Olga Chernyavska
Helping you to live a healthier and happier life
Holistic therapy with a focus on mind-body interconnection for people struggling with anxiety and worries.
The Practical Power of Routines: Creating Balance in Body, Mind, Relationships, and Spirit for Work and Life
Many people resist routines. They imagine them as rigid schedules, boring rules, or another thing on the to-do list. But routines aren’t restrictive, they can be freeing.
Routines help you feel steady, save your energy, and keep your life balanced in a world that’s always trying to grab your attention. They provide the structure that helps you handle life’s demands at work, at home, and in your relationships. Over time, routines can even become habits that support your well-being almost automatically.
However, for many people, building healthy routines or breaking unhealthy ones doesn’t come naturally. That’s where therapy can help.
Routines help you feel steady, save your energy, and keep your life balanced in a world that’s always trying to grab your attention. They provide the structure that helps you handle life’s demands at work, at home, and in your relationships. Over time, routines can even become habits that support your well-being almost automatically.
However, for many people, building healthy routines or breaking unhealthy ones doesn’t come naturally. That’s where therapy can help.
Why Learning Is Often Not Enough to Create Lasting Change
Struggling to finish tasks is often linked to early experiences. If you didn’t grow up with consistent structure or routines (such as regular meal times, homework schedules, or bedtime rituals), it might feel harder later in life to build those patterns into habits. Your brain and nervous system simply didn’t get that early “practice” in turning routine into habit.
This doesn’t mean it’s permanent. Adults can still learn how to build routines and intentionally “train” their habits.
Unhealthy habits, on the other hand, often develop as coping mechanisms. They can form as a way of managing stress, trauma, difficult emotions, or unresolved conflict. Overeating, overworking, scrolling late into the night, saying “yes” to everything are those patterns that may soothe discomfort in the moment but often create more stress in the long run.
Why Some People Struggle with Routines and Habits
Think of routines as the training ground for habits.
Routines set the stage. Predictable rhythms (like morning rituals, work structures, or winding down at night) reduce decision fatigue. You don’t have to think so hard about “what comes next.”
Habits make it automatic. Once routines stick, tasks get accomplished almost on autopilot. For example, if checking your emails at 9 a.m. becomes a habit, it happens without stress or negotiation.
Without strong routines and habits every task feels like starting from scratch. That’s exhausting. This often leads to unfinished projects, forgotten commitments, or constant self-blame: “Why can’t I just get it together?”
Routines set the stage. Predictable rhythms (like morning rituals, work structures, or winding down at night) reduce decision fatigue. You don’t have to think so hard about “what comes next.”
Habits make it automatic. Once routines stick, tasks get accomplished almost on autopilot. For example, if checking your emails at 9 a.m. becomes a habit, it happens without stress or negotiation.
Without strong routines and habits every task feels like starting from scratch. That’s exhausting. This often leads to unfinished projects, forgotten commitments, or constant self-blame: “Why can’t I just get it together?”
How Routines Become Habits
Routines shape a life that feels less overwhelming, and more sustainable. They support both your professional and personal life:
• Building stability and predictability can help reduce stress and anxiety.
• Supporting mental and physical health leads to better sleep, regular meals, and consistent exercise.
• Increasing productivity and focus means making fewer decisions and saving energy for what really matters.
• Strengthening self-discipline and confidence comes from small, repeated successes that build momentum.
• Helping with emotional regulation gives structure that protects against feeling overwhelmed.
• Promoting control and balance makes life feel more manageable and intentional.
Benefits of Building Healthy Routines and Habits
It’s not just about creating new routines. It’s also about releasing the ones that drain you. Breaking free from unhelpful patterns opens space for healthier choices:
• Improving physical health (such as quitting smoking, reducing overeating, and sleeping better).
• Supporting better mental wellbeing by reducing guilt, shame, and self-criticism.
• Increasing energy and motivation, since being freed from draining cycles allows you to focus on growth.
• Strengthening your sense of control and empowerment, giving confidence in shaping your life.
• Creating more space for healthy routines (like exercise, hobbies, and deeper relationships).
• Building long-term resilience, so you can manage urges and stress without relying on harmful patterns.
• Improving physical health (such as quitting smoking, reducing overeating, and sleeping better).
• Supporting better mental wellbeing by reducing guilt, shame, and self-criticism.
• Increasing energy and motivation, since being freed from draining cycles allows you to focus on growth.
• Strengthening your sense of control and empowerment, giving confidence in shaping your life.
• Creating more space for healthy routines (like exercise, hobbies, and deeper relationships).
• Building long-term resilience, so you can manage urges and stress without relying on harmful patterns.
Benefits of Breaking Unhealthy Routines and Habits
I work with clients on four levels: physical, psychological (mind, feelings and emotions), social (relationships), and spiritual and it’s clear how routines touch every area of life.
At Work (Professional Benefits)
• Physical: Maintaining stable energy helps prevent burnout and boosts productivity.
• Mind: Reducing decision fatigue leads to sharper focus and better performance.
