Are Your Routines Healthy or Could You be Stuck-in-a-Rut?

The concept of establishing routines is often touted as the answer to almost everything! From improving your fitness, memory, and general health, to making friends and upping your chances of having good mental health, they are promoted as vitally important to self-improvement. While there is certainly some truth to this, there is a danger routines can also cease to serve our best interests. We’re talking about the, often gradual, shift from healthy routines into what our friends and family might describe as ‘being stuck-in-a-rut.’ So, just what is the difference, and how can we tell if we’ve hit this undesirable state?

Healthy routines are clearly identifiable. They’re behaviours we consciously choose to carry out because we know they underpin our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. They help us structure our days so we get to carry out the tasks we know we need to, even though (in some cases) we’d wriggle out of them if we could! When you pull on your walking shoes each morning, and head off to the park for a walk, it’s a routine you believe in, and you’re determined to carry out, even though you may be tempted not to if it’s a little chilly outdoors. A brain gym word game you play may also be part of your healthy daily routine, along with the habit of flossing your teeth, and your weekly meet up with your friend for coffee.

These small rituals provide a sense of stability. They help us find our place in the world, and anchor us. They remain good for us as long as we don’t feel afraid of deviating from them occasionally, or even letting them go entirely if that’s what we know would be better for us. Signs we should, and must, let go of a routine is if we start to feel trapped by it, or if it begins to make us unhappy. If monotony is attached to routine, or a lack of enthusiasm, or a sense of dread, or a feeling of guilt at letting it go, then we certainly are stuck-in-a-rut.

Before we abandon the baby with the bath water, it pays to look at why we’ve got into the rut in the first place. After all, daily exercise is essential, as is catching up with friends. Instead of abandoning these routines simply because they now seem to weigh you down, consider building change into them. Stop taking the same walking route every day, and get your exercise by heading to a different environment. Take the bus, or drive to the beach or a new park. Make your destination as important as the walk itself. Perhaps there’s a local walkers group you can slot into for a day or two a week. If changing your daily route is just too difficult, choose a different motivation for taking it. Instead of calling it ‘exercise,’ refer to it as ‘training,’ and start preparing yourself physically for walking a leg of Te Aroa, our national pathway. As for your weekly coffee catch up with friends, why not decide to check out a new venue each time you get together. You could even write online reviews of your new finds!

Healthy routines are those that can survive change, and adapt to different circumstances. They allow room for spontaneity while maintaining their core purpose. Stuck-in-a-rut routines make you, and those around you miserable. They stifle you, hobble you, and crush your true potential. Send them packing, and enjoy the new, healthy freedom that results.