Healthy Habits

By Shane Cuthbert

When you take a permissive pattern and increase the shoulds by putting rules on it, you can actually start to lose the urge to do it. Especially if your unconscious mind feels that those rules are not ‘on its side’.

I call this the ‘rule hack’ and it works wonders for unfriending those pesky habits you’ve had a love/hate relationship with.

The rule hack is often a method used by hypnotherapists and NLP practitioners to help clients quit smoking. The get the client to agree to only smoke according to certain rules. A common example is to get the client to agree that each time they smoke a cigarette, they must hold it between their pinkie and ring finger.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a huge change to the pattern, but when the smoker actually complies with this new rule, it no longer feels the same. Its not just the physically awkward sensation, but also the emotional change that breaks the pattern of permission.

Most therapists who use the rule hack don’t usually teach the client any growth mindset hacks. So what typically happens soon after is that the need to depressurise becomes transferred onto another habit. Especially a habit with similar associations and patterns. A habit, say for example, that also involves placing something into the mouth for comfort during break times.

So perhaps now its starting to make more sense why people tend to get hooked on comfort food and put on a bit of weight after they quit smoking and times of stress. Consciously, they just think its their appetite that’s increased. But comfort eating is when you crave the sensation of feeling full even when you’re not especially hungry. Your unconscious is trying to depressurise by medicating the irritable feelings that cigarettes used to.

How long would it take for the pattern to become unstuck? It depends how addicted you are. It depends how strictly you stick with the rules; it also depends on how much your unconscious mind feels that those rules are ‘on your side’ or not. But generally speaking, we can only maintain rules on an otherwise permissive pattern for a few days, weeks or months at best. Eventually our need to depressurise will see us lose the desire to ‘stick with it’ and start seeking permission elsewhere. If we hit one of life hurdles and go through a particularly stressful time, then the need to depressurise increases. So our ability to ‘stick to the rules’ falls apart even faster.

If you want to learn how to trick your mind into getting healthy, creating better eating habits, a healthier diet and more motivation to exercise this book is for you. This really is the first diet and nutrition book that looks at mental health, the only book currently digging deep on down into the psychology of bad, unwanted and unhealthy habits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shane Cuthbert
• Release date: Apr 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463275511

Shane Cuthbert

Shane Cuthbert (1990) was born in the Hawkesbury region of Sydney, Australia. Shane grew up in western Sydney. Shane was only 15 years old, when he was kicked out of home and high school. As a teenager Shane struggled with feelings of worthlessness, not being good enough, depression , anxiety and addiction. Shane eventually overcame all this and began touring as a professional drummer. Shane's once simple status was elevated, due to the success and notoriety he received as a touring artist.As the years passed and opportunity and chances of success subsided, Shane had hit what he refers to as "cognitive rock bottom". Feeling that all his prior success was but behind him and he would again fail to achieve or amount to anything, he had his first real opportunity to reinvent himself and change his life. Shane started a small landscaping business that grew into a large trade & services company. This company established multiple businesses and franchising opportunities soon followed.In 2014, Shane started and developed his own State Of Glory brand of clothing, and entertainment website also of the same name. In 2015 Shane Cuthbert married Australian swimsuit model and public figure Berenger Rose. Despite much controversy and allegations by Rose of Cuthbert's alleged domestic violence, the pair are still supportive of one another and are actively promoting and growing their businesses together.In 2017 Shane graduated Justice and contract law at Harvard University, enrolled in the study of Psychology at the University of Queensland, developed his first online coaching course, began offering mentorship services and wrote the first book, in his self help series. In 2018 Shane's first book "SEX TRANSMUTATION" became available and was released worldwide through Amazon.

Book preview

HEALTHY HABITS

AN EXAMPLE

This is an example of Stuart, a client of mine. Throughout most of Stuarts schooling years, his academic performance had been pretty miserable. He wanted to finish school achieving at least something significant, so in his final year, he tried getting good at a bunch of different skills. What he quickly realised was that it takes many years of practise at something to become good enough to achieve a significant result. This is especially true when we look at competitive environments where students are up against others who have been practising for a very long time.

After trying his hand at all sorts of athletic events, the one thing he found himself reasonably good at was long distance running. Being a good endurance runner does not really require too much practise. It just requires a repeated willingness to push further through the mental and physical discomfort barrier, more so than the other competitors. At this stage of Stuart’s life, he had a particularly strong urge to prove himself.

After about six months of intense training, he managed to place well in his school and at the zone level of long distance running. He didn’t make it past the regionals but remembers vividly this time in his life.

The smaller wins had boosted his confidence somewhat and he now had better feelings about himself. Because of these good feelings about himself he still felt motivated to run long after the competition was over. He continued running and participating in other running events until as he says, ‘life got in the way’.

Years later in his early 20’s he decided to get back into the habit of going for a jog. By this time however he had become really unfit, so the feelings he got from running caused nothing but discomfort. The discomfort of feeling aches in his muscles, the discomfort of sweat running down his back and the discomfort of the burning felt when his lungs became constricted, plus the mental discomfort of realising how unfit he now was. Basically, running had become an uncomfortable thing for him.

When I asked Stuart about whether or not he could recall the same discomfort when he began running all those years ago, his answer was really interesting. Stuart said he did not notice that discomfort as much back then because his desire to gain something and prove himself was a lot higher. When he had something to prove, the experience had a different meaning attached to it. But when Stuart’s life changed, so too did the meaning. When the drive was lost, it became too hard, too much of a struggle. So Stuart basically stopped exercising and became quite sedentary for the next chapter of his life.

Fast forward to his 30’s and he suddenly started to find much more practical reasons to exercise.

He started a jumping castle business and spent many years setting up bouncy castles for children, backyard parties and events. The weight of these inflatable castles were around 100kg plus. So over the years, handling these castles by himself had started to take a toll on his body. Stuart was x-rayed and the X-rays revealed damaged vertebrae in his back from all that heavy lifting.

The medical recommendation was to lose some excess weight and reduce the pressure on his spine and joints whilst strengthening the muscles around them.

THE FROG AND THE BOILING POT

For those of you unfamiliar with the analogy of the frog in the saucepan, let me fill you in. If you take a frog and place it into a saucepan of boiling water it will jump straight out. However, if you put the same frog in a lukewarm saucepan increasing the temperature slowly, its neurology does not notice the change and the frog remains in the pot until it boils to death.

Basically, the analogy demonstrates that gradual changes happening over time make it difficult for us to notice. This can be positive and negative depending on whether that change has developed habits within our best interests or not. This explains why when we examine our weight over time we don’t notice it being a problem, however when presented with a photo of us at a younger age we notice the significant change straight away. This is something that occurs commonly, people tend to let their dietary habits slip over many years.

For those of us that have fallen into the trap of indulging in