The Atomic Habits for Emotional Hygiene

[This is the transcript of Session 3 at the Emotional Intelligence Online Summit 2022 with Ekaterine Babunashvili.]  

Let me tell you a story that is connected to this subject:  

Years ago, I was still living in Kazakhstan. I tried different things. One of the things I did was change professions. I became very passionate about coaching, so I decided to become a coach. 

Changing professions was not easy for me. There were so many changes happening — I had to change the sphere I was used to operating in — that I was overwhelmed. There were so many thoughts coming and happening in my mind that I had a hard time organising them and prioritising what was the most important. I felt like walking on a rope. 

Then it came to me that there must be something - a tool, a methodology, or an instrument that could help me and my clients ( I already had my first coaching clients at that time)  deal with these thoughts and feelings of overwhelm.  

But I knew that I should think first of it for myself. 

As the days passed by, I discovered that I had so many things to do and I had so many things to think about. I realised that I do not reflect a lot. I do not stop to ask myself those small but meaningful questions at the end of the day. Questions like: 

“What am I doing? Is what I’m doing relevant? Or am I just going here and there — doing something that I not necessary for my goals or my daily routine?” 

“Is this a priority?”  

“Am I putting my energy into the right things?” 

“What do I want right now?”  

“What is the most meaningful, important thing right now? Am I doing something that gives me fulfilment?” 

"Did I take care of myself today?” 

These are the questions I make sure I am somehow mindful of during the day. Although reflecting on these questions may not be easy sometimes, these questions and having small reflections are really helpful to keep me on track.  

But by then, it was ten years ago or so; I was searching, and I discovered that I was not reflecting. I was not asking myself those little questions that could help me focus on the most important and fulfilling things during the day.  

And I thought that all of us should have some system to keep not only our physical hygiene but our emotional and mental hygiene as well. This is because life can sometimes be overwhelming, especially when we have to do different tasks during the day or meet different kinds of people.  

In my case, as a speaker and as someone who does and has done a lot of training, I have met a lot of people. They were all marvellous people, and I felt really fulfilled with what I did. However, despite the fulfilment I had, I was tired. There were times when I found myself overthinking. And I should have done something about it.  

Then this metaphor came on a “brain shower.” And so I thought that if our physical bodies need a shower to be clean, our minds may also need it.  

I found this very interesting study that said humans have about 90,000 thoughts a day. And I thought, “wow, this is so much information we process during the day in our self-talk.” 

Can you imagine that? 

Then another study said that more than 80% of these thoughts are made up of negative ones. 

So, these studies somehow show that we humans have so much going on in our minds during the day, and most of these are made up of negative thoughts.  

So I imagined how this could negatively affect our biology.

I did not like it, so I decided to move on with this and find some answers for myself.  

And then, with this brain shower, I came to this emotional and mental hygiene, mental detox ideas. After some time, I found that there has been an author working on special emotional hygiene. He called it “Emotional hygiene”. This author introduced very interesting tips — some of which I already knew about and had been using for a while. 

Guy Winch, PhD, the author of the book I have just talked about, describes Emotional Hygiene as being mindful of our psychological health and adopting brief daily habits to monitor and address psychological wounds when we sustain them.  

For me, this means to brain shower every day, every hour, to develop small habits, which James Clear calls “Atomic Habits", that will make a difference at the end of the day for our well-being and psychological health.  

Brain shower, mental detox and emotional detox — those are the topics that I would like to touch upon today with you. I want to share some of those small atomic habits that you can develop, give you fulfilment and will make a difference in your life and overall health. 

For me, nothing is worth putting most of your energy into than something fulfilling. If it’s not fulfilling, then it is not worth your energy. And fulfilment comes from your mind and emotions. It depends on how you take care of yourself and how you reflect on your thoughts and behaviour daily.

Mindfulness.  

Most of you probably know what mindfulness is. 

Mindfulness is the practice of being observant about yourself. So it is the practice of being “here” physically, mentally, and emotionally and noticing what is happening in the moment. 

I find mindfulness being a beautiful practice for having a brain shower and detoxing the brain from so many thoughts during the day. I do mindfulness meditation every day. I do it when I have some time during the day, especially in the morning. Then I would also do it during my lunch break and before sleeping at night.

Doing these daily meditations and reflections helps me put away those negative and unnecessary thoughts and helps me concentrate on the now. It helps me detox from the thoughts that reflect the past and those about the future. Because if you analyse these 90,000 thoughts, you will learn that most of these thoughts are about the past and the future. And most of them are negative because they have regrets and worries.

Most people worry a lot.  

We worry about the future. 

We worry about how well our project will work out. 

We worry about how our day will be tomorrow. 

Our children’s studies, et cetera. 

Therefore, it is important to find a few minutes within your day to be mindful, detox your brain, detox your emotions, and just be there. Then returning to our special activities — to what is relevant, important and fulfilling to you without forgetting about self-care. 

There is a great study I found about mindfulness. It is from a Dr Daniel Siegel. I really respect him and his work. He has done great and huge work in putting mindfulness scientifically and researching it. In his study, it was found that if we practice mindfulness, our brain structure integrates. Mindfulness also lowers a stress hormone called cortisol and strengthens our immune system. Therefore, it affects our overall well-being and health. Studies also show that mindfulness helps reduce the risk of having cardiovascular disease and improves our inflammatory responses by regulating the inflammation in our bodies which is very important for our health. And the last one is It also helps in Telomeres Optimisation. Telomeres are very interesting. I’m not a biologist, so I will try to explain this very carefully in my own words. 

Telomeres are the end of the DNA strain. If you look at a DNA strain in a microscope and as they make photographs of it, you will notice that, in the end, it is such a spiral thing. The end of it is a telomere. They look like shoelaces and are often compared to them. The longer your telomeres are (this ending which sticks to the DNA strain), the longer you will live. So it is a special kind of indicator of our longevity.

Therefore, they also call telomeres a “rejuvenating strain” because it is responsible for and related to our aging. So, the longer our telomeres are, the younger we are. So, we want to keep our telomeres in a healthy, longer state as much as possible.  

Although aging is inevitable, we would like to slow down its progress.  

When we practice mindfulness daily, when we make it our daily atomic habit, then we optimise our telomeres — we become healthier and, overall, feel better. 

I would like to share with you some of the practices you could do daily to practice mindfulness and detox your brain. I call this exercise “Box Breathing.” 

I like this practice because it doesn't need much time. It just needs just several minutes, and it has all potential to use and grow our meaningful habits at the end of the day. You can do this about 2-3 times daily when you feel overwhelmed, and your mind is rallying from past to future.  

So what you can do is inhale deeply for 4 seconds. You want to sit comfortably with your hands on your knees. Remember to keep your body and spine straight. Then, hold your breath for about 4 seconds more. Then exhale slowly for about 4 seconds. Then hold your breath again for another 4 seconds and repeat.  

You can repeat this several times during your day. You can do this everywhere.  

That is why I have certain criteria for picking the tools for my toolbox.  

Since I primarily work and train with people from the corporate world, I pick practices that can best work with their daily routine but can help them have that brain shower to help cope with all their multitasking. Those practices are usually short and do not require more than 5 minutes. And they can do these practices everywhere, and they do not need to find some special place to do this.  

So breathing is always a good idea, and I recommend this practice.  

Another one that I love and is very much into this criterion of being short and you can do it everywhere is a “Walking Pen Concentration Activity.” 

Concentration is always a thing to do and practice because it enhances our focus. It is also related to mindfulness which is good for our health and well-being.  

You can prepare a piece of paper and a pen for this practice.  

Put on a 2-minute timer on your phone. 

Start to draw a line and concentrate on it. 

As soon as the thought comes to your mind, you draw a twist; then, you continue to draw a line. And you draw twists every time a thought disturbs your mind. 

What you receive after this activity when two minutes are up, is the picture of your thoughts — these twists that are the indicators that you had a thought that time, and it looks quite entertaining. Doing this will help you build this concentration habit and detox your mind. Because when you do this, you think about concentrating on a pen, which makes your mind clear.  

Doing it every day will develop a tiny beneficial habit for your well-being and fulfilment. After this practice, you can just sit and be with your feelings.  

Just notice your feelings. Just notice happens. Usually, it is quite chilling and relaxing. You can also notice that you have more energy now. After all, fewer thoughts overwhelm your mind because you already have cleaned them. And then this energy can be directed to something meaningful and important to you at that time of the day.  

