S3C6. Scheduling and Sustaining Your ERP Practice

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Since you are going to start the process of ERP in the next section, it is important that you understand one crucial aspect. This merits a separate chapter so it doesn’t get lost in other chapters.

ERP is like setting time aside to study every day so that whatever is asked in the test is doable. Mere RP, whenever an obsession hits you, is like trying to respond to questions in a surprise test without adequate preparation. To make this work, you will need to set time aside for your self-administered ERP sessions. You could start with an hour or even thirty minutes every day. But you need to decide on a fixed time that will be specifically reserved for ERP. That time is non-negotiable, which you will not use for anything but ERP.

Doing your ERP session has to become a part of your routine. Like eating, for example. We eat three meals a day at specific times. Or we should. No matter what happens, we are taught to make time for these meals. Similarly, no matter what happens, make time for your ERP. Your day’s schedule has to expand to incorporate ERP. ERP should not be done when some time is left over from whatever your day asks of you. The rest of your day’s activities should be done in the time left after ERP. If there are activities that you have to forgo, let them be anything but your ERP.

There is no ideal recommended time, but doing ERP for two hours every day is better than thirty minutes. You can decide the duration that works for you. You can also decide what time works for you. Do you want to do it in the morning when you are fresh? Or do you want to do it in the evening when the day’s tasks are over?

There are different schools of thought on this, though. Some people think doing your exposures in the morning is the right approach because you may be too tired at the end of the day and may have neither the willingness nor the energy to do your exposures. The argument against morning exposures is that you experience anxiety first thing in the morning, and your OCD may threaten to ruin the rest of your day. Intuitively, this may be the right thing to do for two reasons. One, you get the most difficult task of the day out of the way right in the morning and leave yourself with no excuses not to do the exposures. Two, the thought that the rest of your day will be ruined is Dee’s effort to stop you from doing your exposures when you are fresh and mindful. Under ideal circumstances, you should choose mornings to do your exposures.

The other school of thought is to do your exposures at the end of the day. You are already tired and stressed. Doing your exposures at that time may raise your fatigue and stress a few notches. It is like returning home from work and finishing a household task that may make you sweat further before taking a shower. Since you are already sweaty, doing that additional task may not be too much to take on. But the flip side is that Dee may convince you that you are too tired to take up anything extra and say, ‘how about picking it up tomorrow?’ The temptation to not add more stress can be high, and you may not do your exposures at all. Hence, you need to decide what works best for you without letting Dee make excuses for you.

Whatever you decide, you need to incorporate ERP into your lifestyle and routine and hence, make it a permanent fixture on your to-do list, at least until you recover. It is similar to deciding when you want to go to the gym. Some people prefer going in the morning, and some in the evening. There is no right or wrong way, just your way. However, make sure that you are making time for your exposures and sticking to that time.

Determine the time for doing your exposures now and set an alarm on your phone right away. If you keep it for later, you may never end up doing it. Do it now! Take a few minutes to think about it and write the time down here.

I will do my ERP from ____________________ to ____________________ every day.

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