I've been learning about the science of habits lately and I've been surprised at the power of tiny things to increase or decrease "friction" (something that reduces your ability or willingness to do something).
More of the good stuff
We can remove friction from situations that are making it harder to do the things we do want to do, like checking blood sugars.
The Freestyle Libre has removed all the friction from doing finger pricking to check my blood sugar, so now I check it all the time with basically no effort. It's no wonder given the amount of friction I complained about in the past.
Less of the bad stuff
We can also deliberately add friction to stop us doing things we don't want to do (but find it hard to resist), like late night bingeing on Christmas chocolates.
This Christmas holidays I asked my husband to put the box of Cadbury's Roses on top of the kitchen cabinets to stop me from casually snacking on them. When they were out of easy reach it reduced my temptation to have one when I was passing through the kitchen. The thought of fetching something to stand on to reach for the box was enough of a hassle to override my interest in eating a chocolate and made for much more considered chocolate eating this Christmas.
The best thing about the idea of friction is the impact that tiny changes can make on our daily behaviours and habits.