Woman's Hour - PHONE IN - Jane Garvey takes your calls about making and breaking habits

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

How do you build healthy habits that you actually enjoy? How do you undo habits that have been bugging you for a life time? We want to hear from you about the decisions and actions you make every day that form the fabric of your life. Do you want to take more exercise, stop eating so much chocolate, stop shouting at your children? Would you like to stop procrastinating, bingeing on box sets and biting your nails? How about reading more books, being nicer to your partner and going to bed on time? We want to hear from you about your successes and failures in making and undoing habits. And if you’re looking for guidance Heather McKee, a behaviour change specialist, will be on hand with evidence-based strategies and advice. Phone lines are open from 0800 on Monday. The number to call is 03700 100 444. You can email now via the Woman's Hour Website.Presenter: Jane Garvey Interviewed guest: Heather McKee Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hi there. Good morning. It is a Monday, apparently. I needed warning, actually. I was told yesterday I was presenting this programme. It was a very useful reminder. It's a live phone-in. We want your calls. 03 700 100 444. On the subject of habits, how you change your habits, how you establish good ones,

how you get out of the bad ones. This isn't about a new year, new me thing. There'll be no mention of beach body ready, because as we've said before on this programme, if you're near a beach and you've got a body, then you are indeed beach body ready. But all of us fall into ropey old habits around this time of year, or we just become irritated by the ones that seem so completely entrenched in our lives. So how do you go about making positive change? My companion this morning who's been hurled, I don't think that's too strong a word, hurled into a studio at RTE in Dublin is Dr. Heather McKee. It all happened very quickly for you, Heather. Good morning to you. Hi, good morning. Happy Christmas.

Thank you. Same to you. You are a behaviour change specialist, so you're an ideal guest for me this morning. It is possible to change habits, isn't it? You just need to be, well, what, persistent, brave? What would you advise? Yeah, no, absolutely.

You know, it is possible to change habits and make new habits. The key question I kind of say to people is, you know, it's important to understand the difference between resolutions and habits. So even Jane yourself, you know, think about, you know, since last New Year, you know, how many of those changes are you still continuing? And I always say to people, you know, how many changes are continuing a month later? And often people, you know, most people fail to continue those changes

beyond a month past a New Year's resolutions. And I say to them, you know, how many are often people you know most people fail um to continue those changes beyond a month past their new year's resolutions and i say to them you know how many are failing you know a week or two weeks later um and then i ask you know how many people this morning failed to brush their teeth um and you didn't because it was a habit and that's the magic of habits and the power of habits over resolutions and they're formed through context-dependent repetition so you do the same thing in the same circumstance enough times it becomes a habit so it's not like you know Jane you woke up this morning and you were kind of debating the pros and cons of dental hygiene or you know you were worrying about if you were in the right mood to brush your teeth or if you were the tooth brushing kind of person. You just do it, don't you?

You just did it. And it's because it's a habit and that's the power of habits. Well, you can take part as well this morning, not just on the phone because I appreciate not everybody wants to call Radio 4. I can't think why.

It's only me you'll be talking to. It's not, you're not faced with the prospect of chatting to an intellectual colossus. It's 03700 100 444. Give us a call if you've got anything to add to this debate. And on Instagram and Twitter we are at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us via the website.

We've had some interesting ones already. bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour. Mary joins us from Kingston upon Thames. Now Mary, I think it's fair to say that you thought of yourself as a procrastinator, didn't you? Most definitely. I'm a natural procrastinator and I could spend a lot of time delivering over whether to make a decision.

Right. Yes, definitely. But you have changed. You've made changes. I have made changes. Some of the changes that I've made were thrust upon me. I was a little bit poorly a couple of years ago whilst overseas, so I decided that it would be a good idea not to eat meat. So I managed to do that because I probably had no choice at that point. And when I came home, I decided that because that had become my habit, it was something that I wanted to continue. So I still don't eat meat and it just

suits me. Lots of others of my habits. I've found it very interesting that Heather mentioned the repetition. Habits that tend to suit my mind well because I will tend to dwell on things or my mind is very busy. I find that things that are very repetitive, physical repetitive actions are the habits that I tend to latch onto so cleaning your teeth is very repetitive isn't it it's the same action and we just do it another couple of habits that I have found that really benefit me are kayaking and swimming and trampolining and when I break those things down they're very repetitive things my mind doesn't have to think about what it needs to do to achieve them but you can I just interrupt it because you

don't just swim you do outdoor swimming don't you I do I do outdoor swimming yeah I think um I must be honest with you Mary I'd find it a struggle to get into the habit of doing that? I think I do. My natural default in the morning is to pop the duvet over my head and roll back over. But I know that by swimming and the habit of the swimming will set me up for a completely different style of day

and it will allow my mind to have those gaps to dwell and be creative on the things that I need to be creative around because my work is in music and with people and I want to have my mind to really procrastinate on the things that matter. Heather go on. I'm sorry you're focusing on the reward and that's a really interesting part of habit change so habits are formed across a loop you have a cue or a trigger

