Scientists were not sure who they were so they decided to verify that.
And it turns out to be true. It is very difficult to break a habit and it requires weeks of concentrated effort. In fact, to pull it off it is easier to replace a habit with a new one.
Since that means that we can create new habits of good duck-diabetes actions and all we have to do is stick to them for a while until they become a habit and then the habit-brain - which I guess is part of the lizard brain - takes over and does the heavy lifting for us.
In order to truly make something a habit - it has to be habitual.
That means that you have to do those things regularly - preferably in order - and at the same time every day.
Which is what I did to get into the habit of measuring my fasting blood-sugar every morning before screwing things up with my morning flat white, and taking my meds. After a bunch of trial and error I managed to place the One Drop kit somewhere I couldn't miss it and now get up, do the toilet thing, measure my blood sugar, step on the scales, turn on the espresso machine, go brush my teeth, shower, get dressed, make myself a flat white and breakfast, start browsing the internet for news, drink my coffee, eat my breakfast, take my meds, walk to work.
If I screw this up and do any of these things out of sequence I'm likely to miss any of the following steps, most likely the taking the meds bit.
If my meds get moved out of sight on the breakfast counter I forget to take them.
Phone based reminders to take them don't work as I'm not likely to check my reminders until I'm at work and the coffee has kicked in.
Eliminate the evidence you tried.
In my case I had to try a variety of places before landing on the spot where I'm reasonably sure to notice the test equipment and remember to measure my levels. I bought a nice bowl from a local artist for the lancets and placed it next to my bathroom sink, along with the OneDrop gizmo. Presentation matters.
Apparently this is called automaticity - which sounds like a speech impediment. It's defined as “performance with lowered conscious awareness or volition.”
“Priming,” or cues, are a good way to get these non-conscious processes flowing. “For example, through consistently exercising immediately after work, leaving work may become paired with going to the gym,” they write. Over time, they posit, priming this can lead to reductions in the amount of day-to-day attention, effort, and motivation that you need to muster to get a workout in.
So just as we (now) know that we should go to sleep at roughly the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning - weekends and days off included - we need to work our duck-diabetes routines into our daily routines and make them habits.
To me it's the pre-coffee routine of tracking my levels and then taking my meds. My daily routine of speed walking to and from work and some additional form of exercise before dinner if required takes care of my exercise and move rings making the nosy elves inside my Apple Watch happy.
And then just stick to it.
After a few weeks it becomes a habit, and habits are hard to break.
But do it one thing at a time. Don't try to change everything at once, that's a recipe for failure.
So break it up into manageable chunks - the DESS for instance - prioritize and do it.
