The Habit of Feeling Good

Geoff Girvitz· May 22, 2026 · 3 min read

Feeling good is a habit. I use the term “habit” because, as quiet as it’s kept, feeling good has more to do with consistency of action than hitting some kind of mental slot machine combo.

Triple serotonin! Finally!

Over the years, we’ve had lots of conversations at Bang about the basics of health. For example, it still blows my mind how many people try to get by on five or six hours of sleep (when they have the choice to… not). So, when we’ve gotten folks to experiment with getting or seven or eight hours of sleep a night, they’ve been reliably surprised at how much better they feel. And that’s the through-line here: we’re often so used to feeling bad that it doesn’t occur to us that there’s another option available. But that only often becomes clear only after taking action.

On a personal note, if I’m ever feeling particularly cranky, I’ll ask myself how long it’s been since I exercised. The answer is 48 hours. Every single time. So, I understand very clearly what kind of exercise frequency I need to feel zesty. Is it a discipline to exercise? Not in the sense that it’s more work for me to feel bad than it is to throw some dumbbells around.

When we talk about designing habits, the best place to start is with a powerful and reliable reinforcer of human behaviour: taking away pain or annoyance. Really, anything that removes the pebble from your shoe. You might recognize the academic term for removing something unpleasant as negative reinforcement. Behaviourism fell out of fashion in academic circles long ago but it’s still alive and well online. Specifically, operant conditioning (a subset of behaviourism where behaviour is shaped by reinforcing consequences). That’s because it works.

It’s important to have the language to talk about this stuff because the people designing apps and other subscription-based services sure as shit do. And that’s presumably why there’s so much negativity on social media – not just because rage bait works – but because the switch to something rewarding after that bitter cocktail is so reinforcing. You know the combo…

We can repurpose this forbidden knowledge for better self-care.

Let’s say that something doesn’t feel right in your body. An unpleasant sensation. A lingering pain. Something that might be totally fine but, then again, might be a problem. It doesn’t have to be scary – it’s just information. If that signal shows up reliably and it bugs you, then you can leverage it as a great prompt for a new movement habit.

That habit may have to do with your posture or setup. It may have to do with how you initiate movement. There are plenty of options – and we love exploring them with you – but if the path to removing the unpleasant stimulus also happens to translate into improved technique or body awareness, that’s amazing. It’s a huge win. Here, you upgrade to your physical vocabulary AND eliminate something annoying. And, with some early consistency, things become habitual… unconscious… automatic.

The very long-term of these habits, no matter form they take, is motion. You’re enjoying the fruits of action in both the present moment AND hedging against things that will bug you in the future. These are predictable things, like not having enough strength, or bone density, or mental acuity in your old age. Or even not-very-old age. So we build habits that work in both the present moment and the very long-term. You don’t have to like exercise right now – or think of yourself as “a gym person.” You just have to begin investing in the skills because the work – however uncomfortable – is less uncomfortable than the alternative.

Stressed but blessed,

GG

New here? Book a free session →