the behavior and a reward and if we can focus on the reward and you're focusing on you know how the habit sets you up for the day it's much more likely that you're going to actually engage in that habit in the first place and what's interesting is those kind of internal or intrinsic motivations those are much more sticky than those kind of extrinsic. So like how many laps of a pool you did or how many minutes you were out swimming or anything else. They're not as rewarding. It's you've connected with the why, you know, what it gives you in your life and you're taking that kind of gain mindset into it. You know, what am I going to gain by engaging this behaviour rather than, you know, what you're missing out on or what you might lose. Heather, we need to make clear, of course,

that Mary, fortunately for her, is clearly physically able and active. And so these opportunities are available to her. And unfortunately, that isn't true of all of us, is it? No, absolutely not. And again, you've got to work within the constraints of your life. And that's why I always say, it's got to be relevant to your life. As much as we can look at people, you know, the media have an obsession at the moment with, you know, the perfect morning routine and everything else. If you're not a morning routine or a morning

person at all, you know, don't work on setting up a morning routine. You know, something I always say to people, you know, if you hate kale salads, but that's something you think you have to do to be healthy, you know, don't eat kale. It it's not enjoyable for you it's not relevant to your lifestyle find the things within your lifestyle that are much more enjoyable and accessible for you and therefore they'll be easier to repeat and therefore they're more likely to become a habit kale is uh is basically cabbage with brilliant pr isn't it um we've had a really interesting message actually on our instagram at bbc woman's hour from a listener who says is it possible to become a morning person if you just struggle to get started

so you mentioned those routines and early mornings heather what would you say about that i would say fine like one thing that people always do when it comes to setting up habits is they try and willpower their way through it and willpower is not the way to success for any habit change, any lifestyle change in general. Our willpower is a limited resource. And so as soon as we're in a bad mood, as soon as we're hungry, as soon as we've had an argument with our spouse, that willpower goes out the window.

And we cannot rely on that. And ultimately, willpower is like a muscle. You know, if I trained my right bicep every day in the gym for a week, by the end of the week, I couldn't pick up a cup of tea. But if I use it in adequate amounts, using proper rest and recovery, you know, it will go stronger over the time. But the problem is when it comes to habits,

people feel like they should do things. So they should themselves into doing certain things. What I say is, and you know, Mary kind of absolutely got it right, is how do you make it easiest for yourself to set up that habit? You know, what's the time of day that you're most motivated in? Rather than feeling like you have to do something in the morning because that's what everyone else does. You know, when is it going to be easiest for you

to engage with the habit and start there? Okay, so know yourself and make the most of what you know, I guess. Mary, thank you very much for kicking us off. Sarah, this is a great pleasure. Happy New Year to you. Sarah is in Finchley in North London, but I gather, Sarah, you are actually a scouser. Good morning to you.

I am, yes, and we've got a great habit of supporting Liverpool, haven't we, Jane? We have, and listen, fingers crossed and everything, but 2020, it's going to be... Oh, yeah, I like this jinxer. We're definitely on for it. There's everything I love about Jurgen Klopp. I like his teeth.

I like his tactile. Does he, I mean, it takes him about half an hour to go around the pitch hugging everybody at the end of a game. He's not allowed to go anywhere, is he? We were physically restraining. You and I together, we'd probably do it. Now, listen, we're not actually here

to talk about Jurgen Klopp, although I could for another 45 minutes or so. Tell us about your own approach to life and habits. Well I'm actually a personal trainer and I retrained when I was 44. I'm 50 now so I had an interesting time building up my own healthy habits and what I find is people just try and do too much too soon you know they might want to fix everything and go to the gym 50 times a week and all of that and that's just not going to work for most people so what I encourage people to do is to plan some small realistic goals and like you know if you're somebody who doesn't move then going out to walk for 10 minutes every day is a big thing and it's going to have a

big impact on your mental and physical health yeah and i also talk about being positive not punitive like like your other callers um spoken about you know think about the good things that you're doing rather than the things that you're not doing you know rather than oh i'm giving up this time to go out and exercise i'm not eating chocolate so I'm eating more vegetables because it's really nice good for my health and you know and it adds more variety to my diet and it's more interesting so really to put a positive spin on it. I couldn't agree more I what I've started doing actually is when I wake up early at the weekends I just rather than wasting that time before the rest of the household is awake i now get into my tracksuit bottoms and an anorak and i just busy body around the park just for a couple of laps and it makes such a difference doesn't it yeah yeah and being outdoors is just fabulous

it's the best thing that you can do especially because a lot of people are stuck indoors in offices with modern life you know I can't support that enough. I mean, the other thing is to get some support as well. I mean, now, these days, you don't have to go to meetings or anything. You can set up a WhatsApp group with your friends. Yeah, WhatsApp is hugely helpful, actually, isn't it? And just have a bit of accountability. And, you know, if you do miss something that you'd set yourself to do that day,

then you can get a bit of support. It's like, well, that's OK. You know, it's about not beating yourself up and having really good, relevant, small, achievable goals that you can just build on. Sarah, thank you. And all the very best to you and all Liverpool fans in 2020. Sarah, thank you.

