#11 10 Small Habits to Improve Your Health & Happiness in Under 20 Minutes

TRANSCRIPT:

Robyn: It's true. Time is one of our most precious resources. It's also not renewable. Once the day is over, it's over. Now, I'm not saying this to cause a panic or to suggest that you add more things to your to-do list or optimize every second.

I say it because we only have one life, and it's only so long, and I hope that you can spend it on the things that matter. Health and happiness, when we know that matters, but it's not always easy to find the time. Especially when we get caught up in all or nothing thinking or perfection based thinking, thinking that we have to have an hour block or two or three or four to fit these things into our lives.

Because not only is that not realistic on most work days or real life days, it's also... not necessary. The beautiful thing is that healthy, happy habits can fit into your day, your week, and your month in small pockets, and 20 minutes or less. In fact, when I asked our community on Real Food Whole Life and Whole Life Organized on Instagram to share your best healthy, happy habit in under 20 minutes, I heard from Healthy Heather on Instagram and she said, "Really, most of the quote -unquote healthy things I do are less than 20 minutes." And absolutely, part of it is shifting how you think about it and breaking out of the idea that it has to be all or nothing. And the other part, well, it's just adopting the habits. Because your habits, well, they make up your life.

Hi, I'm Robyn Conley Downs. I'm a health and happiness habits expert. expert and I'm here to simplify time so you can make time and spend time for good.

You're listening to Whole Life Organized. By the end of this episode, you will have 10 habits to improve your health and happiness in 20 minutes or less. Okay, I've told this story so many times. I'm not going to go all the way back into my origin story. You can listen to previous episodes if you want the whole, whole longer version. But 10 plus years ago, I was working full -time, 60 hour a week, I had a toddler and I was in a doctoral program full -time. I understand what it's like to be working and then going to school and then trying to take care of yourself and your family.

And when I say take care of yourself, that was not even the case on the list. But I get it. And I understand that when people who kind of work for themselves and work from home tell you how to spend your time, it doesn't always resonate because they actually don't remember or have never had a job where they have to be somewhere else on someone else's clock. And so when I take the research or when I take examples from my own life, I'm always going back to that place, to that person that I was. and the constraints that I had. And even given that kind of brutal grind schedule where I was out of the house for multiple hours a day, where I was often working on other people's timelines, other people's deadlines, I had bosses and I had professors and I wasn't in control of my day in the way that I am now.

But given that, I wish I had known then what I know now, which is is health and happiness habits can fit into our day in these small ways, in these 3, 5, 10, and 20 minute increments. So by the end of the week or the month or the year, you know that you have made time for the things that matter in your life and for taking care of the most basic things like your health and your happiness.

I'm one of the places that I'm going to share this video with you. I used to run into the wall over and over in my life was thinking that I needed these giant blocks of time and yes there is something to be said for carving out an hour or two hours a week to spend on something just because gratifying it's enjoyable I've said over and over I love to take an hour -long studio workout class if that's in the cards but there was a time in my life that that wasn't going to happen and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and I love it and happen. And even when I was working and in school and caring for my family and my toddler, I did have pockets. I just didn't know how to look for them or what to put there. So that's why I'm sharing these 10 ideas.

I have more. I could have done 30 or 40 or 50, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with ideas because here's the risk in that. All of my overachievers might able. + students, my perfection -based thinkers will approach this like a homework assignment that they can get an A on. That if you can fit as many things as possible, you ace the test. And this is not a test and it's not a school project. It's not graded. And for those of you who are not overachiever A +ers, you might be an all -or nothing or where you just have to go all in or you're all out.

And so for all of you, I invite you to think about this differently. We're not trying to put as many 20-minute blocks into our week and make sure that we check all the boxes, nor are we trying to get it all in. And then if we don't, we're all out. There is a beautiful middle ground where you can collect these 20-minute or under habits. You can place them in your life and then everything else goes around it. So it doesn't mean that you stop what you're doing or you quit your job or you tell your boss you're never available or you tell your toddler you're not available. Like they would listen.

That's not even an option, right? But once something becomes a habit, the whole concept of a habit is it happens habitually automatically and it is a part of your life. So everything filters around it. And when you have... have those little gems placed through your day, you know you're getting those boosts, those much needed injections of health and happiness, which allows you to feel more satisfied, to feel more vibrant, to feel more energized, and you're not waiting for perfect, and you're not waiting for some magical time to appear out of nowhere that you know we don't have.

So here's what I want you to do. do. I want you to buy into the idea that you don't need an hour or even 30 minutes. And then as we go through these examples, I want you to think about your day and your week and where you might find those 20 -minute pockets or five -minute pockets. I'm going to give some examples that are three minutes for real. So not all of these are even a full 20 minutes. So I want you to be thinking about that as you imagine your week if you want to to imagine it like linearly in a planner form, a calendar form, or more organically. I know we have two ends of the spectrum when people think about time and you are maybe more concrete or you might be more flowy and organic.

Either way, think about that time and where these small bits might go. I do more teaching and coaching on that part in my programs, but I think just to start, it's thinking about it, imagining it, and then thinking about maybe some of these things are already doing. I always say this when I'm working with clients or when in my own life, we've got to give ourselves more credit for what we're already doing.

And sometimes I think these small, healthy, happy habits are things we're already doing when we're not counting because they're not, they either don't look like something special or they're not in a timeframe we think counts.

So one, just think about these things like what are you already doing? What can you give your self credit for that you're already doing? And then where are those pockets that you might be able to add a few more things that can boost your health and happiness and connect to how do you want to feel? Go back to episode one. What is that you want for yourself in your body and in your life? life?" So I'm drawing from my personal list, and this is pretty grounded in research. I have mentioned before in other places, but my background is in the science of habits and behavioral research, and then my last podcast, "The Feel Good Effect," I interviewed over 200 health and happiness experts.

So after all of that, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the research base, but also very practical on Apple. actions and behaviors and habits that we can adopt. So I've created my personal list from that research and trial and error in my own life. So I'm going with 10. I probably have, I don't know, 30, 40 more that I could share at another point, wanted to keep this doable, realistic, all of those things for this particular episode. So number one, I don't meal prep, but I do ingredient prep. And this connects with how I want to feel in my life because how I'm eating really is connected. And doing a little bit of prep has made putting together meals during the weekday a lot more effortless. And I think big four -hour meal preps can be great.

Like more power to you. I think that's an incredible way to set up for success for the week. That has never worked for me, not even one time. So instead, I focus on single ingredient prep that I can use multiple ways during the week. And as a bonus, I will do ingredient prep while I'm making dinner. So I don't even necessarily have a 20 minute block where I'm doing this. It might just be part of where I'm already making. So it's really just shifting my thinking. Here are some examples of ingredient prep. So I, if I make. making a grain, for example, pasta, rice, potatoes, I will just make three times that amount that we need, and then I will put the remainder in the fridge, or I will freeze it. And so in that way, if we're having rice on Monday night, I will quickly refrigerate it, get it safe and all in the fridge, and then three or four days later, if we maybe three days later... later, we're having a stir fry, the rice is already made. Or on the weekend, while we're doing other things, I might pop some hard boiled eggs or regular eggs into like Instant Pot or on the stove top by a recipe on my website. And I'll make hard boiled eggs.

So I will do another things, pop those in the fridge for the week. I'm really into marinades these days. You can get all my marinade recipes, realfoodwholelife.com. There's a whole side. but I will make a marinade in five minutes.

And seriously, game changer, when it comes to dinner, making dinner for a night, I can either marinate something myself or have someone else do it in the family. And that five minutes makes dinner so much easier. Same thing with the sauce. I'll make will be approaching in the grain and then the sauce is going to make that taste like it's something special. So that's usually what I do in gradient prep is either some kind of grain or putt like carby thing that I can make in a big batch. I'll do some kind of protein in a big batch, whether that's said hard boiled eggs or if I do like a meat in the crock pot, I'll do like three times the amount like taco meat or shredded Mexican beef, something like that, and then put the leftovers in the fridge and we will eat that. It's not complicated, it's just shifting your thinking. And then I'll usually do one or two sauces and one or two marinades.

