It is almost time for the mornings to get chilly, and we’re about to go back to standard time, so I wonder what that will do to the early rising routine. No matter what, we’re planning to keep the early morning runs a part of the daily routine. There are just too many good reasons to get out there first thing and run.

I would say that to make a daily habit stick, you really have to work to make it a mindless routine. For me, too many options can make skipping too easy.

Harvard Medical School professor Herbert Benson, author of the landmark bestseller The Relaxation Response, has been doing research in this area for more than three decades. His latest book, The Breakout Principle (Scribner, 2003), written with William Proctor, explains how relaxation or backing off can trigger a powerful biological switch that increases mental function, enhances creativity and productivity—and maximizes athletic performance.

Four Stages

“The process begins with a hard mental or physical struggle,” Benson and Proctor write. For the businessperson or student, this may be a concentrated period of study and research. For the athlete, it may be planning and executing a demanding training cycle.

“Pulling the Breakout trigger” is the second stage, directly following the struggle. Benson calls this event “letting go,” or “backing off,” or “releasing” your mind from the work mode. As we’ll see momentarily, Benson has demonstrated measurable changes in the body that occur when the trigger is pulled.

The third stage is the “Breakout proper, coupled with a peak experience.” The Breakout, which is always accompanied by a “greater sense is well-being and relaxation,” may be a creative insight or a personal best by an athlete. “Inevitably,” the authors write, “the peak will involve something unexpected—a surprise that produces unanticipated new ideas or higher levels of performance.”

The fourth and final stage involves a “new-normal state—including ongoing improved performance and mind-body patterns.” This stage, of course, provides the platform for the next big idea or performance.

So, if you have been working hard at something, it may be time to relax and allow the Breakout Principle kick in. I could also apply this to running, where after several hard runs, you may have a “Breakout” after taking a nice, slow recovery run. Give this a try and see if you don’t go to the next level with whatever you are working on.

I would also bet that you could use this music at work to really crank out some widgets when necessary. I’ll try and report on this in the future.

Running – If you have had a setback in a daily running program for anything other than an injury or illness, just go back out there and run. If you have been feeling a bit sore or overworked, you may want to start back a little slower or shorter distance than your usual pace/distance. The important thing is to keep at it daily. Remember why you are running every day and let that help keep you motivated. I often feel a little bad after a string of skip days, and that helps me remember why I run every day. I want to feel good and be healthy, so I run every day until I get a signal that I need a rest day…

You can do the same approach with any other daily habit; just ease back after any period of slack, and just re-commit to daily action. Or, some things may not fit into a daily program, and that is fine- you gave it a try and it didn’t fit, so just go back to an occasional schedule and be happy.

Then I found Running Every Day. 

If I committed to run every day, no matter how long or how slow, I would keep running and eventually get into a routine.  If something caused me to skip a day, no worries, I run every day so the next day, there is no question about “Is this a running day?” because every day is a running day.  I believe that this approach is the only way that works for me to keep running regularly.  

What about rest days?

Some of you may wonder, “How can you run every single day without injury?  Don’t you need to take rest days to recover?”.  That is the beauty of Running Every Day.  Since I run every day, if I feel like I need to take a break, or something unforseen comes up, I don’t have any guilt or problem taking a day off.  The next day I am completely back on schedule because I run Every Day.  I know, with my schedule, that I’ll end up with at least one skip/rest day every week.  I don’t schedule a particular day for rest, it just happens when it happens.  Weather usually makes me take a rest day.

Common Sense Injury Prevention

If I’ve been having a good week and running every day with great weather and no reason to stop, eventually I’ll start to feel like I need to change something in order to keep from getting injured.  Usually I’ll take an easy day, where I run shorter, slower, do cross-training or simply skip a day.

What about Back-to-Back skip days?

This situation is where you really have to be careful.  Skipping a day here or there is ok, but when you start to string together several skip days back to back, you may be at risk of losing your momentum.  Be gentle with yourself and simply remember to run Every Day, and you’ll get back on track. 

Don’t you get bored?

I keep my daily running interesting by changing my pace, route and distance regularly.  I keep working at gradually increasing my daily run distance or quickening my pace.  I don’t get bored.  If you start to get bored, change something.