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We all know certain habits harm our health and mental well-being, yet kicking them out remains challenging.
Common examples of such habits include fidgeting or shaking a leg, nail-biting, consistently waking up late in the morning, engaging in unhealthy eating patterns, and chain smoking. These habits often become deeply ingrained in our daily routines, making it even more challenging to break free from them.
But how to break a bad habit?
The Science of habit formation
Habits are auto-responses from our brains to certain triggers. We tend to follow these repetitive patterns unconsciously and without effort to make them a part of our routine.
Our brain likes to relax. Habits are the brain’s mechanism to help conserve its mental energy by eliminating the need to consciously think through every action. Like in the beginning, learning to drive a car seems like a complex set of actions, coordinating hands, legs, and traffic all at the same time. However, with sufficient practice and experience, the brain develops an automatic response to driving. This allows you to navigate the road without consciously engaging your brain in tasks like operating the clutch, brake, and gears.
In its quest to become efficient, the brain needs such auto-responses. When a habit emerges, the brain stops functioning actively, letting your body and instincts respond. So unless you try to unlearn a particular habit and train yourself again to react differently, the pattern continues to repeat itself.
Why is it difficult to break a bad habit, and easy to break a good one
Our brain associates our every action with its corresponding response or impact. It becomes more attached to habits that provide a rewarding experience by releasing dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter. This dopamine release occurs when we engage in enjoyable activities such as savoring our favorite food, spending time with loved ones, having a smoke, and let’s not forget binge-watching.
Dopamine is released with rewards. And every time we adopt a particular habit that generates dopamine, our brain becomes formatted to repeat the habit for results.
That simply means that any habit that makes you feel good, even if temporarily, is easily picked up by your brain, rather than the good habits, which are monotonous, tedious, time-consuming, and effort intensive.
For instance, when you feel bored, it’s common to instinctively reach for your phone and mindlessly scroll through social media, which makes you feel good. Instead, if you try to focus your attention on the job at hand, the brain perceives that it isn’t exciting for us and thus should be avoided.
How long does it take to break a bad habit?
Have you heard of the 21 days rule to bring in change? The myth began with a misinterpretation. The idea of the 21-day rule originated from a book published in the 1960s by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon. In his book, he mentioned that it took his patients approximately 21 days to adjust to their new physical appearance. He also noted that forming a new habit took him a minimum of 21 days. Over time, this concept was generalized to various habits, suggesting that it takes 21 days to break or form a habit. However, people missed two critical parameters here – ‘minimum of 21 days’ and the fact that he referred to the duration for developing new habits and not altering existing habits or breaking old ones.
In 2009, Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at University College London, published research in the European Journal of Social Psychology. The study examined the habit formation of 96 people and found that the time required for a habit to become automatic ranged from 18 to 254 days, with an average of 66 days.
So what factors govern this broad range of timeframe to break a habit? Here are some of the factors that will influence your answer to how long does it take to break a habit.
- Life of the bad habit: How long have you had that bad habit? How deeply ingrained is it? The longer you have had a specific habit, the more time it takes to understand how to break a bad habit.
- Your motivation to adopt an alternate habit: How important is it for you to break a particular habit? What are your emotional, social, and physical stakes involved in breaking an old habit and forming the new one? All these factors will impact your willpower to bring in the transformation.
- Levels of dopamine generated due to bad habit: If the bad habit has enough rewards for your brain, there are chances it will trick you to stick to the habit.
- Support of external factors: Trying to avoid junk? What if your favorite burger point is next door? Or do your friends prefer eating out or eating junk for parties? External factors may create an encouraging or discouraging case for you to break a habit.
How to Break a Bad Habit? Here are 10 Ways
1. Identifying your trigger for change
The crucial step to breaking a bad habit is understanding the factors that cause them to happen in the first place. There may be numerous internal and external triggers that prompt the occurrence of bad habits.
For example, what prompts you to bite your nails? When you closely observe your behavior, you may realize that it is often driven by factors such as stress, anxiety, boredom, or even subconscious nervousness. Understanding these emotional states empowers you to develop a plan to avoid or mitigate those triggers or find healthier alternate coping mechanisms. You may rather engage yourself in breathing exercises or a hobby.
This self-awareness enables you to take proactive steps towards breaking the habit and replacing it with more positive behaviors. If you find it challenging to identify the trigger, try journaling whenever you find yourself practicing a bad habit, or seek support from friends or family to understand the pattern.
2. Replace your bad habit with a better one
Train your brain to respond to the triggers of bad habits differently. If you have a habit of smoking after lunch, substitute that habit with either a very engaging activity or something that can address your trigger.