There are many interesting things about how we are built — our human architecture and how our brain is built.  

There was not much research done on the brain before the 90’s because science was not as progressive as it is now.  

Nowadays, where much research is done on the brain, we humans are gaining more knowledge and insights into how the brain works (although it is still very complex in structure). 

There is a very resourceful thing to know about our brain, which is about imagination and how we can make imagination our well-being ally. For this, I will ask you to be with me in a little experiment. It'll be a visual experiment. 

So, you can see a tangerine on your screen. 

I will tell you immediately that if you follow my guidance and do this visual experiment, it will work out for you. However, if you will just listen to me and do not visualise this, it will not work for you. 

Please keep that in mind. You can choose to do this accordingly.  

There is a tangerine on the screen. 

Tangerines are very popular in Georgia because Georgia is famous for its aromatic and juicy tangerines. Although it's not a season now, I want you to visualise that you have a tangerine in your hands, which is very aromatic. Now, open this tangerine, feel this aroma, and then take a part of it and just bite. When you bite the tangerine, it has this sour, sweet juice.  

If you did this visual experiment, then you would notice that saliva secretion has been the case here because what this visual experiment shows us is that when we visualise something, although it is not here, and we have visually seen it, felt it and tasted it, our body reacts as if it is real.  

This is the very interesting and resourceful side of our brain, allowing us to shift our focus and emotions.  

It just works to sometimes refocus during the day from your thoughts which can be thinking about the future — what can go wrong with it — to concentrating on what is meaningful now for your goals and just doing a small portion of it.   

It can also be concentrating on just drawing your attention to other things when you become mindful that these thoughts are not supporting you now because it is a part of this catastrophic thinking. 

So, you direct your attention to a more resourceful state. Just visualising yourself achieving your goals, visualising your achievements, or just memorising what was good and what you have achieved during the day.  

These were just tiny steps that worked out. However, it could be that this was not the best day of your life.  

One of the best practices and the states of mind and body is a state of gratitude.   

Gratitude is a state that is connected with hormones such as serotonin, which is known as the happiness hormone. Oxytocin is known as the love hormone. Then, dopamine is known as the hormone responsible for our pleasures.  

I want to share with you a brief practice which is my favourite. 

For this practice, you will need 3- 5 minutes.  

You will need a piece of paper and a pencil. You can also do this on your smartphone noted instead.  

Just sit and think about one person in your life who you think deserves gratitude from you. These are people who did something good to you; those who helped you at some stage in your life, et cetera.  

So, you can think about one of those people who you are grateful for.  

For example: 

"I'm grateful to my team member Nina for following up on the project while I had a long weekend with my family. This was such a blessing that I did not have to respond to emails during those days. And I just came from vacation yesterday, I arrived back, and now I realise how grateful I am for my partner Nina for handling those things for me during that day.”  

So, this is the first part of this practice.  

The second part is gratitude to yourself because it is “YOU” that you are taking care of.  

It is also important for you to be mindful of yourself.  

What are you grateful for yourself during the day in your life? 

The second gratitude goes to yourself.  

What I love about this practice is that when I administer it in groups and suggest people do it straight away during the training, I find that some people find it hard to write gratitude to themselves.  

Then I recommend making this a tiny atomic habit. Because doing this will often lead you to practice self-compassion and self-care, which is so important for us human beings, especially in today’s world and our busy lives.  

The third one (which is what I totally love) is to write gratitude to one person who you think does not deserve this from you.   

So, they could be people who lied to you or did something to you which is not good. You might be angry and frustrated about this. 

Doing this will let you gain a new perspective which is quite interesting. 

It's a totally different thinking style when you find something that you can be grateful for to someone who might have hurt or lied to you. Thus, this practice gives you the opportunity and opens the door to more expanded thinking. It’s like oxygen to our minds and our emotional world. It gives your brain the “shower” it needs for the day.  

So, it’s a pleasure to share the atomic habits and practices that many of my clients and I have used and benefited from over the years.  

Ekaterine Babunashvili – Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation 

Ekaterine has many years of experience training and coaching individuals and teams in business and governmental sectors. She is passionate about leadership, development and organizational transformation. She assists companies in implementing coaching as a management style to help transform culture.