How to keep good habits post-lockdown

The coronavirus pandemic has brought with it a global economic downturn; unemployment in the United States has reached its highest level since the Great Depression, and many people whose jobs have not been outright eliminated have seen their work, and lives, radically transformed. But as old daily rituals are leveled, for better or worse, new ones have emerged and taken their places.

Perhaps you are fitting in frequent runs or a consistent yoga practice, maintaining better correspondence with friends, or sleeping according to your body’s optimal schedule. Or you may be spending more time in the kitchen.

Wendy Wood, a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California, wrote in her 2019 book, “Good Habits, Bad Habits,” that “major life changes are stressful times full of uncertainty.” But at the same time, she noted, “we are freed up to practice new behaviors without interference from established cues and our habitual responses to them. Discontinuity forces us to think. By making fresh decisions, we act in new ways — ones that may work better for us.”

So, how do you maintain these new, good habits upon reentering the world after COVID-19-related lockdowns? Unfortunately, the science says you’re basically going to have to relearn them once you resume your pre-lockdown schedule. “Habits are such slow-forming memory traces that they’re also very slow to decay,” Wood said in a recent interview. “When you are put back in the same context, even if it’s been a while, your old habits will be activated.” And they’ll compete with the updated ones you’ve grown accustomed to.

But there’s good news: Certain strategies can help you learn these new habits again, and you can start preparing now.

Take note of what has worked — and what hasn’t.

In 2012, seeking a positive outlet during a period of depression, runner and activist Alison Mariella Désir started to train for a marathon. “The discipline, the sense of freedom, sense of community, connection to something bigger than myself: All of those mental health reasons are what kept me outside,” Désir explained. “It’s important to know what your motivation is, because then you can feed that motivation.”

There’s science to back that up. Gabriele Oettingen, a professor of psychology at New York University, recommended interrogating what will be the most worthwhile for you through a process called WOOP, short for “wish, outcome, obstacle, plan.” You set a specific post-lockdown wish, and then vividly imagine the primary positive outcome of achieving it, as well as the potential obstacles to it, such as an old, pernicious habit.

“You kind of preexperience it

JACKSON GIBBS/THE NEW YORK TIMES