The Science of Rituals

Rafael Nadal is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players in history.

When you observe his on-court performances, you might notice that he repeats a few peculiar actions.

Each time he loses a game, he bounces the ball 15 to 20 times before his next serve.

He always places two water bottles (one warm and one cold) in a straight line on the ground, with their labels facing the end of the court from which he is about to play. He always carries one racquet onto the court and five more in his bag.

These are not plots to infuriate and confuse his opponents. They are not random eccentricities either. Nadal has explained that he performs this series of intentional behaviors to give him “the order I seek in my head”. They help him establish a sense of mental balance.

Many great athletes are known to engage in some form of strange pattern before starting a competition.

Those patterns have a scientific name: they are known as Rituals.

The Science of Rituals

Rituals help people grapple with loss, work through grief, move on from a relationship, commemorate collective experiences, honor a significant moment, and so much more.

Rituals are found in every culture and throughout history. However, what has often been overlooked is the fact that people who perform rituals report feeling better as a result.

What if ritualistic behavior could also be applied to help you to enjoy everyday experiences more, even something as simple as eating a snack?

Rituals enhance enjoyment

In a recent study, behavioral scientist Michael Norton wanted to see how he could impact healthy eating behaviors through rituals.

Norton told the participants:

"Here are some carrots. You’re going to eat them, but what we want you to do in between each one is to do a little bit of a ritual. We want you to knock the table three times and snap a little bit, and then eat the carrot. And then we want you to do that again. And then eat the next carrot. And then do it again."

The results were clear: People who engaged in rituals with the carrots tended to enjoy them more than people who just grabbed the bag.

The Podcast Experiment

A few months ago, we wanted to confirm Norton’s finding while applying it to exercising.

A study was conducted using Fabulous in collaboration with the Center for Advanced Hindsight and the WNYC Radio Company. We asked the podcast listeners to start an exercise routine.

Working with the behavioral economist Dan Ariely, we came up with a list of rituals to find out if pairing them with an exercise routine would help people exercise more.

At the end of the 3 months, we had some very interesting results.

We found that rituals work best when they are related to the exercise itself. Just knocking on wood might not help you, but lacing your shoes in a mindful manner before your run can prepare your body and mind for the run and make it easier to start.

The listeners of the podcast started looking forward to their rituals. It gave them a sense of control, something enjoyable to look forward to. Even when they didn’t feel like exercising, they would start the ritual and then their mindset would shift as they remembered the good feelings associated with their exercise routine.

In other words, rituals act as emotional checkpoints that you can tap into to experience a familiar sense of control and a promise of feeling good after you finish exercising. If every time you tie your shoes a particular mindful way, you run, and every time you run you feel good, tying your shoe lets your body know both a run and good feelings are on the way, making it easier to start.

This is why your goal for the week is to create your own ritual.

This Week’s Plan

One-Time Action

We have recorded an audio message for you from Dan Ariely, the famous behavioral economist and advisor to Fabulous:

You will now build a ritual, and then add this as a custom habit that you'll do before your exercise habit.

Just like an elite athlete who wears the same pair of socks for every game, or repeats a set of movements before their practice, perform the following ritual each time just before you exercise.

The Exercise Ritual

• Say to yourself: I’m going to exercise and I feel so great about this!
• Put your headphones on
• Start your favorite exercise song
• Put your running shoes on

Add this right now as a custom habit. You can do this in 3 steps:

• Open your Exercise Ritual
• Add one new custom habit named Exercise Ritual
• Rearrange your habits to put the Exercise Ritual before the Exercise Habit

If it helps, you can include a short reminder of the ritual steps within the title of your custom habit, such as “Speak, Listen, Shoes, Go!”

Your Goal

Try to stick to this ritual for the next two weeks before you start personalizing it. Don’t forget to let us know how this is working for you or if you have any questions. You can reach us by tapping on the Person icon from the Fabulous home screen, then tapping on Help & Feedback towards the bottom of your screen.

You should also maintain your exercise habit by working out three times this week with increased intensity and time. If you’ve chosen running as your exercise habit, to the "Exercise" section of the Guides and explore the Runner's Realm Series.

Remember that this week is all about performing a ritual just before exercising. Don’t forget to add the ritual as a custom habit before your exercise habit in your Exercise Routine.

A solid ritual can really help you on those days when you don’t feel like exercising. Your aim is to build a solid exercise routine that requires very little willpower to perform. Rituals are one of the tools you will be using for this.

Remember that with Fabulous, experiment to find what works best for you. In the process, you may learn some things about yourself. Try to be mindful along the way to observe what’s working for you.

Next week, you will learn to start transforming your environment so that it will continually nudge you to exercise.

Now Hit the Road, Fabulous Traveler!