Battling the "Remote" Possibility of Bulge

Whether you are transitioning to working remotely, or currently not working, you may find yourself having to adjust to the new situation. A big part of this quick transition is finding ways to eat nutritiously, and not overeat.

As someone who lost 120 pounds over a 15-year time span, this was certainly a concern for me as I made the transition this week. Here are a few things that I find are helping, and are based in good behavioral science.

Contextualize Your Eating

It's important to eat at regular times, and to restrict your eating to specific places. This means that if you normally eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and have a snack or two, keep that schedule.

Think about where and how you are eating, working, surfing the net/social media, texting, streaming video, etc. Try as much as possible to keep these activities separate. If you have limited space, and have to work remotely from your eating space, then make sure you move your work items out of the way to a separate corner of the table before you eat. Similarly, try not to eat while you are online or watching TV (except perhaps the occasional snack). This will help you to get better control over your eating habits. It will take some creativity and practice, but with time you can do it!

Stay Active

This may seem counter-intuitive when we are currently distancing ourselves socially, or even under shelter-in-place orders. Some of us may have relied on the structure of a gym membership or friends to get our regular cardiovascular exercise. Here are some tips:

• Set a timer to get up every hour. Stretch, walk around, etc. 
• After each meal, try going for a 10-20 minute walk in your neighborhood. This helps with digestion, and allows you to get some fresh air. 
• If the weather is not good, try a walking or exercise video. There are many online apps and video that you can find by searching for "Walking at home", and the like. 
• Consider investing in a set of dumb bells or weights to keep your muscle tone. If you don't have weights, you can check out these alternatives. 
• If you have the capability, use Skype or similar apps to connect in real time with friends or coaches to help you stay focused and have fun being active together
• Calisthenics are also a great way to maintain your muscle mass without any weights. You can learn more here. 

Remember: Staying active is just as important as nutrition. It's easy to forget this during stressful times, but with a little planning you can make it happen.

Consider Keeping Track

Many of us have a hard time keeping track of what we eat and how we are doing over the day with respect to nutrition. Using an app that allows you to track your food and activity is useful to get a sense of how you are doing. One way you can use that information is to help you to keep track of your calories, and your nutrients, throughout the day. If you have that information, then you can decide what types of foods to eat at your next meal or snack.

For example, if you have carb-loaded (as many of us might in these times!), then you could see that your macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fat percentages) show smaller-than-recommended levels of protein and fat. You can then make a decision at your next meal about the types of foods you can eat to alter than balance. Look at making decisions overall for the day, and for the week. (Here is a short article I wrote a few years back for the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in case you would like to learn more about the scientific and theoretical reasoning behind why such apps can be useful.)

Remember...

Your environment has changed dramatically, and so has your behavior. With a few tweaks to your environment now, you can gain control over your behavior in ways that benefit you. This is within your control with some effort and planning.

Be well!

D. E. Crone-Todd, Ph.D., BCBA-D, LABA

Changes and the Parable of the Chinese Farmer

Bad News, Good News...Who Can Say?

I feel truly fortunate to have had amazing mentors in my life. At the time when I started studying in the field of behavior analysis, I was excited to learn about evolution of behavior as being similar to that of genetic evolution. One wondered, "Where will this take me? Is this a good path to travel for my career or not"? As I made my way through, I would stop to think about this from time to time, and then decide to just keep studying, researching both animal and human behavior, and let the environment guide me as to where to expend my energies.

 

One area in which I have been working over the past few years is on the board of directors for the B. F. Skinner Foundation. This work has allowed me to contribute expertise and time to the important work that the foundation does, including written and editorial work for their online free subscription publication, Operants. My interactions with many other people on this board have only increased my knowledge and expertise, and allowed me to develop and disseminate work that derives out of the science of behavior for which Skinner is so famous.  

At a recent get-together by the board members and the foundation President, Julie Vargas (Skinner's daughter), there were stories shared about Skinner. One of those stories was about how he liked to quote the "Parable of the Chinese Farmer" at times when someone was either upset or very excited. Here is a link to an example of that parable. Essentially, at each stage when something happens, the people around the farmer make judgements about whether that event or thing is good or bad news. Sometimes what seemed like bad news later on led to a seemingly good outcome. What that outcome necessarily good? It's hard to say, because that led to another outcome that seemed good or bad, depending on whether one looked at it immediately or long-term in relation to what happened next. 

Marking an epoch: Coronavirus Creates a Shift

So, today we find ourselves "outwitted" by a virus that has fundamentally changed our cultures. In what seems like a split-second, many of us are fortunate to be working remotely. We are told that we must "socially distance" ourselves to "flatten the curve", and in fact many places have moved to "shelter in place". These shifts in our behavior seem like a bad moment because we don't have access to the people, places, and things we enjoy (what behaviorists like to call "reinforcers"). However, there is also an opportunity here. Let me explain. 

We have all been observing the steady decrease in "brick and mortar" retail establishments, as commerce moves increasingly online. Doing it well is a matter of opinion and data, and many businesses were poised with having the potential capability, but not being able to devote time and energy into the needed development. Now is the time to use the downtime and energy to create better systems and develop employees. 