And I'll do that, I don't do that all at once, but that all of that probably adds up to you know, 20 minutes for the whole week. Number two probably doesn't take me any time, but I just always try to add a vegetable to every meal, whether that's in the thing I'm eating or on the side. So it's an additive approach, and it becomes a habit to the point where I don't even think about it anymore.

It does require that you think about it when you go to the grocery store, that you're buying veggies that are easy to add. I will say if this is something that you want to focus on, I would highly recommend my friend Taysha at the Natural Nurturer. She has phenomenal recipes that are all veggie loaded. Literally every single recipe she has has a vegetable in it, and especially if you're a veggie skeptic or veggie resistant or you live with someone who doesn't want to eat vegetables,

such a great resource. But adding a veggie to every meal or two out of three meals, we're not going for perfect tier is really valuable in terms of a healthy happy habit. By the end of the week, think about how many veggies you'll have, especially if you are one of those people that kind of doesn't think to do that. Game changer.

Number three is I do a green smoothie every day. I always say that these habits are so boring and so basic that we sometimes forget the value of it. That's why I always say be brilliant at the basics. I don't know if you ever watched the Gilmore Girls. This is sort of a side note, but I'm gonna come bring it all back. Elle and I got into the Gilmore Girls a couple of years ago. I had never watched it when it was on the first time. And then we are like huge fans. I will not even go into the level of fandom that we have for that show. And one of the characters, the mother of the, the mother of the mother. So the grandmother character is named Emily Gilmore. Gilmore, and she's kind of a tough bird. But she's played by an incredible actor and had some really, really great lines in the show.

And at one point they're talking about, I don't know, they're talking about cliches, and she says, a cliche is just something that's true that people are tired of hearing. And I think about that a lot when I'm thinking about these 20 minute, healthy... happy habits They're kind of like cliches. I think they're true things that people are tired of hearing and because they've become so like they're so basic But we think that they can't possibly make an impact, but in fact They are making the biggest impact. So yeah, the green smoothie habit is a foundational one It definitely takes under 20 minutes. There's ways you can streamline it.

You can do smoothie products I have a smoothie basket where I keep all of the ingredients together in the pantry that way. Just pull it out, make it, and go. I'm getting two cups of greens, tons of fiber, tons of protein, good amount of healthy fats. I'm full for the whole morning, but I'm front -loading protein and fiber, and it has just amplifying benefits across the morning.

Number four is spending five minutes minutes outside in the daylight preferably in the morning. There are so many neuroscientific benefits of getting daylight in the morning. I cannot even tell you like we could do a whole two -hour show about it. The recommendation is to do it before you even have coffee or food or anything. That's not realistic for me. So instead of going all or nothing, I just try to do it within the first few hours of getting up.

You know, earlier is better. but honestly, when I wake up, in the morning in the Northwest, it's dark. So I couldn't even do that if I tried. But for real, don't underestimate the healthy, happy benefits of five minutes of daylight and outdoor time. Yes, you can go on a walk and you can pair it with a walk. I love that.

But if that's not even an option, it's going out and being outside with the fresh air. air, with the daylight. Now, I've mentioned before, we don't get all that much sun here in the Pacific Northwest for about four or five months a year. So I'm not even talking about sunlight. I'm just talking about any kind of daylight. You could drink your coffee, you could do meditation, but we also don't have to always layer things on top of each other, just adding that as a habit. I'm going to get outside for five minutes. minutes. Whether it's right after school drop -off, and I'm going to just take a quick loop around the parking lot or take my coffee outside, even on the worst of days, and I'm just going to be outside, get that light on my face, get the fresh air. Five minutes can make a big difference.

Number five is just as percent increase on your current step count. So while 10,000 steps a day is great, that is personally what I aim for. It's also maybe not the best place to start if you're currently averaging 2,000 steps a day because that's a huge jump and that's going to take more than a 20 minute effort.