I wanted actually also to broaden it out a bit this morning and to talk about maybe Christmas, the festive season, and the habit of possibly many of us fall into this habit over this time of year of being a bit of a domestic martyr. Was that you over Christmas? Have you made a little decision not to do it again or you'd like advice on how to avoid being that person who does everything and resents doing everything but carries on doing it anyway 03700 100 444 heather mckee is our guest she is a behavior change specialist and mirth joins us mirth now you've well you've done something that on the face of it is trivial, but it's significant to you, isn't it? Yes, it is.

So tell me about it. Well, I've always bitten my nails. I suppose since I went away to school, perhaps when I was young. I don't remember when it started. But over the years, I'm 77 now, I've struggled from time to time to give up this horrible habit. And thinking, well, I'll never be an elegant lady with bitten nails and my granddaughter born 13 years ago she picked up this horrible habit from me so the two of us would um share share this these awful nails and recently she's um become

a performer she's 13 a performer on the harp the Scottish harp yeah and of course when you're performing on the harp really part of it is that you have to look lovely and she has enjoyed um making herself you know deciding how to do her hair to look lovely and so on so forth and realized she realized she must stop biting her nails and so she just determined and she did it and when i saw her beautiful nails it suddenly just did something to me inwardly and i thought do you know i can do that too and funnily enough i did i just stopped biting them instantly anymore anymore for the sort of feeling of biting them. Right. It's amazing. I mean, after all these years,

and I'm looking at my hands and I have lovely nails. Yes, and it gives you such a sense of achievement when you see them. Real pleasure. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I can enjoy buffing them and, you know, doing all the things that you're meant to do, getting the cuticles nice and so on which I've never really been able to do before so I'm it's a wonderful contact with my granddaughter

somehow that's how the magic seems to have happened for me well thank you very much for that I think that's that's very very interesting um it just shows you you can break habits even after that amount of time oh three-700-100-444. Heather, what would you say about that? Because I know, I mean, I used to bite my nails myself. I too have stopped. It does seem it was pretty difficult to do, but I'm really chuffed I've done it. Why is it so hard to give that kind of thing up?

It's really hard because it's easily repeatable. Your hands are a cue in your environment environment so you see them every time. So every time you see that cue your brain is cued into paying attention to that and so it's more likely that you'll engage in the behaviour. And it feels like in Merth's case you know it was the why became big enough and I always say that you know going back to what we mentioned about intrinsic goals. If your why is big enough you'll find your how. So if it means enough to you or you can associate enough of a goal with that besides just the goal of actually stopping biting your nails, you know that it was more part of her identity. It was the type of person that she saw herself being. first believe that you're capable of change but see yourself as that new person that non-nail biter and but the reason again yeah that's so difficult is the cue is there and that's something for people you know at home

to think about you know what are the cues in your environment that are actually causing you to engage in your unhelpful habits because those are the cues that are going to repeat themselves and it's going to make it more likely that you'll actually engage with them. This is some wisdom from a listener called Joanna on email who just says, not until my 50s did I resolve to do first the thing I wanted to do least. Ooh, I'm still thinking about that. Is she on to something, Heather?

I suppose that's the opposite of procrastination, isn't it? Yeah, and the thing is as well, you know, it's not about finding a particular silver bullet when it comes to habit change. And often I say to people, you know, don't focus too much on the bad habits. Maybe try and start with the good habits and actually bringing in those more helpful habits first because we can fixate on a bad habit. And, you know, and as that lady, the personal trainer was talking about, you know, actually focusing on what's good is better than what's focusing on what's bad. So we change more from a place of growth than we do from a place of shame. And it's very, very important that we look at our habit change like that as well and going back to what we can gain rather than what we lose.

Does shame, though, ever act as a genuine motivator? Because I think shame sort of played a part in Merce's decision to give up biting her nails. So shame can have a place initially to help you engage in something, but it won't keep you engaging in something, if that makes sense. And there's this kind of common myth, you know, if we're kind to ourselves

and we show ourselves self-compassion and we let go of shame, that we're just kind of going to sit at home in our pajamas watching Netflix all day um you know it undermines our motivation too bad but ultimately you know if we're more compassionate and we can actually let go of shame we're more likely to stick to our goals long term we're less likely to procrastinate we're more likely to be healthy eaters we We're more likely to exercise more. It's about giving yourself space for failure. And that's a huge part of habit change is actually accepting that failure is part of your success on your healthy habit journey. Alison on Twitter says self-awareness is key to changing habits, i.e. not rushing to change habits before we understand the helpful and unhelpful habits that run our lives.

