What is a habit?
A habit is a routine behaviour that you perform without thinking—sometimes helpful, like brushing your teeth, or harmful, like smoking. Habits often start as coping mechanisms that bring quick relief, but over time, they can become ingrained and difficult to change.
Breaking Free from Bad Habits
Breaking a bad habit is challenging but possible. Whether it’s smoking to relieve stress or procrastinating to avoid tasks, these habits offer immediate gratification, which makes them hard to shift. However, understanding how habits form and using the right strategies can help you break free.
Formation of Habits
Habits usually begin as simple coping strategies, like biting your nails when you’re anxious or overspending to boost your mood. Over time, these behaviours become entrenched, reinforced by your brain’s reward system. This is especially true with addictive behaviours, where changes in brain chemistry make them even harder to overcome.
Effective Strategies for Overcoming Bad Habits
Awareness and Identification: Recognising your habit and understanding what triggers it is the first step towards change. Pay attention to how the habit makes you feel and why you do it.
Healthier Alternatives: Try replacing harmful habits with healthier ones. For example, if you smoke to reduce stress, try deep breathing exercises or taking a short walk instead.
Support Networks: Surround yourself with supportive people who encourage your positive changes. Whether it’s joining a support group or talking to a friend, having someone to help you can make a big difference.
Persistent Effort: Change doesn’t happen overnight. You need continuous effort and a clear plan to rewire your brain and break the habitual loop.
Understanding the Psychological Nuances
Breaking bad habits involves understanding the psychological aspects behind them. Your brain plays a key role in habit formation, and societal influences can reinforce these behaviours. With persistent effort and the right strategies, overcoming bad habits is achievable.
It takes from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit
About 43% of daily actions are subconscious, habitual behaviours
Only 6% of Britons successfully keep all of their New Year's resolutions
In England, 63.8% of adults were overweight or obese in 2021, reflecting poor lifestyle habits
What causes bad habits?
Bad habits often develop as coping mechanisms for underlying stress, boredom, or emotional discomfort. These habits might include smoking, overeating, or nail-biting, which can all serve as an escape from difficult feelings like anxiety, loneliness, or low self-esteem.
Genetic and Neurological Factors: Some bad habits are linked to genetic predispositions or neurological conditions, such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). These factors can make certain behaviours more likely to become habitual.
Social and Environmental Influences: Cultural and social norms also shape habits. For example, behaviours like binge-watching TV or excessive smartphone use are often accepted or even encouraged in certain social groups, which makes them harder to break.
Understanding the root causes of your habits can help you take control and make positive changes.
The impact of living with unwanted habits
Seemingly harmless habits can have a bigger impact on your health and wellbeing than you realise. Behaviours like habitual snacking or nail-biting can lead to physical health issues and affect your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Physical Health Consequences: Regularly engaging in certain habits, such as eating too many processed foods or leading a sedentary lifestyle, can cause major health problems. This includes an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, and digestive issues.
Mental Health and Lifestyle: Unwanted habits can disrupt your mental wellbeing. For instance, too much screen time before bed can lead to poor sleep and chronic fatigue. Persistent negative habits like self-criticism can harm your mental health, strain relationships, and reduce productivity.
Social and Emotional Impact: Bad habits can also damage your social life and emotional state. Chronic lateness, for example, can strain professional relationships, while constant self-criticism can lower your self-esteem and lead to anxiety or depression.
By addressing these habits, you can improve both your physical and mental health and enjoy a more positive, fulfilling lifestyle.
How can they be overcome?
Breaking bad habits and forming new, healthier ones requires understanding your behaviours and creating a plan for change. Contrary to the popular myth that habits take 21 days to form, research shows it actually takes about 66 days to establish a new habit.
Here are some key steps to help you on your journey:
Identify Triggers: Recognise what triggers your habit—whether it’s stress, boredom, or a specific time of day.
Set Personal Motivations: Be clear about why you want to change, focusing on the personal benefits you’ll gain.
Replace Habits: Swap bad habits for healthier alternatives, like choosing fruit over sugary snacks.
Simplify New Behaviours: Make your new habits easy to adopt by starting with small, manageable steps.
Modify Your Environment: Change your surroundings to support your new habits and eliminate triggers.
Implement Small Changes: Break the process down into small, achievable steps, and celebrate each victory along the way.
Visualise Success: Regularly imagine yourself succeeding, and use positive affirmations to reinforce your progress.
Prepare for Setbacks: Setbacks are normal. Plan for them, and reward yourself for progress, no matter how small.
By embracing these steps, you can set yourself on the path to lasting change and a healthier, more fulfilling life.
How can hypnotherapy help?
Breaking bad habits often requires exploring the subconscious mind to uncover the triggers and emotional needs that drive these behaviours. Solution-focused hypnotherapy can help you rewire these patterns by guiding you to replace negative habits with positive alternatives.
How Hypnotherapy Works: Hypnotherapy helps you access a deeply relaxed state where your subconscious mind is more open to suggestions. By focusing on relaxation, visualisation, and positive reinforcement, hypnotherapy can help reduce the triggers that fuel bad habits.
Personalised Approach: Every session of hypnotherapy is tailored to your unique needs. The therapist works with you to understand your triggers and help you build healthier habits.
Building Confidence and Reducing Stress: Hypnotherapy not only helps break habits but also builds confidence and reduces stress. This can improve your overall mental health and wellbeing, making it easier to maintain positive changes in your life.
Lasting Change: Hypnotherapy offers a comprehensive approach to breaking bad habits, helping you make lasting changes by addressing the root causes of your behaviours.
Our Habits Specialists
Benn Baker-Pollard
Sittingbourne
Carmen Harrington
Market Harborough
Caroline Prout
Thrapston
Chris Johannes
Spalding
Claire Noyelle
Maidstone East
Dawn Ibbetson
Chelmsford
Gary Johannes
Peterborough
Jill Whitehouse
Newcastle upon Tyne
Keeley Smith
Southend-on-Sea
Kerry Seymour
Weston-super-Mare
Why Choose Inspired To Change
Our solution focused hypnotherapists empower you to better understand your brain, helping to guide you towards solutions and achieve the outcomes you want. We have a team of fully trained hypnotherapists, giving you the choice of who to work with and how you want to work with them. Solution focused hypnotherapy is just as effective in-person or online in the comfort of your own home, so you can find the ideal therapist to help you reach your goals.
Every one of our hypnotherapists is recognised by governing bodies like the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the UK’s leading not-for-profit hypnotherapy professional association. They have all trained with Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training, one of the leading hypnotherapy schools in the UK.
