Our day-to-day lives can get crazy busy – trust us, we know. When work piles up, mid-terms are looming in class, your kid’s pick up is in a hour, and you haven’t figured out dinner or slept all week, it can seem impossible to do all the things you need to do. The power of habits can make all the difference when it comes to giving into burnout vs. staying on track towards our goals.
When our lives are hectic, it becomes even more important to take care of ourselves with healthy habits like good sleep, exercise, and eating food that fuels your body. These practices are powerful methods to support your mind, body, and spirit, especially when everything else in life seems up in the air.
That’s where habit loops come in.
How To Make Your Habits Work For You
When it comes to healthy choices, like getting enough sleep, eating vegetables, and exercising every day, the best habits form when you make it as easy as possible to say yes. Yes to getting 8 hours of sleep, yes to drinking enough water, yes to fitting in a couple Pilates classes this week.
But what do we mean when we say, “make it easy to say yes?”
We have a limited amount of willpower throughout the day, and a limited amount of time. If we have to go out of our way to make healthy choices, then it’s that much harder to do everything we want to do.
Instead, make it easy to say yes to healthy habits by building them into your day. When we make habits automatic, we create “habit loops.”
Habit loops, coined by Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit, are neurological cues in our brain that reward routine and cues, so that when we encounter a specific circumstance, our brain cues up the habit response, such as “drink water,” “take a walk,” or “time for bed”.
We can trigger these habit loops by building flexibility into our daily lives and creating environments where we can say “yes” to healthy routines, such as:
- Meal prepping one day of the week, so it’s easy to have healthy meals on hand
- Keeping a pair of sneakers at home and in your car, so you can take a walk whenever you have 20 minutes to spare
- Having multiple water bottles and bring one with you wherever you go, so you can stay hydrated
- Finding a flexible workout you love, so you can fit it into your schedule whenever you can.
If you make it as easy as possible to follow healthy practices, then it is that much easier to integrate them into your life, and create balance in an unpredictable day.
Pilates Fits Into Every Lifestyle
When it comes to creating consistent habits that support a healthy lifestyle, Pilates is a fantastic exercise. It’s an efficient, whole body workout that you can complete in an hour, and it not only increases strength and mobility, but also helps to manage stress and prevent injury.
Here at RTR, we’ve worked to remove as many barriers as possible to joining a class, so it’s easy to say yes to your health and wellness.
With five locations across the DMV, we’ve purposefully chosen locations that are 20 minutes apart. We offer more than 300 classes/week, varying from 6:15am – 7:15pm. All of our class packages apply to any class in any RTR studio location, and we’ve focused our membership pricing towards making regular classes affordable, with both monthly class packages and student pricing.
So no matter where you are or when you have the time, there’s a Pilates class that can work with your schedule.
Join us today and learn how RTR Pilates fits into your consistently inconsistent life.
Get your first month of unlimited classes for just $129, and start building healthy habits with us today. Your mind, body, and spirit will thank you!