Erin O'Hara: Naturopath and wellness expert reveals how to kick bad habits

Taking on good habits is an easy way to improve your life, but kicking the not-so-good habits can be a little tougher.

Creating a healthy lifestyle requires plenty of steps - and bad habits can lead to burnout and loss of energy over time.

Naturopath and wellness expert Erin O'Hara reveals the kinds of habits that can drain you, and how you can work towards giving them up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks dB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well this time, and I'm joined by Erin O'Hara. Good morning,
Good morning. Okay, So we always talk about creating good
habits and things like that, but what about actually taking
a look at some of those bad habits that already exist,
which are really draining our energy and things. We needttle
bit of motivation sometimes to clean up the bad habits
before we get the good habits in place, don't we?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I think absolutely. I think a lot of people get
so focused on making change and good things they can
be doing instead of what they actually just need to
review in their life with things they could actually just
remove and notice what improvement their life has. You might
not actually have to do an overhaul or do too much.
It might just be a bad habit to remove. And
it's a common instinct is that we quite often when

(00:56):
we're like, get on a healthcackers, we be quite extreme
about it. But it's not about that. It's about creating
a healthy lifestyle that's actually sustainable ongoing and energy is
something we're always kind of looking for, and I think
we look at, oh, how can we get more energy.
But actually today we're going to talk about habits that
are draining your energy, So things that are actually depleting

(01:18):
you and actually not helping you with your energy levels.
And I always think of bad habits as things that are,
you know, holding us back, and long term they actually
lead to burnout. And so being really mindful of what
things are actually exhausting us and not being good habits.
And if you think about energy as being a water
in a cup, and obviously more energy going in is

(01:41):
adding more water in. But if we're looking at habits
that are draining us, is making that whole smaller, so
we're getting less draining of energy out of that water cup.
And so things that are draining our energy can be
things like always looking at your email and social media,
which I feel like has become such a big thing.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I started my wanting talking about my attention span because
what I've learned about that is that the more the
more we do and everything, the harder our executive functioning
is working, and our attention span just wears out. And
that's one of the main reasons that you end the
day tired, just because you've been overworking.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Massive overload information and I feel like just because everyone's
got their phone everywhere, they seem to always have it
in their pocket, and they go to the bathroom and
they've still got their phone, or they're sitting at the
traffic lights and they think, oh, just check my email.
But actually always checking your email and always checking your
social media whenever you get a little notification is actually
quite depleting on your energy. So even just creating some

(02:41):
good boundaries around that.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I noticed that over summer, and that's what kind of
instigated this whole thought about my attentions, my diminishing attention span.
I was picking up my phone and looking for news
that wasn't there over Christmas and New Year, and I'm like,
nothing happens at this time of the year. Fordges, good, Okay,
just put the news down. I'll be reading a book
and every sort of twenty minutes i'd notice I'd pick
up the phone. Has something happened. No, nothing's happened, Everything's fine.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
That costs is that kind of overthinking or overworrying and
actually recognizing when we do do those habits and how
to just actually pull back and not do those habits
can be a really effective way to just boost our
energy and our cognitive function as well. And then when
it comes to diet, you know, reviewing your diet and
not being an extreme about it, but what things actually

(03:27):
deplete your energy, which can be simple things like having
too much processed food and things that actually drain your energy,
or too much sugar, too much caffeine, too much alcohol.
So kind of looking at those things that deplete the
energy and actually bring in more things that are going
to build your energy, like your fruits and vegetables. Also,
hydration is massive when it comes to energy. Is that

(03:49):
when we're not drinking enough water and we're really dehydrated,
that can actually be lowering our energy levels as well.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Just talk about something like coffee, Like having one coffee
it does not so bad, but is it an issue
if you're having like three or four? Is it as
simple as going actually, you know what, it's just what
I'm going to try just.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
One absolutely keeping that balance because coffee if like we've
talked about it in the past over lots of different times,
and there's lots of research that's actually really beneficial for coffee,
things like for the gut and cognition energy. But it's
if we don't have too much so if you're having
like eight to ten cups of coffee a day, I'd
be like, let's just review that. It's going to be

(04:27):
really depleting long term, but keeping that happy balance might
be one cup in the morning or maybe two at
the most, which will just be nice and uplifting. Great,
you'll get the health benefits of it, but not being energy.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
You're basically saying you don't need to completely kind of
take it out of your life. Maybe it's just a reduction.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Reduction, And that's where when we're looking at these habits,
is just reviewing them and maybe not trying to do everything,
but just a couple of things. How do people know though,
if that particular habit is draining the energy, they might
not kind of put the two together. So true, so true.
I think maybe just even looking at how it lets,

(05:04):
how it makes you feel like, and maybe observing how
it makes you feel when you're continually doing that repetitive
habit and just nearly like doing your whole review of
your life, like what your sleep like? Are you sleeping
too much or too little? Because to too much sleep
can also make you really lethargic, too little sleep, really exhausted.

(05:25):
Looking at exercise, not too much, not too little as well,
when we're not doing any exercise, we can feel really sluggish,
and when we're doing too much exercise, we feel really
exhausted because we've outputted too much energy. So again getting
that happy balance. Looking at our house and like not
having too much clutter around because we've got too much clutter.

(05:46):
That can be a really depleting thing as well, cluttered life,
cluttered mind. So maybe just looking at how you can
declutter and simplify, keeping things simple. Sometimes a simple life
can just be the one that can actually uplift your
energy in your whole kind of mood as well, and
make it simple and just keeping that focus on things
that make you feel good and thanks to uplift you

(06:09):
and make you feel the most balanced.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks A B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio