How to Break Bad Habits
Do you often wonder why it is hard to break habits and install new ones? Over time, we pick up habits or behaviors that aren't beneficial to us and, in time, can harm us. The fact is pretty much every person on the planet will have some habit. Many of them are harmless, such as tapping the top of the drink can before opening it or tapping your fingers when nervous. Many of them will be subconscious. You might not even realize you are physically engaging in a habit until someone points it out to you.
Generally, it is easier to start a new habit than break one. Research suggests that it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to break a habit, and 10 weeks to start a new habit.
Bad habits can affect our lives in many different ways and can be born from poor choices or learned behaviors. Bad habits often offer some reward, such as stress relief from smoking, a buzz or anaesthetizing from taking drugs, or a release of endorphins from eating junk or high sugar foods. It is important not to confuse bad habits with addictions, which are typically harder to break the grip of and may require the intervention of professionals.
But taking steps to break your bad habits can have a dramatic improvement on your physical and mental health.
Identifying Bad Habits
Before you embark on what can be a challenging journey to breaking bad habits, you first need to realize what your habits are, why you do it, and the effect the habits have on your body and mind. Write down all identifying patterns, including the typical times you indulge in the habit, any triggers such as emotions or certain actions or situations, and the result. Write down as much information as you can and track your habits for a few days to identify patterns and responses to give you a better idea of what you are up against. Once you have all of this information written down, you can use it to put a plan of action in place to break your bad habits.
Do You Need To See a Professional?
Has your habit crossed over into addiction without you realizing it? Substance abuse requires cutting your reliance on a substance, and this can be not easy. Speak to your doctor to see what help is available if you think you may have an addiction problem and seek help to break it. You may need to seek the services of a recovery facility such as Enterhealth to assist you.
If your habit is indicative of a mental health disorder, such as anxiety or OCD, your doctor can discuss with you appropriate treatments to help you deal with the habit and your concerns via the use of therapy or medication.
Why Do You Want to Break These Bad Habits?
One of the main reasons people need to break bad habits is due to the negative impact it has on them, from something as innocuous as nail-biting, which can result in poorly developed nails and an inability to grow long nails, to smoking, which causes damage to your health and can lead to many different complications down the line.
Make sure you are clear and confident about why you want to break your bad habit and what you want to gain from it. Take smoking, for example; cigarettes cost between $5.25 and $12.85 per pack. With 20 cigarettes per pack, this ranges between $.26 and $.64 per cigarette. Even at $5.25 per pack, two packs a week is $10.50 and $546 a year. At the high end of the scale, it costs $1,336.40 a year. Knowing how else you could use this money can provide a great reason to support why you want to quit.
Get Support
Going it alone can be hard. It is not impossible, but can be much harder. Having someone who can help you stay accountable and support you when you need assistance in avoiding the thing you are giving up can make a lot of difference. Even if they cannot offer physical support, just having them confide in can be enough to help you stay on track. Plus, the longer you manage with support, the longer you can reinforce the changes in your behavior for the long term.
Set Smaller, Achievable Goals
Sometimes, the enormity of a situation can make you feel like you cannot make it. As mentioned earlier, it can take approximately 254 days to break a bad habit, which is around 36 weeks. Take it slowly, break it down into more manageable goals and set some targets for yourself.
Add incentives in to make it a more desirable task. So, for example, start with a week. Once you have been one week without falling into bad habits, make it another week. Then aim for the month and so on. Incentives can include buying yourself something you have been wanting for a while, finally taking that vacation you wanted, or heading to the spa to celebrate. Make it enticing and give yourself small but manageable goals to break down the process.
Document the Process
When you feel like giving up, you need something to remind yourself of how far you have come and what you aim for, be it to save yourself money, improve your health, or be kinder to yourself. Whatever your reason, document it. Much like you have written down what your habit is, how often you do it and your triggers, do the same for documenting your journey.
Document not just the good parts, but the hard parts too. You want to look back and be proud of the changes you have made and the length of time you have abstained from a habit you have broken. Doing this when your resolve is waning can motivate you to stay on track until you have broken your habit. You can do this!