• Relationships: Setting and maintaining clear boundaries (such as shutting off email at 6 p.m., prevent resentment and improve teamwork).
• Spirit: Connecting to your values and purpose at work fuels motivation beyond deadlines.
At Home (Personal Benefits)
• Physical: Nurturing the body through self-care strategies supports long-term health.
• Mind: Practices like journaling or mindfulness improve emotional regulation.
• Relationships: Family dinners or unplugged evenings strengthen personal connections.
• Spirit: Gratitude, meditation, or prayer foster fulfilment and peace.
Professional and Personal Benefits of Routines
I often work with two main types of clients and you might recognise yourself in one of them.
• If you’re a High Achiever: You accomplish tasks brilliantly but you may also take on too much. You don’t always know when to stop, delegate, or accept “good enough.” Over time, this habitual behaviour can lead to stress, anxiety, and eventually burnout. Healthy routines help you pace yourself, focus on what matters most, and protect your health while continuing to succeed.
• If you’re a Helper or Giver: You never fail to show up for others but often neglect yourself. You get everything done for family, friends, or colleagues, but your own needs are the first to drop off the list. This habitual behaviour can leave you exhausted, resentful, and lonely. Healthy routines help you claim time for self-care without guilt, so you can balance caring for others with caring for yourself.
Both types are often in “overdoing mode.” You may already see how these habitual behaviours run on autopilot, so you don’t even pause to consider your own limits; you just react. That’s the difference between habits and habitual behaviours:
• Habits are practical, often healthy routines that have become automatic, such as brushing your teeth or having a regular bedtime.
• Habitual behaviours are automatic responses to stress or expectations, like saying yes to every request, overcommitting, or people-pleasing. These are deeply personal patterns, and they often live at the unconscious level.
And here’s the key: because these habitual behaviours are unconscious, you usually can’t change them through sheer willpower. Therapy helps bring them into your conscious awareness, allowing you to understand and process them effectively. Only then can long-term changes occur, making room for new, healthier habits.
• If you’re a High Achiever: You accomplish tasks brilliantly but you may also take on too much. You don’t always know when to stop, delegate, or accept “good enough.” Over time, this habitual behaviour can lead to stress, anxiety, and eventually burnout. Healthy routines help you pace yourself, focus on what matters most, and protect your health while continuing to succeed.
• If you’re a Helper or Giver: You never fail to show up for others but often neglect yourself. You get everything done for family, friends, or colleagues, but your own needs are the first to drop off the list. This habitual behaviour can leave you exhausted, resentful, and lonely. Healthy routines help you claim time for self-care without guilt, so you can balance caring for others with caring for yourself.
Both types are often in “overdoing mode.” You may already see how these habitual behaviours run on autopilot, so you don’t even pause to consider your own limits; you just react. That’s the difference between habits and habitual behaviours:
• Habits are practical, often healthy routines that have become automatic, such as brushing your teeth or having a regular bedtime.
• Habitual behaviours are automatic responses to stress or expectations, like saying yes to every request, overcommitting, or people-pleasing. These are deeply personal patterns, and they often live at the unconscious level.
And here’s the key: because these habitual behaviours are unconscious, you usually can’t change them through sheer willpower. Therapy helps bring them into your conscious awareness, allowing you to understand and process them effectively. Only then can long-term changes occur, making room for new, healthier habits.
How This Looks for Different Personality Types
Routines and habits operate at different levels:
• Conscious: “I choose to set a bedtime routine.”
• Subconscious: “I notice I feel calmer when I stick to it.”
• Unconscious: Over time, it becomes automatic: brushing teeth, journaling, exercising.
Here’s the challenge: reaching the unconscious level can be difficult alone. Blind spots (hidden behaviours) often stop people from becoming fully aware and therefore able to address barriers toward lasting positive transformation. That’s where therapy comes in. Counselling and psychotherapy provide the space to uncover blind spots and overcome barriers to live a healthier and happier life.
Conscious, Subconscious, and Unconscious Levels of Change
In my sessions, I use a combination of:
• Mind-centered therapies (to explore and reshape unhelpful thought patterns).
• Body-centered therapies (to release stress stored in the body).
• Mind-body therapies (to calm the nervous system and integrate deeper change).
Every client is unique, so therapy is tailored specifically to your needs and goals. Together, we’ll work through what’s keeping you stuck (whether it’s unhelpful habits, anxiety, or difficulty following through), so you can create balance across your personal and professional life.
This isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about finding a way of living that feels manageable, grounded, and aligned with your needs.
• Mind-centered therapies (to explore and reshape unhelpful thought patterns).
• Body-centered therapies (to release stress stored in the body).
• Mind-body therapies (to calm the nervous system and integrate deeper change).
Every client is unique, so therapy is tailored specifically to your needs and goals. Together, we’ll work through what’s keeping you stuck (whether it’s unhelpful habits, anxiety, or difficulty following through), so you can create balance across your personal and professional life.
This isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about finding a way of living that feels manageable, grounded, and aligned with your needs.
How Therapy Supports You