I guess that's that's essentially what you've been saying um and just a word on what I alluded to about the the domestic toil and I don't think that is too strong a term that many um people listening to this program will have done over the Christmas period not all of them women by the way by any stretch is that a habit to be the person who does everything and then slightly moans about it um yeah and an interesting thing about that habit is is what is the reward that you're seeking that is the question that you've got to ask yourself okay we can bring a listener in now actually leslie is in county durham hi leslie good morning to you how lovely to speak to you

and to you happy new year to you leslie happy How lovely to speak to you, Jane. And to you. Happy New Year to you, Leslie. Happy New Year. I listen to you often. It's lovely. Oh, well, that's great. Well, isn't it great to be able to have a conversation? That's really nice. Are you or have you been a domestic martyr? Well, I absolutely hooted with laughter when I heard that term this morning because it's very relevant to today. My situation briefly is I'm a widow widow i'm on my own apart from the cat um but i live in a a nice little place called lanchester and i've got some very nice neighbors and i happen to bake bread and i've got into the habit of distributing a loaf to to these

people when i do it yeah yesterday i went to went to bed and I have had some sleepless nights due to a virus and coughing and things. And before I went to bed, I thought, right, I'm going to do a bread bake tomorrow and I'll take one for Jimmy. And I've got to start early, you see, because I've got an eye problem, can't be out in the dark. So I had to have an early start.

So I overslept to a quarter to ten. Good grief. At least you were in time for Woman's Hour, that's all that matters. Just in time for Woman's Hour. And I had a wonderful night's sleep and I thought oh thank goodness, I'm almost back to normal now. I thought, oh no, I was going to do the bread. For a few minutes I was

castigating myself that I hadn't got up early enough to do the bread. And here I am on my own and I'm still sort of, you know know reprimanding myself for not being up to standard not being up to scratch and I thought this is ridiculous I can do it later in the week of course you can but I do know exactly what you mean um and Heather any tips for Leslie how does she get out of this yeah i it makes me think if there's a lovely louise hay quote that says you've been criticizing yourself for years it hasn't worked try approving

of yourself and see what happens oh thank you for that i'll give it a go yeah you should leslie because these people are extremely fortunate to get bread from you um but they probably could cope without it because you need to be you need to be back on your feet and ready to go again Yes, sure, yes, I agree the sensible side of me agrees totally Yeah, unfortunately we all have another side as well, don't we?

All the best to you, Lesley, thank you very much I'll see you, Jane, take care I'm actually feeling extremely hungry at the thought of the bread that Lesley will no doubt go on to make. We can talk to Saith. I hope I've got the name right. Saith, good morning to you. Good morning.

Hello there. Is it safe? Is that right? It is safe, yes. Great. Well, thank you very much for ringing. Now, you do something called para-agility. Yes, I do it with my dogs. Right. What is that? Well, a normal agility with dogs is done by everybody. It's a lovely sport because people age six and people aged 80 do it.

And you all do everything on an even keel. Everybody's on an even playing field. But for people who have handicaps, there's now power agility, which is very prominent on the continent but not in the UK so in the UK I have to compete against able-bodied people and I took 69 really because I wanted to do something with my dog and I've been doing it now for 10 years and for five years I've been in the UK team for power agility in the world championships and I'm on crutches but I have progressively got more less able to move and it's the one thing that

gets me up in the morning and gets me out there to do things and gives me a motive in life and keeps me going. Well how fantastic and that is something that you've done at a relatively more mature stage in life when you when you took it up. So well done to you. I think that's brilliant. And it just shows you that you really can do stuff, not necessarily when you're in your, it doesn you have to remember up to 20 obstacles, 20, 22, and go around very complicated courses and get your dogs to do things, for me, at about 20 metres distance. And the motivation of doing that has improved my health no end. Right. Everything.

Everything has been improved by it. Well, thank you very much for telling us about it. That really is. That's an interesting slice of life. Everything has been improved by it. Well, thank you very much for telling us about it. That really is. That's an interesting slice of life. I confess I hadn't heard of para agility, which I'm sure is my fault. And perhaps it's something we should talk about on the programme during the course of the next year. To Sue in Grantham, who wants to disagree with Heather about forcing morning routines. So, Sue, over to you. What do you want to say? matter yeah i'm not massively disagreeing with you heather but yeah go on

yeah no i'm an executive coach so i've been i've been doing this for 12 years and four years ago i started a morning routine so i just want to push back on what you said if you're not a morning person because before then i thought it was absolutely obscene to get up before 7am I thought it was disgusting and I'd never done it until I read a great book about morning routines and I started at 30 minutes of journaling meditating reading and also I started writing my book in it and now I get up at half past five every morning and I do two hours and that is even in the winter I have a little camping light and I sit outside of my garden with my birds yeah half five every morning so before that I never thought I was a morning person sorry I think maybe I've

missed something it you do two hours of what of journaling, reading and writing. Okay, so constructive, mindful work. Yeah, every single morning. And I also get, I've got so many of my executive clients doing the same. And it gives you loads of energy, focus. It really helps with anxiety, with stress. And there are people like I was who thought, oh, I hate mornings. But just getting into that regular pattern, like lots of people have been talking about on the show, just that regular, every single morning, same place.

And I just started out with 30 minutes. And I love that you say that, Sue. You know, it's the micro changes as in you didn't force yourself into being a morning person straight away. You know, you started with the 30 minutes and again, it comes back to joy. You know, everything you talk about there is how joyful that pursuit is for you. And that's what helps you change the habit is actually focusing on starting small, being repetitive, but also what it brings you and what it gives you in life. And I feel like if you missed that now, you'd feel like you'd missed out on your morning.

