Episode 14: How to Heal IBS in Small Doses?

When women are being honest they say that they know what they should be doing, they just don’t do it. Everyone knows that we should be drinking more water, eating vegetables, and exercising if we want to have great health. But for whatever reason you don’t make all the habits stick in the long term like you wish you would. And you can’t figure out why. And you can’t figure out the how. Part of the problem is how you think about changing important habits and your motivation behind doing so. In today’s episode we’ll discuss an essential aspect of habit change and how to think about making new habits to support healing your IBS that feels manageable to you. Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/14. 

Erin Maillo helps women with IBS who are sick of being sick reduce triggers, zap flareups, find peace and get their lives back.

For VIP one on one support, apply for Erin's Healing Her IBS Program here: https://healingheribs.com/work-with-erin/

Transcript

When women are being honest they say that they know what they should be doing, they just don’t do it. Everyone knows that we should be drinking more water, eating vegetables, and exercising if we want to have great health. But for whatever reason you don’t make all the habits stick in the long term like you wish you would. And you can’t figure out why. And you can’t figure out the how. Part of the problem is how you think about changing important habits and your motivation behind doing so. In today’s episode we’ll discuss an essential aspect of habit change and how to think about making new habits to support healing your IBS that feels manageable to you. Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/14. 

IBS Healing Through Habit Change
As we have already spoken about in some of the previous episodes of this podcast, there are so many areas of your lifestyle that can have a profound effect on your health and your ability to heal from your IBS. 

Areas like:

·      Movement

·      Sleep

·      Protein and Fiber

·      Stress Management

 These lifestyle factors all have an incredible role to play in recovering your gut health and getting past these daily, weekly or monthly IBS symptoms that you experience. It’s so frustrating at times it feels like IBS is attacking you, as if your own body was rebelling against you. The instinct to get better is very strong and yet your mind so often gets in the way. When you know through looking at the research that these areas can move the needle, and yet you don’t do it? Have you asked yourself why you intend to do something and yet don’t follow through? What’s at the bottom of this disconnect? Maybe you have blamed yourself, calling yourself lazy or lacking will power. Maybe you blame others or other things in your life for getting in your way, either your job or your kids or your partner keeps you from eating more fiber or from exercising regularly. While it is true that challenges in your life can make reaching your goals more challenging, it isn’t the whole truth and we all recognize this fact. The truth is that so often our ability to care for ourselves in the way that we would like boils down to the way that we think about ourselves and the way that we feel about ourselves. Our habits, our lifestyle, and our way of being are intricately connected to our psychology, our childhoods, and our enviornments. So many things we were steeped in and didn’t have control over as we were growing up. The truth is that truly changing a simple habit can be a life altering experience if you follow it all the way through. If you get to the core of why you keep sabotaging yourself, things can get very deep and very emotional. It can become about so much more than just drinking more water or giving up sugar. If you are committed to change, a big part of you should be willing to go deeper and be willing to get honest with yourself and what you need. Often, having someone to guide you on this journey can make all the difference, as I know it did for me. In fact, for me it was so many people guiding me that I am grateful to.
The Micro Habit Change for IBS Health
There is something that you can start right away that may not require you to go quite so deeply, or at least not at first. When you want to change something in your life, one really simple way to approach it is by slowing it all down. Start in the tiniest way you can think of. Of course, this is often the opposite way that people approach changes in their lives. Maybe you join a gym and aim to go five to six days a week for two hours each session and then they feel awful when a month or two goes by and you have failed to reach your goal. That’s because going from zero to 100 overnight is very hard to do and very hard to maintain, though you think when you start that you are so motivated that it absolutely will work!  It’s very rare to see someone maintain a habit in the long-term when it starts out so gun ho. I think of this as the American Go Big or Go Home Mentality of habit change, and I think it’s a recipe for disaster for most women. Instead of going from no exercise to a six day a week gym goer, aim to do 1% more that first week and build upon that. What is 1% in the context of adding more movement in? It means going for a 5-minute walk in the morning or after dinner. And the next week, it’s adding in an extra few minutes. By the end of two months, you could be up to a twenty-minute daily walk that doesn’t feel like it was so hard to adapt. You did it little by little, and you made it feel easy. You set yourself up for success by making your habit change micro. No Go Big Or Go Home necessary! Little by little the natural positive effects of this walk will take hold and will push you forward without having to use willpower much at all. 

IBS Self Talk 
What happens if you miss a day? What happens if for whatever reason you miss a few days?Do you find yourself speaking to yourself in a horrible way? What are the thoughts that you have? You tell yourself that you are off your habit and now there’s no point anyway. You might as well give up. Or maybe you tell yourself that this new habit just doesn’t fit with your life or who you really are, and it was never going to work anyway. Just notice what you are thinking and what you are feeling in those moments. That information is so good for you to know. Consider writing those thoughts down, exactly what you are saying and thinking to yourself. Consider talking with someone about this struggle. Practice reframing those thoughts into something more realistic, something that works for your goals and what you want for yourself and for your healing. I think of this as the more mature version of me having a conversation with the other parts of me that are more insecure or rebellious, or whatever it is they are bringing to the table on a certain day. Micro habits are easier to adapt to because they give your life, your mind and your body space to build up, space for things to feel easy.They build your success muscle. Try it out this week and try making it super tiny. I hope today’s episode inspires you to try micro habiting to improve your gut health.