But if you do want to add more steps, which is going to have a ton of benefits in a small amount of time, I would just say if you have some kind of step counter, whether it's a fitness watch or a just old school, you can get a pedometer for like like $5 or on your phone. I just want you to look at what your average step count is over the period of seven days. So including weekends, 'cause a lot of times our steps are different on the weekdays versus the weekends, average those out and then you can make a goal to increase that number by a percentage. So if you're averaging 2000 a day, you could aim to average 3000 a day or you could aim to average. $4 ,000 a day. Consider that. If you went from $2,000 to $4,000, that's like a doubling of your steps.

And to do that, you'd need to carve out these five, 10, 15 -minute parts of your day where you're getting more steps, whether that's by parking further away from the grocery store, whether it's going into the restaurant, rather going through the drive -through, going up and downstairs, getting a walking pad for your day. desk. There's a lot of ways to do it, but upping your percentage of the step count can be done in 20 minutes or less, and phenomenal impacts in very short amount of time.

Next up, we have exercise snacking. You can go back and listen to the exercise snacking episode. I will never stop talking about the benefits of exercise snacking, which is just doing any form of movement, exercise snacking, exercise snacking, exercise snacking. fitness. You choose the word, whatever word you feel comfortable using, and you do it for five minutes or less. And I don't know if you caught this, but JAMA just came out with a peer reviewed article that found that just three to four minutes of exercise reduced cancer risk by 30%. It's a wild, wild finding. You can find if you're interested in the science. You could just Google jamma j a m a Three -minute walking and you'll find you'll find the article and now of course it's not in magic bullet. But if that doesn't motivate us to start thinking about exercise in shorter amount of time, I don't know what will Three minutes people three minutes and I know that we all have three minutes that we can do something physically active And that is like exercise snacking shrunk down even more.

So you could definitely exercise snack multiple times a day, but even if it's one snack of three to four minutes, that's way under 20 minutes, that's going to definitely have an impact in your life. Okay, I think we're at number seven. So have a bedtime. There's also recent research about sleep, that the amount of sleep that you can is less important than going to bed at the same time every night. Now like all research, I'd have to look into this more, has been replicated, I don't know, but I think that the concept, regardless, is really important to think about. Because having a set bedtime doesn't require necessarily any more time, but it does require intentionality. I did choose this one though because sleep is absolutely foundational to health and happiness, but I think we can get caught up on needing more time. And so I didn't want to go there.

So instead I focused on this habit that doesn't take any more time. Now we could talk in another episode about, you know, revenge, revenge staying up. I don't, I can't remember the term, but it's definitely a thing where you stay up really late because it's your only time to yourself. So definitely talk about that in a different episode.

But picking, knowing that having a consistent bedtime just like for kids for adults really matters is a great, great opportunity to add the habit that doesn't take any more time, but will have huge upstream benefits for you when it comes to health and happiness because quality, sleep and product and sleep. sleep in general just is going to relate to so many things from how we're digesting our food to how our brains are functioning to all kinds of other things.

So I do have a consistent bedtime and it's not perfect. And so we never ever want to not do something because of our issues around trying to get it right every time. But our bedtime is 10:30. And I would say most nights, that's what you need to know. we're getting to bed. I'm not just like getting into bed but actually turning off lights, turning off TV or putting the book down or whatever it is and actually going to trying to go to sleep.

You know I can't control whether I fall asleep but I definitely have that as our cutoff. That's for me and my and Andrew. On the weekends it's the same thing and I think that's probably the bigger challenge but if that doesn't work for you you can also just aim for a consistent bedtime during the weekdays. I just found that once I started setting that consistent bedtime, I want to go to bed at that time on weekends as well. And we're not big weeknight partiers. I don't know what we would be doing at that time anyway. But Andrew likes to stay up later on the weekends. I don't know. He wants to watch some movie that I don't like. So it's fine. But I got to bed at the same time. time, and it's made a big difference. And I think even if you don't want to do it every single night, five out of seven is still consistent. That still counts as consistency. And it's not going to add any time, but it could make a really big difference for a very little amount of time invested.

Number eight is the 80 /20 rule, which I've now done several episodes on already. You can go back and listen to that. But thinking about my time, energy, and attention in terms of what's not working and what do I want to do more of and what do I want to do less of is one of the most impactful habits for my health and happiness of all the things on this list.

And once it becomes a practice, it takes less than 20 minutes. It takes a split second to be asking that question. And this list excites me. because of the 80 /20, because I'm always looking at what is moving the needle. And it allows me to prioritize and take things out and edit and get rid of the things that don't. Number nine is connecting to how I want to feel.

And that is, again, a foundational thing for me. It's from my book and the science in my own life. And it's in episode one. If you really want to kind of dig into that, where to start, I would always-- start there. But starting from that place, how do I want to feel sending goals from that place and then thinking about success from that place rather than just looking at like, did I check a box? Did I burn a calorie? Did I, you know, I don't know, send the email? It makes it more impactful. It makes it more attached to what's important to me, to my values, to how I want to be. living my life. And again, just like the 80 /20, it's a practice and a process. So once you learn how to do it, once it becomes a habit, it doesn't take any more time. But it ends up, it saves you so much time in the long run from doing things that aren't going to matter, that aren't going to move the needle, that are going to fill up your calendar and your mental energy with things that don't matter to you.

And number 10 is water, which I know is the bane of many of our existences. Water is not going to take more than a minute, but the thinking about how to make it work for you might. So I have two little things with water. One is I do drink a whole glass of water before I drink any coffee or anything else. You're really dehydrated when you wake up in the morning and it's just going to give you that extra boost. It's going to help. your mental clarity, all of that. I put my water and a glass next to my bed so that I don't have to add that as a step in the morning. So that saves me time.

So ultimately, that's like a one or two minute habit. And then I have like just little tweaks to my water so that it's easier because I know for many people it is just a struggle that you're always trying to do and never really doing. So some of those are finding a cup or glass that you like drinking out of. And I'm not like going to comment on the Stanley trend of this last year.

If you're listening in the future, maybe you don't know, but there was like a big trend of Stanley cups, which are insulated and they have stainless steel and they have inside and then they have a straw. And I think if you love us, if you love us to great, or if though the factor of keeping it cold, and then the stainless steel inside is not going to affect the flavor plus the straw, those three things are actually really important because they, for many, many people allowed the process of drinking water to be easier and better. So you're always going to drink more.

If you drink out of a straw, I have said this before, like I will always drink water out of a straw. straw and never drink hard alcohol out of a straw because think about it. If you don't like the way that if the cup you're using is impacting the taste of the water, like find one that you like better. And then if you like really cold water, then get an insulated cup and put ice in it. Beyond that, if you hate the taste of your water, it might be worth investing in something to put in it or actually getting, you know, a bottle. water or the like. That's not always possible. But I know when we travel, there's certain places where I just, I know for myself, I wouldn't, the taste of the water is pretty tough to handle.

It might be good quality. It's just really mineral -y or it tastes like a well or whatever. So if that's holding you back, think about how you could change either the water, the flavor by buying it or by putting something in it, like a flavor packet. or electrolytes or lemon or lime or those lemon or lime packets, anything to make it so it's more enjoyable so you do it more.

And that's my list I think I did 11 actually but I tried to kind of go across meals, movement in mind and like sleep and water those foundational brilliant at the basic habits and then just try to pull them from like the different different categories. And so maybe you heard some that you already do, maybe you heard some that you want to add. And just know that this is of course not an exhaustive list. This was just like literally I sat down and brainstormed 10 and five minutes and tried to space them out right across the different categories, but there's so many more. It's not about having more. It's having the right ones for you and matching them against what your goals are, how you want to feel, what you actually... have time for. The big takeaway though is there's so much that can happen in such a small amount of time when we know if it's the right thing and we know it's the right thing for us.

I would love to hear your health and happiness happens in under 20 minutes. You can connect @wholelifeorganized on Instagram and then also for the food side of things @realfoodwholelife.

Thank you so much for spending this time with me and I'm here to-- remind you, you've got time.