You've missed out on that joy in your day. I do, but I hated it the first time when that alarm started going off before seven, so it was 6.30. It was disgusting. It was awful. As somebody who's presented morning radio, I don't understand why

you'd want to stay in bed. I don't get that staying in bed thing. Get up at five, for heaven's sake. Make a woman of yourself. It's what I've done for years. And look where it's got me. So thank you very much. I enjoyed talking to you. That sounds very positive, that, actually.

And here's another one from Mariel who says, I write for 15 minutes a day. And I've done it since just after I began a two-year creative writing course. I read somewhere that if I was serious about writing but couldn't find 15 minutes a day, then I wasn't, frankly, serious about writing. I think that's interesting, and that gives me the opportunity to point you to a really wonderful film that's now available on the Woman's Hour website. There's also an article to go with it. If you've ever thought that you could write a book, watch this film because it contains some wonderful, wonderful advice from really top talent.

I'm talking about people like Elizabeth Strout, Jojo Moyes, Angie Thomas, Prue Leith, Alison Pearson's in there, sharing their advice on the Woman's Hour website now, bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. If you think there's a book in you, but you haven't got around to writing it yet, some brilliant advice there.

Now let's go, this is more serious, and I think it's important. This is Valerie, who's in London. Valerie, good morning to you. Hello. Now, unfortunately, I'm very sorry to say you lost your husband a couple of months ago, didn't you? I did indeed.

So you want, well, we're not quite talking about advice because this is a colossal life change for you, isn't it? Well, it really is. And it's like my husband died at the end of October. And I'm in kind of a really difficult period just leading with Christmas and all this sort of stuff. So I decided to go home to California for 10 days, which is where I originally come from. And I just got back on Saturday, and I thought, you know, this morning I've got to get up, because my husband had been quite ill for a long time, and most of my life routine, my habits, and everything has been around him. And then I thought, this morning I'm going to get up and really think about this. And then all of a sudden this program came on, and I just thought, if Heather might have any thoughts, because the

weirdest thing is, it's bad enough losing your husband, but when you start to think about changing your routines and habits, because your habits have have been around them and your routine you feel like you're almost losing a bit of them again by changing everything because now I've just got to find a whole new way to live so these were habits formed out of necessity around your husband's illness absolutely because it's just like yeah everything from what time you get up if you're going to try and do exercises no matter what it might be everything kind of was there and now i'm just thinking about oh my god how do i do this to try and reformulate habits for me but without it's just this weird sense of you feel like you're losing a bit of them so i guess it would be

interesting to know is it better to just do it tiny bit by bit or how do you so that you don't just feel even more depressed and and horrible i don't know if that makes any sense at all no it really it does and i think it's really interesting because you feel somehow you might be disloyal if you if you make changes so heather what would you say to valerie um it's a really tough situation um because of you know all of the loss and that you're emotionally quite tied up in it. One thing I would say to you is, again, coming back to this joyful thing,

you know, what was it that you enjoyed before or any of those habits that actually helped feel joyful for you? Because it feels like there's a lot of guilt here, you know, and I'm highly compassionate to your situation, but it's about you kind of rebuilding yourself and re-engaging with things that bring you joy in life and bringing back just tiny little things. Even if it's, you know, sitting in the garden in the morning

or having a cup of tea or even just getting some kind of fresh sunlight on your face in the morning, the more you can build in just small little joyful things rather than punishing yourself about having to return to a previous routine because this might be about building a new phase or a new chapter or a new step in your life and so what I would give you is maybe homework for the day is to think about a joy list for yourself what are those things that make you feel

positive or uplifted and you know and experiment with that list and you know add a few new things maybe it's painting maybe it's meditation maybe it's watching you know a nice movie whatever it is for you but the important thing for you at this time is to find your own kind of little joys day to day very very simple things and so yeah I'd urge you to try that you know and challenge yourself to try and create a joy list and there's no that actually sounds a really great idea because so much of this is so negative or makes you feel so sad but there are loads of things I actually love to do haven't done in a long time whether it's getting up to play the piano or do different things that I'm sure my husband would have been really happy for me to get back into

so you've kind of been a good fairy today, just pointing me in the right direction, because you really do feel lost. And I do want to get into better habits of just routine and everything. And I shouldn't feel guilty, I guess, trying to find ways to make myself happy or find a new life in the future. How was Christmas for you, Valerie? It wasn't bad because I was in California in the sunshine, number one, but just with friends and you can kind of compartmentalize things to put it into a different context being there versus here. But I have a great friend there and we did kind of talk a little bit about this, but I think you're right. I love this idea of just coming up with a joy list because I'm naturally

a really happy up kind of person. And yeah, you just want to find a way and and make it positive and not be a dreary um i don't know i'm an up person and i just don't want to i don't want to i don't want to lose that and i want to re-find all of that as well but it can't happen overnight so i think you indeed you know this you need to treat yourself kindly for a long time to come really yeah but no that this has really helped and like I said it was fate almost just having clicked on the radio this morning and heard this because I'm just so trying to find my way at the moment so you guys have done a great kindness. Well take care of yourself Valerie thank you very much. Thank you and I know there'll be other people in the same position as

Valerie so this conversation doesn't have to be trivial I know some of the things we've talked about have seemed relatively trivial but habits are important in life aren't they Betty is in Rickmansworth Hi Betty, good morning to you Good morning. Oh you're doing the getting out of your car thing. Yeah well I've been doing lots of things to try and reduce

my carbon footprint and some of them are actually really easy like becoming vegan was easy giving up palm oil was easy. Reducing my plastic use really, really, really hard. But getting out of my car was especially hard in the winter, living at the top of a hill. Right. But you've done it? Well, yes. I mean, not 100%.

But my majority use now is I've got an electric trike. I was trying really hard to use my bike. I'd got a new job, cycling to work, but every time I have to come home, I have to push it up the hill because it's just too heavy. And now I've got this electric trike. It's got a big bucket on the front. I can put all my shopping in it, so I can go into Rickman's Earth,

get all my shopping, pedal up the hill. It's like riding a dodgem. Is it? It is. It's really easy. Do I need to issue a warning to the good people of Rickman's Worth? Are you going out today? Yeah, well, no. I kind of own it. I kind of put on my high-vis, my

helmet, my lights, and just shout hello and wave at everybody. I just, you know, I don't care how stupid I look anymore, you know. I'm, you know, I don't care how stupid I look anymore. You know, I'm, you know, I'm enjoying it. No, listen, why not? That sounds absolutely amazing. Well, carry on. Thank you very much, Betty.

Thank you. And it's been a pleasure talking to one of my heroes as well. Thank you. Yeah, no, Heather is fantastic. So are you. Betty, thank you very much. That was really sweet of you. Have a lovely new year.

Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Take care. So if you do live in Rickmansworth, very much that's really sweet of you have a lovely new year thank you um thank you take care um so if you do live in rickmansworth um i don't know whether that lady is planning to take a trip out today betty but um sounds like she might be so be alert uh carol says how do i change the habit or behavior of being unwittingly angry in conversations i was made aware of it this christmas

with my children telling me saying it's okay's OK, Mum, don't get angry. I hadn't realised I had, even though actually I was cross inwardly. Right. OK, Heather. Honestly, if we'd been able to broadcast the conversations we were having in the office this morning about our Christmases, we would have won an award for that programme. We weren't able to. Christmas is a difficult time and i suspect carol won't be alone in um the sentiment she expressed in that email how do you stop getting cross difficult one yeah i suppose the key there is again going back to the habit loop what are the cues you know when are you finding that you get most cross in the day is it a particular time of day is in relation to a particular person or a particular

comment um and you know can you can you track that maybe over the the next couple of days and become curious about it you know is it a particular thing that's setting you off um because it might be quite interesting to see you know perhaps and i i know we've all heard of the term hangry but you never know yeah you know certain times a day we can become more vulnerable and when we're more tired or is there something that someone's saying that's triggering some some sort of unmet need inside of you and not to go really deep there but just to really understand you know why is it that that's triggering you and it might be worth you know taking five minutes even just to go upstairs and and to take a second to think about it. And I know one of your listeners, actually someone tweeted in, you know, awareness is the first step and it certainly is, you know,

what is it that's actually cuing you or triggering you, first of all, and maybe sit on that for a few minutes and understand, well, actually, what is it that I'm trying to prove here? Again, you know, going back to us being a martyr over Christmas, you know, is it a form of love that you're trying to be expressed? What is it that you're craving from that situation? Is it that you want acknowledgement of your role? Because habits don't just crop up.

They always have a particular driver. And the key thing really is to understand what is driving that habit? What's the reward that you're getting for the habit? Now, I'm surprised that this hasn't come up before, but it has now. An email from a listener who wants to be anonymous. She actually genuinely sounds like she's in a sort of agony and says, how do I wean myself off my phone? Apparently, I used it for six hours a day last week, watching videos at night when I can't sleep, playing Sudoku, I'm on Facebook. I feel ashamed.

I am wasting my life. Heather? Yeah, and I think there's two things there. There's one, looking at your environment. Again, you know, where do you put your phone? Is it in your eyeline? Because, you know, where your attention goes, your brain follows.

So if your phone is on your table all the time, you know, if it's out in eyeline, if you've got it on loud, if you've got all of the alerts, you know, you're going to be forced into engaging with that. So the first step I'd say for her would be, you know, where does she place her phone in her environment? Is there a particular drawer or a box that she can put it in that will actually take it out of her eyeline? The second question there is when is she using her phone most? And, you know, it sounds like there's a pattern throughout the day, but it's kind of about choosing, okay, well, what time of day is it most impactful on you in a negative way and working from that. Because I always look at kind of breaking habits. It's like untangling a knot. You know, there are complex measure behaviors and you can't really resolve them all at once you know if you pull at the middle of a tangled knot it only

