The Importance Of Routine

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Variety is the spice of life”, right?  Even if you’ve never heard it before, if you stop and think about it for a moment, you’ll understand the meaning behind it… it’s the things that stand out that make life fun and interesting.

Variety is important… but so is the routine that makes it stand out.  Your body learns from routine (so does your mind, actually, but we’ll concentrate on the body for now).  It learns when it is time to sleep, along with how much to sleep, when, what, and how much to eat, and many other things that you likely consider subconscious, and out of your conscious mind’s control.

When you lack a routine (Guilty!) , and your life is essentially chaotic, it takes a toll on your body.  You start sleeping poorly and become tired all day, and even sleepy at less than optimum times.  Your diet likely starts to suffer as your body tries to compensate for the unpredictable demands on it, and starts craving more sugar because of the interference with your sleeping patterns.

You’ll also find that you seem to have less and less time in the day to get things done.  Because nothing is planned and nothing is routine, you lose time both because you can’t be as efficient (there can be little planning ahead when you don’t know what’s coming) and because you have to keep taking the time to choose what to do next.  Eventually it starts to seem as if you have no time to do anything, even though you have exactly the same amount as everyone else who IS getting things done.

Variety also starts to lose its flavor to where it takes more and more for you to feel like you’re having a good time, like what you are doing is fun, enjoyable, and really what you want to be doing.  All the little things that you haven’t done because you let go of the routine start bothering you, hanging about at the back of your mind and draining you bit by bit.

You can alleviate all of this, and make your life more enjoyable, by establishing a routine.  That doesn’t mean that everything in your day has to be the same every day, it just means establishing certain patterns, and sticking with them the majority of the time.  Establishing specific times to eat (or specific intervals between eating), for instance, can help you improve your diet, which often also improves your mood.  Establishing a bed time can also help to improve your sleep, as your body can become adjusted to going to sleep at that time, and therefore start preparing beforehand.  Times in a routine don’t have to be set down to the minute… approximate is good enough.  Dinner could be at 6:30 PM, give or take 15-30 minutes (or your interval could be eating every 3.5 hours, give or take 15-30 minutes), and bed time could have the same sort of range (ie 10:15 is close enough to 10:00 to still be accepted as part of a routine).

Establishing your new routine can be difficult, at first.  It can feel confining, which may make you want to rebel.  It also requires conscious effort until it becomes established habit, which can take two or three weeks.  During this time of change, you may feel even more stressed than when you had a routine… precisely because it’s a change.  If you stick with it, however, you should start noticing a difference within a couple weeks… and then eventually you’ll stop noticing the difference, because that’s how your mind and body work.

If you want to try this, but don’t want to try to reorganize your entire life at once, the change with the most impact is probably setting a bed time.  The amount and quality of your sleep can drastically affect nearly every other aspect of your life.  The second most effective thing to make routine is your eating… this will tend to cut down on your cravings for unhealthy food, as well as the negative effects of eating too much or too little at a time.  Other things which are good to make part of your routine but can wait until later are things like exercise, laundry, dishes, and anything else which needs done every, or nearly every, day.

If you have children, having a standard routine in your life is even more important, as they are more sensitive to such things than adults.  Having set times to eat, sleep, and even play (especially if that set time to play is a set time to play with you) can make massive improvements in their behavior… which can make massive improvements in your mood.

This article is not suggesting, by the way, that you never vary from the routine… far from it.  Exceptions to the routine are likely to be what you remember long down the road… but there must be a routine before those exceptions are noticeable.  It doesn’t hurt anything that the routine can help you clear out stress and give you more energy (through improved diet and sleep) to enjoy those exceptions, either.

So, in closing… don’t make everything in your life routine, but do try to establish some routines.  It’s very draining and damaging to your mind and emotions when either everything, or nothing, is planned.

PS – This is something that I, personally, plan on working toward… it’s been quite some time since I had much routine or pattern in my life, and it’s time I got some back.  Except for my trip to Vegas next month 😉 

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