5 Small Habits to Heal a Broken Heart
Heartbreak is a universal experience that happens to everyone.
During a breakup, you might feel unwanted, anguish, and loneliness, and even experience sleepless nights. But, if you prolong your broken heart for too long, you might miss the chance to enjoy your life.
One of the effective ways to heal your broken heart is by building good habits that heal your inner self. Habits are great because they act like an autopilot button, making you do something without even trying. When you have a good habit, you’ll take steps to heal yourself automatically.
In this article, I gather five small habits that will help you heal a broken heart. They are all taken from real-life experience.
When I started incorporating these habits, my life changed for the better. If you give it a fair shot, I believe they can change your life, too.
1. Have silent time.
A common mistake in break-ups is trying to forget your ex by burying yourself in a never-ending to-do list.
This will slow down your healing process because when your heart is shattered, the first step to healing is to feel your emotions. It means giving yourself space to cry, journal, or rant about how you feel inside.
Silent time can also benefit your mental health in the long run.
Taking 10 minutes each day to sit in silence to process your thoughts and emotions can give you a fresh perspective on what’s happening in your life. And don’t be surprised if you get your best ideas in moments of stillness.
2. Love yourself.
When your heart is aching from losing someone you love, one of the most powerful things you can do is love yourself.
It sounds like a simple concept, but nobody teaches you to love yourself. Moreover, with the hustle and bustle of life, loving yourself may end up on the ‘someday’ list.
That’s why you need to make loving yourself a habit, so it becomes something you do automatically.
The easiest way to love yourself is by saying three good things about yourself daily. You can write small things, such as liking your hair today, to the big things, like getting a promotion at work.
Everything counts!
3. Move your body.
During a rough patch, it’s tempting to curl up in bed and sob. But if you want to get rid of your pain ASAP, moving your body can give you a quick pick-up.
When you move your body, your emotions will become lighter and you’ll get a mood booster from endorphins.
To make this effective, you must put moving your body into your calendar as part of your daily habit. Set a reminder to make sure you don’t forget.
You can do a yoga class, stretch in your room, or walk your dog for a couple of minutes.
After consistently practicing this habit for a week, you’ll notice an improvement in your emotional well-being and a more optimistic perspective on life.
4. Be grateful.
Being grateful is about noticing positive things in your life, no matter how small they may seem. Our brains are wired to focus on negative things, which is why building a habit of gratitude requires an active effort to rewire our thought patterns.
You’ll be happier when you have a more positive outlook on life.
You can build this habit by writing down three things you’re grateful for every day and placing them in a “gratitude box.”
Over time, those pieces of paper accumulate and serve as evidence of the goodness surrounding you. When you realize how many good things you have in your life, you won’t entertain a broken heart for long.
However, expressing gratitude when you are down is challenging. So, take your time if you are feeling particularly low. Give yourself some grace.
Prioritize the three habits mentioned above first, then when your pain subsides, you can start practicing gratitude as a habit.
5. Read books.
An effective way to mend your heart is by creating a new perspective on the situation. New input can create a new perspective, and reading personal development and mindset books will help you achieve that.
If you’re skeptical about becoming a personal development junkie, hear me out.
Reading good books will give you new insight and soon you’ll hear your friend saying, “Where did you learn that?”
That’s an effective way to build your confidence. Self-confidence will help you rise above your broken heart and improve your quality of life.
You also can read other types of books: novels, business, finance, etc. There’s no way you’ll regret investing your time into good books.
You don’t need to allocate hours to reading.
To start changing your life, you can set aside 20 minutes a day to read. If you read a book for 20 minutes, Monday to Friday, that’s 400 minutes or roughly 6.5 hours a month.
Once you have a new standard for your life, you’ll catch yourself seeing your ex and say: what was I thinking back then?
How to Start a New Habit and Make It Stick.
You now know what habits you can adopt to heal from a broken heart. But knowing the habit is one thing, and making the habit stick is a different ball game. Here are some tricks you can adopt to help you build a new habit:
- Choose one habit you want to create.
Baby steps are your best friend when building a new habit. Start with one habit, make it stick, then you can add another habit later. If you start too many new habits at the same time, the chance is nothing will stick.
- Make a mini habit that you can’t fail.
Let’s say you choose habit number three from this list: moving your body.
What will happen if you decide to go to the gym for 2 hours every day? You’ll most likely fail and throw in the towel before the week is over.
It’s easier to start small, like a 20-minute walk with your dog while listening to your favorite podcast. It’s more fun and doable.
If that’s still too much, then make your mini habit something like stretching in your room for one minute. Yes, one minute. You can’t say you don’t have a minute to stretch, can you?
That one-minute stretch won’t give you a six-pack, but it will signal to your brain that something new is going on.
On good days, you can walk for 20 minutes, and on bad days, you can stretch for a minute.
- Put your new habit before an existing habit.
This is a clever way to anchor your new habit to an established routine.
Continue with your current routine and pick a specific time to introduce your new habit.
Let’s say you always brush your teeth in the morning, then you go for a walk or stretch for a minute.
Putting the new habit next to the established routine makes it easier for you to pull it off day in and day out.
- Make it easy for you to start.
Reduce any barriers that prevent you from starting your new habit.
If you know you want to walk tomorrow, lay out your shoes and socks the night before. Make things easy, so you don’t have time to talk yourself out of it.
- Track your progress.
You can’t improve things you don’t measure.
That’s why you need to track your progress when building a new habit.
After some time, you will have data on your performance. If you are winging it, you don’t know what to improve. You can use a journal, app, or calendar to record your progress.
Seeing your progress visually can be incredibly motivating and help you stay on track.
What to Do When You Fail on Building New Habit.
If you catch yourself failing to maintain a habit, keep going. One or two days off doesn’t mean you need to give up entirely. You must see the big picture of why you want to establish this habit in the first place: You become a new person with a new life.
In our example of the daily movement habit, let’s say you forget to do your daily walk and even amazingly forget to do one minute of stretching. Would you end up not doing any movement until the day you die? That would be so silly.
So why bother hating yourself? Simply put on your shoes and start walking.
When the habit finally sticks, your future self will thank you for never giving up!
