Releasing Unwanted Habits
Our entire life is spent learning habits. Our parents try to instill what they feel are good habits. Every day we get up and brush our teeth. It has become a habit, and we need no longer think about it. We are taught social habits, family habits, health habits, school behavior habits et c. Yes, in society we need to develop certain habits to maintain a reasonable social network. Habits are something that we do without thinking. Habits can be either liberating or confining. It is liberating not to have to remember to brush the teeth. But as youngsters we might have rebelled against society and refused to make the bed or picked up the clothes off the floor. Now we have to make a conscious effort to do so because we have not developed the habit.
Before we decide to release unwanted habits, we need to establish the difference between habits and addictions. A habit is a repeated behavior in which the repetition may be unconscious. Addiction involves repetitive behavior with compulsion and discomfort if the behavior is not performed.
Habits are formed with repetition. Behaviors that we do often are etched in our neural pathways. Neuroscientists have traced habit making behaviors to the basal ganglia part of the brain. It plays a key role in developing emotions, memories and pattern making. Decisions come from the prefrontal cortex. But when a behavior becomes automatic that prefrontal cortex goes into sleep mode. The brain works less and less.
This is why we can focus on something else while doing complex activities like driving as we are talking or listening to music. According to Charles Duhigg author of “The Power of Habit” people will perform automated behaviors like pulling out of a driveway or brushing teeth the same way every single time if in the same environment. But if you take a vacation the behavior most likely will change. He recommends that breaking a habit on a vacation is one of the proven most successful ways to do it. Because all old cues, and rewards are not there. Therefor we have the ability to form new patterns.
To remove a habit we need to avoid the things that cause them like the environment. But of course, that is not always reasonable. Yes, if we like certain sweets and are gaining weight, we can just not have them in the house. If we procrastinate by sitting at the computer and going through social media, we can stop sitting there and go instead to the table. If we are accustomed to pick up the TV remote and just scroll through it when you sit on the couch, put the remote in another room. We need to make a conscious effort to remove habits.
Dr Luana Marques, associate professor of psychology at Harvad Medical School states that our brain does not like to break a bad habit. The limbic system in that brain activates the fight-flight-or freeze responses and our reaction is to avoid the “threat” and go back to old behavior even though we know it is not good for us. Often habits that do not benefit us still feel good, since the brain releases dopamine. Avoiding change qualifies as survival, and we get rewarded temporarily so keep reverting every time. This is why it is so hard.
Dr Marques recommends that before we try to change a habit, it is fundamental to identify why we want to change it. When the reasons are more personal like wanting to travel, or be around the kids, we have a stronger motivation to refer back to during our effort. After that, she states we need to figure our internal and external triggers. When the habit hits, ask when, where, and with whom it happens, and how are we feeling, sad, lonely, depressed nervous. We need to notice the clues beforehand to catch ourselves.
Most important is that we should not give the habit we wish to remove energy, Negative self-talk by judging ourselves for the habit gives the habit more power over us. What we think we create. Therefore, let us see ourselves free from the habit. If we are overweight, let us imagine how we feel thin. Get it clearly in the mind and feel the whole body and mind thin. But should we eat that cake, let us not feel defeated and judge, but just accept a temporary failure. Self-criticism many a time are just thoughts that were not mindful. Do not feel powerless.
One method is to replace the habit with a better new habit. It takes 28 days of effort to create a new habit. That is only one month. That is much better than that constant nagging within us about our so-called negative habits. So, the next time we want to reach for a cookie, let us take a bite out of an apple. Next time we chew our fingernails; go wash the hands or put cream on them. Start thinking about what new habit can be created instead of the one to be removed.
Urges follow a cycle. They are initially intense but usually go away within 20 minutes. “What we know from lab studies is that it’s never too late to break a habit. Habits are malleable throughout your entire life. But we also know that the best way to change a habit is to understand its structure — that once you tell people about the cue and the reward and you force them to recognize what those factors are in a behavior, it becomes much, much easier to change.” Charles Duhigg.
