By Paris Breakfast.

The Power of Habit

 I was going to post on The Power of Habit yesterday butCarole Bouquet took precedence.

 I tend to stick in my studio more than I like to admit. There are days when I don't even go downstairs to get the mail.

 But since I've been reading Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit.

 Doing the stairs are my new exercise (wish these were mystairs).

 The author had a daily 3:30 pm chocolate chip cookie habit he wanted to break. He talks about it on Fresh Air.

 I have an anytime-of-day daily ice cream habit I want to break.

 There's a neat little film on Amazon that clearly explains the cycle of cue-routine-reward process of our habits.

  Vacations are the perfect time to change habits and to form new ones Duhigg suggests. We can brush our teeth a new way if we're on vacation. Here's hoping au revoir to daily ice cream cones!

 I started climbing the stairs (32 steps) in my building hourly. Plus going outside for a gulp of fresh air while I'm at it. It's an easy new habit to form and takes just 2 minutes. Then I mark it on this dry-erase 'hourly' chart I set up. That's my reward + the gulp of fresh air.

 Will I continue to climb stairs while in Paris? Do I have a choice? Paris is never short of stairs to climb.

 Have I lost weight since I started 2 weeks ago? I don't have a scale but redistribution is going on. I can button my coat all the way these days. Plus I feel terrific.

 More energetic and not so cloistered in my studio.

At least I'll be in good fighting shape to cope with Gerard Mulot chocolate stairs. Take a look at The Power of  Habitand tell me what you think. I have to go do the stairs.

BON WEEKEND!