Nutrition Nugget: Hard

[00:00:26] What I mean is when we say something is hard. And as a health and lifestyle coach, I work with people toward living a healthier life. And on this podcast we talk about making changes to live a healthier life. And maybe that means we wanna wake up earlier. Maybe that means we wanna eat different foods or not tune to food as a coping mechanism or change our default.

[00:01:19] About reframing the word hard and then I was thinking more about it so that we could talk about it here. And I realized that they took what I saw, took it one step. And in order to really make things easier, we have to go another step further. Lemme explain. So the thing I saw online was a guy saying this thing that like the thing you want to do is hard.

[00:02:19] We even have an episode called Going Against the Textbook where I talked about words that we use. So anyway, in looking at how the brain processes the word hard, and then how it processes the word uncomfortable. Uncomfortable isn't enough of a reframe to change how the brain reacts. So here's the thing.

[00:03:19] And defensive self-preservation responses where it then shuts down and causes us to completely avoid the task, whatever. It's so clearly the word hard is not helping us. So then the guy said to use the word uncomfortable. Now it's interesting to me to find out that this guy's reframe of uncomfortable ignites many of the same processes and pathways in the brain, so we end up with emotional alarm.

[00:04:08] So before I go to the last step of like what we really need to do to make things easier, I hope what you're hearing is that if you have ever wanted to create a new habit and it hasn't stuck or it felt nearly impossible or it was the thing you then. Started to avoid and yet you were thinking about it all the time.

[00:04:54] These things are absolutely standing in the way of creating that new [00:05:00] habit. So if you've ever said, it's hard not to eat when I sit and watch tv, or it's hard to not have a drink when I get home after a long day, please know you are correct. It's not easy and. Saying these things to ourselves is making it more difficult.

[00:05:42] It becomes a project. We're then seeing, we're exploring, we're experimenting, and there's a choice in that. And so the word challenge itself does not register the same as a threat. So rather than [00:06:00] avoidance. The word challenge signals the brain for focus, engagement, and even growth. The biochemistry of challenge is neuroplasticity.

[00:06:36] And while you still may have cortisol or adrenaline, like some of those stress related things, the body interprets them as excitement and alertness rather than. Fight or flight simply by changing the word to challenge instead of hard or uncomfortable. So we see like [00:07:00] fundamentally there is improved performance and capacity for new things.

[00:07:30] So instead of like going back to those same examples, instead of saying It's hard to find time to go to the gym or move my body. We say I'm challenging myself to go to the gym every day or three times this week. If we say it's hard to not eat when I sit and watch tv, or it's hard to not have a drink when I get home after a long day, yes, it's going to be hard.

[00:08:20] As opposed to like creating the laundry list of reasons why I need to do anything except the thing that I'm saying I wanna do. Nat, thoughts, questions? I just did a lot of talking. No, I love the idea of almost putting a publicist spin on things for yourself. I mean, we have people manipulating us for their needs all the time.

[00:09:01] Serve all words. Yes, for sure. Awesome. Yeah, it's, it was a reframe for me too and I was like, it's so interesting that I think like even just changing the words that we use can make it easier on ourselves to do the things. I always joke like sometimes this stuff feels like we're climbing Mount Everest naked in barefoot, and what if just changing one word completely changes?

[00:09:47] A thousand percent. Love that. All right, well, as always, everybody, I'm your host, gen Trebeck. Connect with me on Instagram or all social media. I'm at Jenn Trepeck, [00:10:00] J-E-N-N-T-R-E-P-E-C-K. Website is a salad with the side of fries.com. Pick your platform, send a message. I love hearing from you, your takeaways, your ideas, your questions.

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