On breaking bad habits: A therapist's guide to finally breaking your bad habits
Ah yes, another New Year, another slew of resolutions, and more pushing of what you should get into or should stop doing. While all types of resolutions are great, they sometimes end up being unrealistic (check out these articles for useful tips on realistic resolutions). And, anyways, what if we want to stop doing some things instead of adding on new things to your already long list of ‘to-dos’?
Instead of giving you more tips on resolutions, let’s talk about breaking bad habits. The beginning of the year is as good of a time as any to make some changes.
What are bad habits?
I’m sure most of us can think of a list: biting your nails, picking skin, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, the list can go on and on. But our bad habits don’t have to fall on the typical list in order for us to want to change them or break them all together. Maybe one of your bad habits is falling asleep on the couch because it always means you have a more difficult time falling asleep in bed (yes, this one is personal); or maybe it’s forgetting to do groceries because it always leads to you ordering food (also a bit personal). A bad habit doesn’t always have to be harmful. Sometimes they can be completely harmless. What matters is how you feel afterwards.
Let’s go back to falling asleep on the couch – harmless enough, right? And every once in a while, there really is nothing wrong with that. But when it becomes a nightly thing, it becomes a habit and comes with unwanted consequences. So, yes, falling asleep on the couch is harmless, but when it comes with the consequence of difficulties falling back to sleep, all of a sudden it seems a lot worse than it once did.
This leads us to the first step of breaking your bad habits – you have to first determine what they even are. And, are they really bad habits for you or do you label them as such based on what everyone else around you says? And no, this doesn’t include things that can be outright harmful to you *cough* smoking *cough* Write a list of your habits and reflect on which ones make you feel negatively afterwards, and focus on changing those first.
How do we even begin to break our bad habits?
That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? For some people, it can be easy to do (I’ve seen people quit smoking cold turkey, very impressive), but for others it takes a lot of time and patience towards yourself in order to break them.
Before we can even begin to discuss breaking bad habits, we should discuss how they’re formed and reinforced.
Power of repetition
Habit formation is a whole other blog post, but let’s give you a quick run down.
All habits are formed the exact same way – through time, repetitive behaviour, some sort of ‘reward’, and (usually) involves a trigger of some sort. Let’s take going to the gym, for example. When I first started my ‘fitness journey’, I hated going to the gym, I hated lifting weights, I hated cardio, but I kept going. And I kept going because of the reward – a rush of endorphins and all those feel good feelings. My reward was enough of a push to keep going, and the longer I went, the easier it became. My habit was formed. This good habit, though, is formed just like any other habit – a desire to try, enough time doing it, repetitive behaviour, reward.
Let’s take a look at a bad habit and break down how it works. For no particular reason, let’s look at falling asleep on the couch at night instead of going to bed. This is just something that can just happen at times. Sometimes out of pure necessity and sometimes as a quick ‘pick-me-up’. In this instance, the reward is sleep and rest. But there are consequences to this – disrupted sleep can often make it more difficult to fall back to sleep once you get up, perhaps you wake up with a sore back or neck. Yet despite these consequences, if you do it enough, your body may just associate the couch at night with sleep. In this instance, we have another desire, enough time doing it, repetitive behaviour, the reward, but now also the consequence.
Evaluating your habits
Habits aren’t just formed overnight (on average, it takes about 2 months to form a habit, but with research pointing to anytime between 18 to 254 days), which means stopping or changing a bad habit will take some time as well. The amount of time it takes for you to break these habits does not reflect on you and your abilities, but more on the science of habit formation. When wanting to break bad habits, take the following things into consideration:
Know the why
You already know what your bad habits are, which habits you want to change or eliminate completely, but you have no idea where to start. A good place to start is reflecting on how and why you’re still holding on to these habits. Just like with falling asleep on the couch, a lot of bad habits don’t start off as bad or ill intentioned. Oftentimes, they start accidentally, out of boredom or stress. These habits serve a purpose to you (i.e. your ‘reward’) and in order to find another way to have these needs met, you first need to understand what needs these bad habits are meeting for you. Let’s look beyond falling asleep on the couch, let’s look at smoking. For a lot of people, smoking helps with stress and makes cigarettes the only way some people know how to cope. If you’re able to understand that you’re smoking more when you’re stressed, you can easily deduce that you need better stress management skills, or a new coping mechanism.