gets tighter so you need to work on untangling them kind of one step at a time kind of starting with those easiest kind of loops first and you know working up your confidence in momentum so rather than kind of just giving up the phone altogether it's about looking at your environment and looking at the times a day where it impacts you most and looking at, well, what can you do at that time? And then again, coming back to this, you know, what is it that you're seeking in the phone? You know, is it distraction? Is it a sense of social interaction? Is it loneliness that's driving it? You know, actually asking yourself a real question about why are you engaging in this behaviour in the first place? Let's go to Lee, who I know has been waiting a long time. So I apologise. Lee, good morning. Hi, good morning. Now, interestingly, you are

trained in CBT, which is cognitive behavioural therapy. That's right. But you yourself are agoraphobic. And as you say, what you've told one of my colleagues, you can't use those tactics, techniques on yourself. Yes. How frustrating. I've got myself in a complete rut. And I can't climb out of it. So I just find it really difficult to do anything.

And I can go out with my husband or friends, and I'm fine once I'm out. So say I'm around a supermarket, Andy could go and get some things, and I could do other things, and I wouldn't have to be by his side the whole time. But I can't get myself out of the house. On your own? No.

How long ago was it that you last were able to do that, Lee? Probably 2015. Right. I did spend some time where my sister would ring me and I would go out for a short walk with her on the phone. But then she got a job and that stopped happening and I stopped doing it and still find myself unable to do it. All right, now I'm really sorry and I can hear the frustration in your voice.

So Heather, where should Lee or could Lee start? Well, I think Lee, in the first instance, you know, it shows that you're quite a brave and a strong person to even come on the show in the first place. Well, quite, yeah. And share that with you and with everyone else. I think that that's quite a brave step. And I wonder if you're kind of underestimating, you know, your courage as well. But I would say, you know, start with whatever the smallest and easiest step would be for you. Whatever, even if it's just kind of opening a window and sitting by a window for a while or if it's being in your front garden or, you know, anything else that you can find that is almost laughably small, you know, that you would find easy.

And, you know, create a ladder of steps. You know, I'm not specifically trained in in treating conditions like yours um but you know i would say the best the best place to start from a habitual point of view is to start the smallest easiest and the most comfortable step and kind of build yourself up from that um rather than kind of feeling like you have to face everything at once um you know which can be quite daunting and the same with any kind of goal or habit that people are trying to change you know so all too often we kind of set ourselves an everest to climb rather than actually just putting kind of one foot in front of the other and so lee my challenge for you would be you know what is the tiniest or smallest thing that you can do

maybe you know this week and to take a step in that. Is there anything that you could do? You're in Stoke-on-Trent. I don't know if you're in the city itself or whether you're in its surrounding areas. Lee, are you close to shops? Reasonably, we've got a local shop. What's odd was when I had to take our pet to the vet and I had to do it.

Ah, you were able to do it. Ah, you were able to do it. Yes. Yeah, that's interesting. How do you explain that, Heather? Well, it feels like, Lee, for that for you, it was important enough for you because your pet meant a lot to you and you felt accountable in that situation. Yes.

Yeah, I guess that's true. But it's not easy and Lee has clearly been battling with this for quite some time. Lee, you never know. I think the idea of just sitting by the open window, just absorbing everything for a while, might be a way you could start. So let us know how it goes.

Thank you very much for that. Okay, thank you. Take care of yourself. Thank you. Thanks. Bye. Bye-bye. And we're going to have a quick chat with Janet in Surrey.

Hi, Janet. Good morning to you. Good morning. Hello there. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. And we're going to have a quick chat with Janet in Surrey. Hi, Janet. Good morning to you. Oh, morning. Hello there. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. And you? Yes, not too bad at all.

Thank you. Now, you've been through some tough times and you say that you needed to reprogram yourself. Yes. What happened? Well, lots of things, really. I mean, 30 years ago, my youngest son died and I felt really guilty laying in the garden in the sunshine because I wasn't having to look after him you know and it took a while to get over that and I thought you know it's okay it you know and you sort of you move along from that but the

biggest one was when I retired three years ago um I'm an early morning person always have been and I was getting up at half past five as usual to go for my swim at six o'clock in the morning and then getting back home at 20 past seven and thinking crikey I got the rest of the day what am I going to do okay you know very very different it is really different but I've managed to think do you know I can swim at half past eleven when all the people who are rushing to work to get their swimming in the morning. I don't have to be there at six o'clock

and sort of bunging up their lanes. You have to reboot yourself, so you're not bunging up their lanes. That's a great way to finish. Yeah, absolutely, because that's exactly how I felt, that they had their club, you know. Quite, and you didn't want to party, be a party crasher? What does that mean?

Oh, never mind. We've got to leave it there. Janet, thank you very much. That was Janet, who was our final caller on the Woman's Hour phone-in this morning. And my thanks to everyone who took the time to call and to email, some good emails today. And we're going to read some more in a moment.

And of course, the comments left on Instagram and Twitter as well, at BBC Women's Hour. We appreciate all of them. And Heather McKee, I thought, gave some really interesting and insightful advice. So I hope you agree on that one. But we thank her too. Now to the emails.

