Simply Human

What happens when the stories our brain tells us start shaping how we experience time and progress, negatively impacting our health goals?

Perhaps you don't need more discipline, just a different story?

When it comes to health and wellbeing, quiet little thoughts can be lurking in the background, subtly shaping our choices and sometimes, without us even noticing, sabotaging our best efforts.

I should be further along by now.

I should be sleeping better, exercising more, eating better, drinking more water, having more energy, scrolling less, meditating more...

Then suddenly, something meant to be wellness feels suspiciously like another item on the never-ending to-do list. Welcome to the strange intersection of the brain, time, and our expectations of ourselves.

In our recent explorations of the brain, we’ve looked at the stories it tells us and the Default Mode Network (DMN), that fascinating background network involved in self-reflection, memory, imagining the future, and mind-wandering.

This mental storytelling is incredibly useful. It helps us make sense of our experiences and anticipate what might happen next.

But sometimes the story becomes a little… creative.

And when it comes to our health, those stories can quietly influence what we believe is possible.

The wellness version of time anxiety.

Chris Guillebeau describes time anxiety as the persistent feeling that time is slipping away, that we're falling behind, or that there is something we should be doing right now.

Sound familiar?

It can look remarkably like the wellness mindset we’ve become accustomed to:

I need to fix this, quickly

I'm running out of time

I've already wasted too many years

If I just find the right thing

If I were really committed, I'd be doing more

And because the brain is very good at looking for evidence to support its existing story, these thoughts can become self-reinforcing.

Missed a workout? See, I never stick to anything

Eat takeout? I've ruined the week

Have a terrible night's sleep? My sleep is hopeless

Fall off the carefully planned routine? I'll start next Monday, again

But perhaps there's another story, perhaps you haven't failed. Perhaps you're simply human

Your brain loves a shortcut

Our brains don't experience the world as a completely blank canvas. They use previous experiences, memories, and expectations to help interpret what is happening now.

That is useful when you're crossing a busy road. Less useful when your brain decides that one chocolate biscuit means you've “fallen off the wagon”.

This is where awareness becomes surprisingly powerful.

Instead of immediately believing the thought, try creating a tiny pause: Is this true? Is this happening now? Is this thought useful?

You don't need to argue with your brain. You don't even need to replace every negative thought with an aggressively positive one. Just a more beneficial one.

I'm learning what works for me, rather than what Instagram says I should be doing

One meal doesn't define my health; my calorie count doesn't magically reset at midnight; my health is shaped by patterns over time.

There is no wagon to fall from

Progress doesn't have to be linear to be progress

That little shift can change the conversation.

Retire some unwritten rules

One of Guillebeau's particularly useful ideas is that many of us live by unwritten rules about time, leaving us with expectations we may never have consciously chosen. And the

"wellness" world has plenty of them.

I must exercise every day.

I need eight hours of sleep

I should meditate for 20 minutes.

I need to eat perfectly at three dedicated times

If I miss a week, I've lost all my progress.

Who wrote these rules? And more importantly, do they actually help you?

Try choosing one rule this week and questioning it. Not breaking it rebelliously. Just investigating it.

Maybe your new rule is:

“Movement counts, even when it isn't a workout.”

Or:

“A nourishing meal doesn't have to be Instagram-worthy.”

Or simply:

“Good enough is allowed.”

Make wellness smaller

We often imagine change as a dramatic before-and-after transformation.

New diet

New exercise program

New supplement

= New life

But bodies rarely work that way. Small, repeated signals matter.

A walk around the block.

Add another vegetable to dinner.

Taking three slow breaths before opening your emails

Eating lunch away from your desk.

Getting outside.

Putting your phone down long enough to notice the sky.

These things can look almost laughably insignificant beside the grand promise of 'transforming your health'.

And that's precisely why they can work so beautifully:

Make the next step small enough that your brain doesn't need to negotiate with it.

Stop trying to catch up

Here's perhaps the most liberating thought: There is no point at which you finally catch up with life.

There will always be another email.

Another appointment.

Another health goal.

Another thing you could improve.

Another person apparently doing it better on Instagram.

Guillebeau argues that trying to “manage” time can become part of the problem because time isn't something we can actually control. What we can influence is where we place our attention and what we choose to spend our finite time and energy on.

The same may be true of wellness.

Perhaps the goal isn't to become the perfectly optimised human who finally has everything sorted. Perhaps it's to become a little more curious about the human you already are.

A tiny experiment for this week.

Rather than creating a checklist, try this:

Notice Question Choose

Notice one thought that regularly appears around your health.

“I'm too tired to exercise.”

“I've left it too late.”

“I never have enough time.”

Question it

Is this a fact?

Is this an old story?

Who decided this was the rule?

Is this thought helping me?

Choose your path

“What is one small thing I can do today that supports the person I want to be?”

Not tomorrow, not next Monday, not when the time is right or when things settle down. Today.

Because perhaps wellness isn't another destination we need to hurry towards.

But something we practise while we're already here.

If you'd like to explore more of Chris Guillebeau's work, his book, Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live, is an easy and humorous read. I especially enjoyed chapter 7 The magical thinking of time management, spoiler alert: you can't manage time!