One possible replacement could be going for a short walk or engaging in some physical activity after lunch. This is a healthier alternative that not only helps distract from the craving to smoke but also provides a positive outlet for releasing any tension or restlessness.
You can also try blocking your post-lunch hour. Schedule a meeting or a coffee catch-up with a friend just after lunch to divert your attention away from smoking. If the smoke break is to de-stress yourself, consider calling your best friend instead. Reach out to them and share your feelings, allowing yourself to vent and seek support.
It’s worth noting that finding the right replacement behavior may require some experimentation and personalization. What works for one person may not work for another.
3. Motivation
How to break a bad habit with your motivated self? The stronger the desire for change, the more likely you would attain the desired shift. Motivating factors can vary from individual to individual, but these typically revolve around improving well-being, achieving personal goals, or enhancing relationships.
For example, if you want to adopt healthy eating to set a good example for your kids, you have associated the breaking of habit with a more profound, emotional sense of purpose. This motivates you to stay committed to eating right compared to someone who is merely following a health trend.
4. Create an accountability plan
According to research, if you share your goals with someone you highly admire and respect or someone with a ‘higher status,’ you are more likely to stay committed to your goals.
The thought of reporting back to your accountability partner can motivate you to stay consistent and make healthier choices. The accountability partner can also offer support and encouragement during moments of difficulty or temptation. They can provide valuable insights and suggestions or simply lend a listening ear when you need to share your struggles or seek guidance.
So go ahead and find your accountability partner to get over your worst habits.
5. Ensure immediate rewards
Ensuring immediate rewards plays a crucial role in maintaining motivation and reinforcing the pattern of breaking a bad habit. While the long-term benefits of adopting healthier habits, such as eating right to stay fit and healthy, are undoubtedly significant, our brain often seeks more immediate and tangible rewards for staying motivated in the short term.
The key is to find rewards that align with your goals and are meaningful to you personally. For example, if you successfully resist the temptation to indulge in unhealthy snacks for a week, you could reward yourself with a relaxing bubble bath or a favorite TV show.
You can also make a conscious effort to internalize the ultimate rewards in the making. Take note of the positive changes you are experiencing due to healthy food, like increased energy levels, improved mood, better sleep, or a sense of accomplishment.
Train your brain to create a positive, rewarding association with your new habit, making it more likely for you to follow it.
6. Set small targets
You may set yourself up for failure with challenging targets or by expecting the transformation overnight. Setting realistic, achievable small targets increases the likelihood of success and maintains positive momentum. For example, if you are planning to reduce sugar in your diet, you can plan it in phases. Reduce sugar intake to 50% in the initial few months, followed by another 10% in another two months, and so on. The gradual approach allows your body and mind to adjust to the changes without feeling deprived or overwhelmed.
Attaining small targets keep you motivated and helps you to break a habit completely.
Similarly, don’t take on too many challenges at a time. If you are trying to break multiple bad habits, it is best to focus on one habit at a time.
7. Consistency matters
Consistency and repetition play vital roles in the process of habit replacement. Habits develop and form an inevitable part of your routine when they are repeated enough times. How long does it take to break a habit? The more quickly and consistently you break the pattern of the old and create new behavioral responses, the quicker it is ingrained as a habit.
Don’t worry if you find yourself repeating the old habits. Be patient, and try all over again. The more frequently you engage in the new habit, the more natural and automatic it becomes over time.
8. Make it challenging to practice a bad habit
Research supports that environmental cues and accessibility play a significant role in transforming habits. A study found that individuals consumed 50% less candy when it was placed in a covered container compared to a transparent container within reach.
By intentionally creating barriers and making it more difficult to engage in undesired behavior, you can effectively reduce the temptation to follow bad habits. If you are aiming at cutting down on extra sugar, remove dessert, ice creams, and anything else you are likely to crave.
9. Visualize the ultimate shift
Visualization is a powerful tool to create a strong resonating image of a successful outcome. It is an extremely powerful tool to build self-confidence to perform better. Muhammad Ali, a believer in visualization, once said, “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it.”
Visualize that you have transformed your bad habits and adopted empowering good habits. Train yourself to believe that you will follow the routine and adopt all practices required to bring in the change you want in yourself.
10. Measure progress and success
Celebrate every small shift in your dietary intake, every pound reduced after effective weight management, and increase of every 5 min in workout. Set your milestones, monitor progress, and celebrate small victories in your quest to replace the bad habit with a healthier choice.
Conclusion
Back to the million-dollar question. How long does it take to break a habit? It is the time and days required to make your preferred behavior as your second nature. The good news is that you have the ability to actualize any behavior! Even if it seems challenging on day one, know that with persistence and purpose, it only gets easier with every passing day.