And I think Valerie, who had very recently lost her husband, struck a chord with many of you. And Kathy says, I'm widowed and it's tough. This is Kathy. I've met you, Kathy. I hope you're doing all right. Kathy says, one thing I do is to create habits or do things that involve my husband in a tiny way. Even today, while clearing the kitchen and listening to the radio, I lit a candle in his favourite candle holder. That way I'm getting on with my life, but he is there in the background, sort of keeping me

company. And another listener, Simon says, I've just tuned in to hear a caller talking about having lost her husband. My condolences to her. And so much of what she said resonated with me, especially when she talked about not wanting to lose again the person that you've been looking after. I was a full-time carer for my mother during the last six months of her life. She died in the May of 2018, since which time I've been a carer for my father, who has Alzheimer's. It is often so hard to move on, and even though we know that if we do a little something for ourselves which feels positive, we still feel tender and sensitive and find it difficult to do so. I do believe that time is a healer, but also that the tenderness and pain of moving on is itself a sign of deep love for the person we've lost. In that respect, any time of year is difficult,

as we'll always remember something about the person we've lost at those times. But in a sense, that gives me comfort to know that the memories and the person will always be there with us in our hearts and in our minds. That's lovely, Simon. Thank you very much for that. Hello from Denmark, says a listener called Jane. No, I think it's Liz. Anyway, she says, listening to your programme now on habits and the lady who lost her husband, I've been there and it's so true that you feel guilt at changing habits. It feels almost illegal. I agree that finding things that give you pleasure and using them is so helpful.

I've always loved music and singing and so I've joined a choir. Singing is so uplifting. Also, Italy was our place to go to. So now I'm attending Italian classes and Liz is in Denmark. Thank you very much for that. Now, this is on the subject of, it's funny how whenever you talk about almost anything on a woman's iPhone

and somebody emails in about dogs and about the curing power of dogs and I'm not belittling it at all. It's more or less a constant. Marion says, listening to you this morning, I've decided not to shortchange my Westie every morning by bleary-eyed allowing her just to go to the end of the road to do her ablutions. I will now, in 2020, take around the whole block and increase my waking up period, get rid of her girth due to too much kindness with the turkey this Christmas and my extra flesh.

This will enhance my step count, increase my productivity and allow my dog not to be phobic about the weighing scales at the vet. Thank you, says Marion. A very happy New Year to you and to your Westy who is nameless and we always need the names of dogs please if you are going to email in with your dog uh dog details we always need their name Lynn says I am 60 I started walking regularly up and down the hills in my village even including a little interval running and it's the best thing I ever did I've tried all methods of exercise over the years and never stuck at any of them. Toned up though, an investment in my current and long-term health,

45 minutes of my own headspace, sun, rain, snow, wind, I'm out there and I surprise myself, says Lynn. Now this is interesting. This is from, I don't think we'll mention this lady's name, but this is someone who responded to Lee in Stoke-on-Trent who has agoraphobia. And this listener says, Jane, I've got the problem of not leaving the house. I can be fully dressed with my coat on and just not be able to open the door. I go to work and that's good, but this is how I've helped myself. If there's an event I really want

to go to, I will offer to take somebody else. Or the lady you spoke to, Lee, could ask someone to pick her up. That means I've got to go, not for me, but for someone else. I didn't used to be like this, but now I don't want to go out even into my back garden. And I will only work on my front garden very early in the morning. I keep staying up late when no one will see me. Perhaps the Lady Lee could contact her local WI or women's group or University of the Third Age and ask for a lift, just to go for one meeting to see what it's like. I find these meetings such a help. Another trick I use is not to go home after work, but go straight to whatever it is

I'm doing, whether it's WI or shopping. I hope that something in my ramblings will help the lady on your programme. They're not ramblings, listener. They're actually they're really helpful. And I think it's a great idea to involve somebody else so that you are then honour bound, if you like, to get out there and do the lift and agree to accompany somebody else. Where else do we want to go? This is from Denise. I've been dealing, says Denise, with numerous bereavements since 2016, and I feel like my life has spiralled out of control since then.

Only a couple of days ago, I was desperately trying to think of how to get back on track with my life, and I've picked up this morning some good tips about making small, realistic changes that I can easily repeat every day or week, focusing on the rewards I gain rather than being cross if I fail. Denise goes on to say, brushing my teeth regularly has been something I've fallen out of the habit of doing. I'll have to think about what that is all about. Well, yeah, do think about that, Denise.

But again, don't be hard on yourself because it sounds like you've had a tough time. She also says, PPS, I love Fortunately with V and Jane. Oh dear, that won't help, Denise. Or will it? Thanks to everybody who took part today. I really enjoyed it. If I'm honest with you, I had slightly forgotten

I was due to do this programme and I was alarmed when Liz didn't text me yesterday and said, you have remembered, haven't you? And if I'm honest, I hadn't really, but I made it through

and so did you. And thank you very much for listening. And we're here tomorrow for New Year's Eve, the absolute armpit of 2019. So join me for that tomorrow, live, two minutes past ten. Or, of course, there's always the podcast. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.