What You Can Do to Change Habits

What You Can Do to Change Habits

Bad Habits: What You Can Do to Change Them

Bad habits have been implicated as being the single cause of many broken dreams, lost opportunities and wasted time. People recognize this problem, but saying that changing habits will improve your life is a rather simplistic approach because it's easier said than done. However, it is true that bad habits can be changed provided we understand what they are and how they began in the first place. Recognizing what your bad habits are and how you developed them will be your first step.

How habits are formed

Habits are the result of acquired skills and past experiences. They are often tied to a certain rewarding emotion or event, although it's not uncommon to see habits that are unhealthy and disruptive to both physical and mental health. Habits are formed early, but they are learned behavior, not innate characteristics. Certain acts become habits because they are repeated again and again over an extended period of time. When they are firmly established as a pattern of behavior, these acts become easier and easier to perform. This is when they become habits.

Why bad habits are difficult to break

Change is difficult, one way or another and it is especially true with habits. They are so tough to break that often, most people just give up and give in. Not only that, some bad habits are so deeply ingrained that some people find them comforting. When this happens, people prefer not to change their habits because of the sense of familiarity they offer. Changing them makes some people feel uncomfortable, as if they are leaving their trusted comfort zone. Furthermore, changing a habit makes some people think it will change their character and personality, even if it won't.

The habit in your brain

According to MIT (yes, that's Massachusetts Institute of Technology), if you find it hard to break old habits, blame your neurons. It's because once habits are established, certain changes in the patterns of neural activity in the brain occur. These changes correspond to a certain habit, such as smoking, gambling or drinking coffee in the morning.

The pattern can be reinforced by continuous practice of the habit and will be stored in a region of the brain called the basal ganglia. This is the same region that contributes to procedural learning and the formation of certain habits including addiction.

Once the pattern of a habit has been stored in the brain, it doesn't fade away or disappear, even if a person has successfully stopped a habit. If he encounters an object or event that is associated with that habit, it will act as a stimulus and the pattern can reappear. This probably explains why a reformed smoker will feel a certain pleasure or urge to smoke if he sees an ashtray or a lighter.

Old vs. new

The establishment of patterns in the brain and the associated emotional attachment to certain habits make older habits more difficult to break than new ones. Since old habits are so strongly ingrained that they have become almost automatic, it is always disconcerting to try to break them and continue with other tasks as if nothing happened.

Consider for example, the act of filling a coffeemaker with coffee every morning at 7 o'clock. If you perform this habit daily for many years, it can throw you off a little bit if you happen to sleep in a hotel room and wake up without your kitchen. You will have a feeling that you forgot to do something or that something just isn't right.

You overcome this, of course, but only if you know that everything will go back to normal. You only begin to worry when there is no longer an opportunity for you to perform the same habit again. As an extreme example, people who are obsessive compulsive will find it very uncomfortable and annoying if they can't perform certain acts that they are so used to doing.

Changing bad habits

As you can see, it can be quite a challenge to change a bad habit but just because it's difficult doesn't mean it can't be done. By recognizing its nature, how it is formed and what it does to you, you will be able to view a habit, especially a bad one, from a different perspective. When you're able to break it down and understand how you built it into your system, you will be able to break the pattern and overcome the habit.

A bad habit will always be with you, stored in your brain. But if you truly want to improve your life and implement positive change, aim to break them gradually. When you're able to shed them and find a level of comfort without them, then you'll know a bad habit has been broken.