Evaluate your bad habits, the needs they meet, and how you can meet those needs elsewhere.
Understand your triggers
Habits can oftentimes be activated through triggers. All habits (good and bad) have triggers. If you’re trying to change or break a bad habit, it’s crucial to understand what these triggers are for you.
Similarly to knowing how and why these habits form, trigger points are oftentimes related to the why you started to begin with. Let’s looking at smoking again – the ‘why’ could have been stress related, and the triggers could still be stressed related. Or, perhaps you’re a social smoker, and one of your triggers is with being around other people who smoke. Perhaps you only smoke when you’re out drinking with friends, so going to a bar can be a trigger.
Here are a few things to look out for when evaluating your triggers:
What time of day is it?
Is it happening right after something else happens?
How are you feeling before? How do you feel after?
Are there other people involved?
In which location is it taking place?
Let’s break those habits!
When you’re able to track and pay attention to the answers to the questions above, you’ll be able to better understand your triggers and emotional state that could be encouraging whatever bad habit you’re hoping to kick this year.
Know why you want to break them… and make sure it’s good
Just like understanding the why behind the bad habit, it’s equally important to understand the why behind wanting to break the habit, and make sure it’s a good reason. And when I say a good reason, I mean a reason for yourself, something that you can lean on and remind yourself daily. For example, saying that I want to actually go to bed before falling asleep on the couch is because I want better sleep and to wake up feeling more rested. When I sleep better, when I feel more rested, the better I feel throughout the day, the better I am at my job, the better dog mom I am, the better partner I am, etc. My why is all internal and for my own wellbeing, not for anyone or anything else (the benefits it has on those around me is just an added bonus).
So, think of your why. And think about yourself first and foremost. What would breaking this habit or replacing this habit do for you (physically, mentally)? If you’re trying to stop this habit for the right reasons, i.e. not for anyone but yourself, then thinking of your why should be [relatively] easy! And once you have it, write it down. Write it down everywhere. If you use a planner, write it there. Go out and buy sticky notes (or just use paper and tape) and stick it on your mirror, your refrigerator, anywhere and everywhere you can to remind yourself why you’re doing this. Because trust me, breaking bad habits is tough.
Replace the bad habit with something else
Okay, so you’ve sorted out why you have the habit to begin with, what the habit does for you, and why you want to break it. Now we can shift gears into actually breaking (or changing) the habit. This is where the questions from understanding your triggers can come in handy. Let’s take it back to smoking – you’ve noticed that you’re smoking the most when you’re stressed and when you’re out with friends. What does this say to me? Well, it says to me that better stress management is needed. There are so many ways to better manage stress and you can really get creative with what works for you, but here are some examples just in case: play with a pet, go for a walk, practice mindfulness, call a friend, exercise, create a to do list where you break down your tasks.
Remember, habits take time to form. So remember how habits form to begin with and stick with it to replace your bad habit.
Create a plan and set goals
Finally, have a plan in mind. This includes a plan of who you can support you in it, or even find someone else who’s trying to break the same bad habit and join forces!
Set realistic daily goals for yourself and create the plan to break the habit. If you usually smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, start with cutting back by half; limit your intake every day until you eventually aren’t smoking anymore. Setting more realistic goals means you are more likely to reach that goal, giving you that added boost and confidence to continue.
Creating a plan for the inevitable slip ups can be crucial. We all make slip ups thats part of being human. Humans make mistakes, and you can expect yourself to make mistakes with breaking a bad habit. But that mistake doesn’t mean you failed or make you a bad person, it just makes you human. Instead of beating yourself up for it, try to learn from it – did you forget about a trigger? Is the replacement for this habit just not working for you? Whatever the reasoning for the slip up, reflect and learn from it.
Don’t forget…
…we all have bad habits and, sometimes, these habits form without us even noticing. If you want to break a bad habit this year, remember to approach yourself with kindness and understanding every step of the way. Forming habits takes time, so breaking your habit will too. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
As I was writing this, I realised that this is a lot to take in. Please let me know what you think and if I should dedicate another post on habit forming.
Is one of your habits you’re trying to change involve screen time? Read what I had to say about screen time with Insider here.
