Everyone unknowingly falls into bad habits sometimes. Whether being small habits like biting your nails or more serious ones like skipping your meals. You can’t just walk away from a bad habit even when you know it’s bad for you. About 70% of smokers say they would like to quit but they can’t. Bad habits have always been easier to build than to break, so let’s discover how to break bad habits and find a practical strategy to replace them for healthier ones.
What are bad Habits?
Bad habits are unhealthy behaviors we perform repeatedly. That later becomes automatic and that can affect our physical health and mental well being, or productivity negatively. These behaviors immediately provide fast relief or pleasure.
How do bad habits form?
There may be several reasons why bad habits form. But in most cases, bad habits may merely be the result of repetition. The brain instinctively automates behaviors that offer a quick break from stuff like stress. When we repeat an action over and over again our brain becomes more efficient and fewer neutrons are required to achieve a goal. This means that the more you do something, the easier it gets to repeat it because the action gets engraved into our brain. To gain an advantage our brain does this simply to save mental energy.
For example I would come to school late at least two times a week. But as the weeks went by I found myself coming late almost every day. This shows how something small that you don’t often can become a bad habit later on.
Breaking Bad Habits:
Once a habit is formed its difficult to erase completely. Its easier instead to focus on swapping the bad habit out for a healthier one. You can achieve this by using the most effective and common practice “Habit Loop” this practice only requires a few steps. First you must identify what are your habits and what triggers them. A trigger can be anything from the time of day,emotional state, or location. Being this self aware makes it much easier to see exactly what sets your habits off. Once you identify those triggers, look for ways to avoid them. Like if you tend to reach out for a bag of chips while watching TV place healthier snack nearer to avoid the habit of always having to eat a healthy snack.
The next step is to change the environment. Our environment plays an important role in changing our habits.The most effective way to do this is by modifying your surroundings so you can make the temptations more difficult. So lets say if by pressing your notifications it leads you to mindlessly start scrolling, try turning off your notifications to stop the scroll before it starts.
The final step is to understand the reward it gives. Bad habits often stick around because they give quick rewards like stress relief, entertainment, or a sudden boost in mood. Identify what needs your habits satisfies, and once you identify it find a healthier way to meet your rewards. For instance if you tend to stress eat when stressed replace the candy or chips with fruits or go on a short walk to distract yourself from what is causing your stress.
Overcoming Bad Habits can be life changing:
Breaking deep and engraved bad habits can be incredibly challenging. However doing so reclaims hours every week for family, friends, and hobbies. By breaking them you force your brain out of auto pilot which allows you to regain control over your own decisions.
As an example, I changed my habit of being late to school. I found ways to stop my habit by changing my morning routine like laying out my clothes the night before and waking up like 20 minutes earlier which gave me more time to get ready. Ultimately eliminating your bad habits is life changing because you not only gain more free time you unlock profound mental and physical growth.
