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You are not alone

Whether you’re a nurse, midwife or student of the profession, your health matters. You don’t have to push through quietly just to be seen as strong. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to make space for you.

We spend our days caring for others. We deserve to care for ourselves too.

Building habits that support you

We all have habits – everyday actions that we do often without really thinking. Some of our habits serve us well and others hold us back. 

If you want to change a habit, the good news is that you can. And even small changes can make a real difference.

Habits explained

A habit is a behaviour you repeat so often that it becomes almost automatic. Our brains form habits to save energy; when something is familiar you don’t have to think about it.

Helpful and unhelpful habits

Habits are helpful if they support your wellbeing, align with your values, and make being healthy, your work, or relationships a little easier.

Unhelpful (or maladaptive) habits are behaviours that can undermine your health, cause stress, or work against your goals.

Understanding your habits can help you change

To help understand and change your habits, ask yourself:

  • Why am I doing this behaviour?
  • What need is it meeting?
  • Which feelings or situations lead to it?
  • What do I get out of it (relief, distraction, energy, comfort)?

When you understand the drivers, you can recognise a situation that makes you respond with this auto-pilot behaviour. Then you can choose a different response - a healthier behaviour that meets the same need and fits with your life. Understanding the reason behind a habit makes change far more sustainable. 

Before you focus on the habit itself, take a moment to understand the intention behind it and what you want to achieve. And keep an eye out for when a habit stops serving you.
Martine – NMHPA Clinician

Making new habits ‘stick’

Aim small, and be consistent. Try these tactics to form new habits:

  1. Cues - link the new behaviour to a consistent situation, action, or event. This is known as ‘stable cues’.
  2. Remove ‘friction’ - reduce barriers, simplify steps, and breakdown big changes into tiny habits.
  3. Rewards - you should feel or notice a benefit. Are you calmer, clearer, more energised, less stressed? Reward strengthens repetition.
  4. Needs met - don’t just stop an unhelpful habit, replace it with something that meets the same need in a better way.
  5. Repetition - forming habits takes time. Everyone’s timeline is different, so be patient.
  6. Monitoring - tracking helps you notice patterns. See and celebrate progress, and adjust what’s not working.

You may have heard the idea that new habits are formed in 21 days. But research shows us that the time it takes to become a habit differs by person and behaviour (Singh, 2024). 

Cues for shift workers

Some cues work better than others. For shift workers, time cues such as “I’ll do this at 7pm” can be hard to stick to because the schedule is never the same.

Event-based cues such as “I’ll do this after I…” are stronger and more reliable.

For example: 

“After my first meal of the day, I’ll do a two-minute stretch.” 

This is a stable cue; it doesn’t matter if that meal happens at 6.30am or 4.20pm. That stability makes the habit easier for your brain to learn.

Do you have a habit you want to change?

Use our Habit Tracker to:

  • record those behaviours  
  • identify the triggers and underlying needs
  • notice how often you do them
  • reflect on how they make you feel
  • see what’s working over time.

References

See also

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