77 Regulated: Preparation Edition

Are you joining in the 77 Regulated Challenge next week? Are you wondering, what IS the 77 Regulated Challenge? It’s like the famous 75 Hard, except I just can’t with hard right now, so instead, I invented a similar challenge, but one that is do-able, for overstimulated, dysregulated nervous systems, for the next 11 weeks to help us roll into the New Year our strongest, steadiest, most regulated selves.

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A failure to plan is a plan to fail. So this week, knowing that some of these are going to be harder than others to accomplish, I’m doing some scheduling.

Some of the challenge will be in figuring out where to drop it into my daily routine - like the breathing and meditating. I already do a weekly look-ahead on Fridays - it won’t be hard to add journaling to that session. But for Sweat, Stretch, Recover and Gather - I definitely need to plan ahead.

So - here’s how I’m planning for Week 1 of the 77 Regulated.

Daily Practices: The Core 8

These small, steady habits are the foundation of a well-regulated system. They’re simple, doable, and designed to build balance.

Hydration

My plan is a tall drink of water first thing in the morning. I’m also giving my water bottle a thorough cleaning, in preparation for a week of two daily liters.

Protein + Fiber with every meal

Most of my regular meals are already built around fiber + protein - but not ALL. So this weekend I’m hard-boiling some eggs and restocking my nut & seed jars in my pantry, for quick adds to meals/snacks.

Talking or Texting Someone You Love Daily

I live in a house with adult kiddos, and I have another kid living in another city for college who calls me daily. So I don’t need to do any planning around this - but if YOU do, consider keeping a little list of go-to people for check-ins that you can send a quick note, or call at the end of a day where you haven’t yet checked this item off.

10 Minute Tidy

My house is always a bit of a disaster, so finding things to tidy for 10 minutes will not be difficult. But if you already ARE a tidy person, consider making a list of areas in your house that could use a re-org - ie: bathroom or linen closets, or underwear drawers.

10 Minutes of Intentional Movement

10 minutes of intentional movement doesn’t have to be consecutive. You may be able to add 1 minute of rebounding or planks to the top of every hour. For me - knowing that when I wake up in the morning I just have to go move my body - that makes it a little more seamless. So my plan is, before I go to bed, I’m going to layout my outfit for whatever the next morning’s activity is - whether it is rowing, walking, yoga or lifting.

5 Minutes of Reading Print

I’m keeping Strong Ground by Brené Brown at work, where I’m resolving to actually move away from my desk at lunch and read. I’m keeping The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo on my bedside stand for telecommute and weekend evenings.

1 Minute of Breathwork

My plan: adding Nadi Shodhana to either the end of the morning workout, or after my morning toothbrushing. I’m expecting to forget, so Plan B is Box Breath before bed.

5 Minutes of Meditation

My plan: after my breathwork, I usually do 5-10 minutes of meditation. If you don’t have an established practice, or any regular meditation practice - Metta (Loving/Kindness) Guided Meditations are a GREAT place to start. Try this one from Ally Bothroyd.

Weekly Practices: The Reset Seven

20 Minutes of Sweat

This is about showing love for your heart with cardio. Make a plan to get that heart rate up. I’ll be hitting the rowing machine on Monday mornings.

20 Minutes of Stretch

This is about lengthening and strengthening tight muscles, fascia and ligaments. I teach three yoga classes a week, so this is an easy check for me. For you, if you can’t get to an in-person yoga class, Yoga with Adriene is one of my very favorite on-demand offerings.

20 Minutes of Recovery

This is about about deactivating your nervous system - deliberately hitting the “on” switch for your parasympathetic nervous system - which is your rest & digest (vs your sympathic nervous response - which is fight or flight). We do this through practices like Yoga Nidra (here’s one of my favorite online ones that I frequently do in my car at lunchtime when I’m in the office). It could be a sound bath, or a restorative yoga class, or a more in-depth meditation session or class.

I’m heading to the Kripalu Yoga Retreat Center in the Berkshires next week for a day - on the schedule is a Sound Bath - so this will be an easy one to check off this week. But in future weeks, I’ll look for opportunities at my favorite Capital Region studios, like Maitri in Troy, or Jai in Slingerlands or Good Karma in Colonie.

Check In with Your Journal & The Weekly Look-Ahead

This is reflection + preparation time. Taking time to review what went well, and preparing for what’s coming your way in the coming week.

I usually take a little time on Friday afternoons to set up my bullet journal layout for the next week. This week I’ll add my 77 Regulated Plan, and keep my journal handy to do a reflection entry.

One Evening Phone-Free

No screens 30 minutes before bed. This is the one I’m slightly dreading. I’m going to plug my phone into Rob’s side of the bed for the designated evening, for accountability.

This week, though, should be pretty easy, because on the day we go to Kripalu, I’ll be getting home late, so I’ll just plug the phone in and hit the hay.

Gather with a Friend

This one is another easier one for me - I have a rotating crew of folks that I love to host for breakfast. We have a monthly card tournament my family goes to, and I regularly host friends for dinner.

However, for you, this may be a little more challenging. I’m an empty-nester with buckets of time on my hands to fill with my friends. Not everyone has the same time-privileges that I do. So maybe for you, it makes sense to double up your gathering time with your working out time, or stretching time, or recovery time. Rope a friend into going to a restorative yoga class together. Invite a friend over to do meal prep & the weekly look-ahead together. Or invite a friend to go grocery shopping. So many options for slipping this into the weekly roster.

Here’s what my plan looks like:

So there we go. Some ideas about how to prep for the coming week. Did any of these ideas work for you? Do you have practices that you’ve already established that you’ll lean on this week? Join our private Facebook Group, introduce yourself, and tell us about it!

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Don’t regularly use a planner or bullet journal? I got you - here’s a printable weekly planning sheet to make your life a little easier, for the paid subscribers: