How to create better social media habits<\/h2>
There\u2019s a lot of moralising around our use of devices and social media, but only you know if your phone is stopping you from doing other more important stuff.<\/p>
If you feel it is, one way to take back control is to make your device use less habitual, and the easiest trick in the book for that is to turn off notifications.<\/p>
Read more:<\/strong><\/p> Notifications can act like habitual cues<\/a> that prompt you to check an email or social media message without thinking, potentially initiating a cascade of related behaviours that you didn\u2019t consciously intend to do.<\/p> Planning to use email, social media or news sites during planned windows of the day is another way to break out of habitual behaviour and ensure your device time is more intentional.<\/p> If you currently do no exercise at all, and the idea of forming a new exercise habit seems daunting, then you could try using the two-minute rule.<\/p> This rule comes from James Clear, the author of the best-selling book Atomic Habits<\/em>. When it comes to forming a new habit, rather than setting yourself a daunting goal, he suggests starting modestly, by doing the new behaviour for just two minutes, which will make it much easier to fit into your daily routine. Then repeat it each day until it becomes a habit. Once it\u2019s habitual you can be more ambitious.<\/p> So, if you do no exercise now, set yourself the goal of doing two minutes exercise at, say, 8am every day. It could be walking around the garden, a few step-ups, a few jumping jacks, whatever.<\/p> Keep at it, until it starts to feel automatic. From there, you can start to increase the amount gently, to five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes and so on. If you miss a day, don\u2019t beat yourself up. Clear says the most important thing is to get back into the routine as quickly as you can.<\/p> The psychology of habits can help explain why people\u2019s behaviour so often fails to change in line with their evolving environmental attitudes, so although many of us recognise the need to adopt more environmentally friendly behaviours, we continue doing the harmful ones anyway.<\/p> The problem is that so many of our daily behaviours, from transport to consumption, are habitual. To help people make the change, psychologists suggest methods that draw on habit theory<\/a>, including reducing friction between cues and more desirable behaviours, and vice versa.<\/p> For instance, research has shown that office paper recycling shot up when recycling bins were placed near each person\u2019s desk rather than having one central bin; and, conversely, people took the lift less often when the doors were programmed to open and close more slowly.<\/p> Read more:<\/strong><\/p> Baby steps can make a big difference. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":36257,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick.jpg",1200,797,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick-300x199.jpg",300,199,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick-768x510.jpg",768,510,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick-1024x680.jpg",800,531,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick.jpg",1200,797,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/11\/4-simple-science-backed-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick.jpg",1200,797,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Baby steps can make a big difference.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/36256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How to build better exercise habits<\/h2>
![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/10\/Illustratoin-of-woman-practising-yoga.jpg?fit=1024,1024\")
How to form greener habits<\/h2>
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"