No matter how ingrained bad habits may seem, you can learn to break them and replace them with healthy, positive habits.
What are bad habits?
Bad habits are repeated behaviour that are unhealthy. While some habits are healthy (like brushing your teeth before bed or sitting still in your car), bad habits can often have a negative impact on your health.
Eating unhealthy foods, not exercising, drinking too much, staying up late watching TV or scrolling through social media can affect your physical and mental health, increase stress, and even worsen symptoms of depression or anxiety.
Bad habits can also manifest themselves in the form of social behavior. For example, if you habitually make yourself the focused center of every conversation, you may irritate those around you and cause close relationships to fray. Or, if you're a people-pleaser who always says yes without thinking, others may take advantage of your kindness, which can affect your happiness.
Other common bad habits include:
• Skipping meals or lack of fluids.
• Pulling hair or biting nails when stressed or upset.
• Being possessive or giving unsolicited advice.
• Waiting until the last minute to start reviewing for an exam or preparing for a work meeting.
• Listening to music at a volume that is harmful to your hearing.
Sometimes the consequences of bad habits are obvious. For example, you get hungover on the weekend, face legal problems because of your speeding habit, or run into financial problems because of your gambling or online shopping habits.
Despite the negative effects of bad habits, they can be very stubborn and difficult to break. You may have tried to break a bad habit many times, only to find yourself falling back into the same behavior patterns. Repeated failure to change a habit can make you feel hopeless and helpless.
But no matter how old your bad habit is, or how automatic the behavior seems, you can make real, lasting change.
How bad habits are formed and maintained
Bad habits can be caused by several reasons. They allow you to work on “autopilot” so that you don’t have to think too much about what to do next.
They may also be the result of habit. There are three components to a habit cycle: trigger, behavior, and reward.
• Triggers are external signals that prompt the brain to perform a certain behavior. For example, if a coworker yells at you, this can cause you stress. Or maybe you’re bored and spot someone looking at their phone.
• Next comes behavior. When you feel stressed because of a conflict with a co-worker, you smoke a cigarette. Or open your social media app when you see someone else using their phone.
Every time you enter a habit loop, your brain connects these three components together. However, it is still possible to break bad habits, curb addictions, and change undesirable behaviors. The process takes patience and perseverance, but you can change your life for the better.
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