A Book I Recommend All of the Time: Atomic Habits

There is a book I find myself recommending to patients over and over again: James Clear’s Atomic Habits.

It’s not really a health book. But I think it contains some of the most practical health advice I’ve read.

One of the central ideas in the book is that lasting change isn’t usually the result of one enormous decision. Instead, our lives are shaped by the small things we do repeatedly—often without thinking very much about them at all.

This comes up in my office all the time.

We tend to approach healthy behaviors as things that require discipline. I need to make myself exercise. I need to eat better. I need to get outside. I need to put my phone down.

But willpower is exhausting.

Instead, I often talk with patients about finding ways to make it easy to succeed and hard to fail.

I’ve tried to do this in my own life.

I have a habit of walking at lunchtime. It gets me away from my desk, gets some steps in, and gives me time outside in the sunshine. After dinner, I usually walk again with my family.

We’ve done this so consistently that something funny has happened: it’s no longer entirely my habit.

If I don’t suggest a walk after dinner, my kids ask why we aren’t walking.

The same thing has happened with exercise. We have a little basement gym—and I assure you, there is absolutely nothing glamorous about it—but my kids think getting to go downstairs and work out with me is a treat.

And one of my favorite habits has nothing to do with exercise.

At the end of the evening, I put my phone away and we have “family chat” in the living room. We’ve done it often enough that it has become an expected part of our nighttime routine. If I’m not there, eventually someone comes looking for me.

“Mom, aren’t you coming to chat time?”

That’s when you know a habit has really taken hold.

The beautiful thing about building healthy habits is that eventually they require much less decision-making. The walk happens because that’s simply what happens after dinner. The phone gets put away because that’s what happens at the end of the night.

And sometimes the people around you become part of the system. Instead of needing someone to convince you to do the healthy thing, they’re asking why you’re not doing it.

Of course, habits don’t have to look like mine.

Maybe yours is filling your water bottle before you leave the house. Taking a ten-minute walk after lunch. Putting tomorrow’s medications next to the coffee maker. Going to bed at the same time each night. Keeping fruit where you can see it and the cookies somewhere inconvenient.

The individual habit can be tiny.

The question I want you to ask is:

How could I arrange my life so that the thing I want to do becomes the easiest, most automatic choice?

That’s one of the reasons I recommend Atomic Habits so frequently. James Clear does a wonderful job explaining how to create systems that gently push us toward the person we want to become.

Because good health doesn’t have to come from constantly fighting with yourself.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is build a life where the healthier choice simply becomes what you do.

If you’ve read Atomic Habits, I’d love to hear what you thought of it—and especially whether you’ve used anything from the book in your own life. Tell me about the habits that have stuck!

Dr. Mount

This newsletter is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for personalized medical advice.