Forgetting the good practices

This one always baffles me.

Breathing with focus and visualizing the "energy flow" really helps. Every single time. As do a few other tricks I've discovered/developed over the years.

Now, recently I had a flu that had me in bed for a few days; one of my cats had a health issue that made me worry for his life, but it turned out to be fine. And while carrying him to the vet, I got myself a little back problem, but nothing too serious.

So, yeah, there were annoyances. But nothing was really bad.

And still, from waking up today until maybe 10 minutes ago - 7 hours or so - it never occurred to me to use even one of those little tricks.

I know I'm not alone in this. I've heard the same from several people.

So the question is - how can we successfully and reliably remind ourselves of all the good practices we've already found?


A few things come to mind:

Ritualize as much as possible. If you're used to doing your exercises regularly, chances are you'll "find" them again at the time you need them. And also, the rituals will help you be in a good state anyway, so you don't have to "go there" again and again, because you're already "there".

Do "in between" exercises. A few conscious breaths can be done anywhere, in the subway or at lunch or in the bathtub. Especially useful if done in public places that you like to frequent - say, your favourite pub or library.

Become aware of habits that, "by mere chance", seem to always coincide with bad moods. Such as eating heavy meals at night, or drinking too much.

Be aware of the timing. It seems that I sometimes wake up from weird dreams in a bad mood, and if I do nothing about it, I'll stay somewhat unhappy for the rest of the day.

What other helpful elements can you suggest?