cues and routines that would trigger us to follow our old habits, which

creates a sense of familiarity, routine, and we, as you know, probably from experience, can just easily get caught in that day today

and we know we should do something else or we might want to try reading more or spend less time on

our phone or whatever it might be, but we just get caught up in the flow of the day.

However, when that is interrupted in a significant way, it's almost like starting with a blank slate.

Not completely, because we're still going to have some of our usual patterns, conditionings,

and cues.

But with fewer of those, there's more opportunities to insert some new routines.

A helpful way to think of it is someone going off to college.

Completely new environment, new people, almost a new sense of identity.

And the student now has to create a whole new life.

What's exercise going to look like?

What is social time going to look like?

...