We have also seen education moving toward more and more offerings of hybrid and online courses. This is likely to continue, and in fact for some time now students sign up almost immediately for these online courses. Now, this is another area in which high quality is so very important. After all, a weak system that has little oversight and quality control produces too great a variability in terms of the students who graduate from its doors (whether virtual or brick-and-mortar). (For a few tips on the sudden need to move to remote teaching/learning, see my "Teaching as Learning" blog.)

Behavior analysts are uniquely poised to contribute to helping make this shift in a way that benefits humanity. It would be presumptuous to state that we have all of the answers. We don't. However, with collaborative teams of people from different disciplines working together, I believe that we can help businesses and educational settings move from their current practices into the next advance.

This is the time and the place to do act. Will it be good news or bad news? Who can say?

My next blog will be on why socially distancing and shelter-in-place is hard, and things you can do to help.

Stay well!

D.E. Crone-Todd

Some Tips for Self-Regulation

Hi Everyone!

I felt it was time to resurrect this blog with the hope of providing some helpful hints about how to help us get through the current events related to the novel Coronavirus, Covid-19.

Let's not fool ourselves: This is a big shift for everyone. For at least a while, we have to behave differently than usual. It is unclear how long that will last, and returning to the "new normal" will take some time.The purpose of today's blog is just to help with respect to having a plan for some activities while being at home.

Self-Regulation
One difficulty in transitioning from our usual schedules and places is now we may be on our own. We may be working or studying from home, and that comes with new freedom and challenges. Recently, there was a nice example of a schedule for kids who are now at home shared on Social Media. Here is the link to that schedule.
 
It is important to develop a system to help you keep organize your time and activities. This is true whether for children or for ourselves. For example, your day might normally include walking or riding to work in some fashion, having a morning cup of coffee, and then settling into your work schedule. If that is the case, consider including a some walking time and a cup of coffee into your morning schedule as though you were going to work. (In fact, if you usually drive or take some other form of transportation, this is an opportunity to keep fit.) Here is a nice overview of some of the considerations you might take into account when working remotely.

Next, mark out your time for what you would normally do, and keep to that schedule. For example, as a professor and department chair, I typically have open office hours and meetings. My current plan is to hold those hours via Zoom or Skype, and will keep those open times on my schedule. Likewise, I mark out time for preparing for class, providing feedback and guidance to students, and working on my own writing for publication. My challenge now is to transition over to marking out the time to do this, and to keep boundaries around that time. This can be "easier said that done", as I will admit that I tended to be overly-available via email the first few days, and forgot about drinking coffee and writing. However, now I am back on track, and that's the point: It's okay if we aren't perfect. We just need to continue to adjust and try new strategies.

All of this relies on establishing our "boundaries" related to time and space. I will have more to say on this in future posts, but here are three important things:

• Designate a separate space in which to work. This can be anything from a separate room, a separate desk, or a specific portion of a table on which you work. Whatever it is, you will find it helpful to designate that space as your "work space".
• Controlling distractions is important.
•  First, let's consider what is not under our direct control: We may be working at home with family members including children, parents, pets, etc. As such, we need to be clear about when we are working, and have some signal that we cannot be disturbed unless it is a dire emergency.  This can include strategies such as closing the door to your office, having a sign that is red versus green (indicating "Do not Disturb" when red, and "Okay, disturb me!" when green), or perhaps wearing earphones when working. 
• Second, what is under our control are our devices. Keeping the TV, phone, or other devices related to news and noise off or in "Do Not Disturb" mode is useful. Consider texting any friends or family ahead of time to let them know your schedule. This way, you can help them learn your schedule and when you are available. If you have serious commitments to family or friends who may have an emergency, you can include them in a list of contacts who can phone or text you no matter what. If you have an iphone, you can use these instructions to set up a "VIP" list that can contact you no matter what. Here are instructions for Android systems. 
• You do not have to immediately answer everything. Remember, that if you are in a conversation with others or completing a task, you do not have to immediately respond to email. You can set the expectations that you will respond as soon as you are able, and you can respond to other high-need requests with a polite, "Got it - will reply later today", or a similar type of message. The important thing here is to make a commitment to respond in a timely fashion without stressing yourself out. 

Patience
We also need to recognize that not everyone will adapt as quickly to these changes. So, we might be ahead of things in our own setup and adaptability to new platforms; however, not all of our co-workers, colleagues, supervisors, and students will. So, give yourself and others time to test out and become familiar with these systems. 

Keeping Active
Some of us may be missing our usual physical activities. Perhaps we are used to working out with friends in groups, including at now-closed gyms. Again, this is a good time to consider shifting our physical activity to our home-base. There are several types of online workouts related to cardio fitness/walking, and these can be something to help keep us fit while we are at home. The key, though, is to ensure that you plan for this activity on a regular schedule so that you can mark out the time to do it. If you usually work out with a friend, and you cannot be together, then consider calling or texting each other to keep each other motivated. If you have the technology available, you could potentially Skype together using video chat while you work out.

Some Things to Remember
This is an evolving situation that is very fluid. So, that creates some uncertainty for us. However, as a culture, we have many ways to be connected to help us get through this. Check with your employer, college/university, friends, and family members to help you find ways to stay connected if you cannot be together. This is a short post just to get a few ideas out there for you to try. I will have more in the coming days and weeks, so if there is something that you would like me to try to cover, feel free to let me know.  I may not be able to cover all requested topics, but will answer those that I can.

Be safe, and be well!