Why Bad Habits are so Hard to Break
Do you wish you could break a bad habit, but you don’t know how? Habits like nail biting, procrastinating, smoking, or spending too much time online often impede on our daily productivity. They make us frustrated with ourselves and in the end, they do us more harm than good. Don’t keep wondering why you simply cannot stop your bad habit. You can break the cycle of negative behavior and save precious time.
Explore these three helpful tips to learn why it is so difficult to break these bad habits and discover what you can do to make a change today!
Understand how neural pathways in the brain work:
Strong neural pathways can make it tougher to break a habit. Neural pathways are the extraordinarily developed pieces of our nervous system that allow us to perform daily tasks without having to really think about it. There are many neural pathways involved in everyday function, and there is one that allows the body to develop behaviors that we’ve designated as “good”—the appropriately-named reward pathway. The reward pathway reacts when a stimulus is presented, and our body considers that stimulus to be rewarding. An example of this interaction is when someone first smokes a cigarette. The body identifies nicotine as a rewarding substance, causing a release in dopamine, a “feel good” hormone. This creates a new neural pathway where the brain now craves that substance. The mind will consequently take that neural pathway when the person smokes again.
The brain releases dopamine when the reward pathway is activated, and because dopamine release feels very good, the brain and body start seeking more pleasure, more reward and more dopamine. The cycle begins automatically and gets repeated over and over again. As your mind continues to follow that neural pathway, your negative habit pattern becomes ingrained and difficult to break.
Practice delaying gratification:
Gratification is an important factor in habit-forming. It entices us to seek immediate rewards, rather than long-term benefits. If you have ever taken a basic psychology course, you might have heard of the Marshmallow Experiment. The experiment explains why we lean towards instant gratification system over the delayed gratification system. In this experiment, Stanford researchers analyzed children’s behavior when they were offered a choice between eating one marshmallow now (a small reward immediately), or two marshmallows if they waited for 30 minutes (a larger reward for waiting). Most of the children displayed a behavior known as instant gratification, meaning that waiting for the larger reward was nowhere near as good for the children as eating one marshmallow immediately. It shows how children lean towards instant gratification over delayed gratification.
Instant gratification is an adult phenomenon too! It’s hard to wait for reward (remember that dopamine release). Delaying gratification requires mindful attention to your cravings, your urges, the rewards and the consequences. After considering all of those items, it then requires a thoughtful decision. If you are operating purely on instinct, on impulse, or on desire, you will be more likely to choose the thing that makes you feel good right now!
The ability to delay gratification is a muscle that needs to be exercised regularly in order to become fully developed. If it is underdeveloped, it makes it challenging to resist instant gratification. It requires patience and practice to seek the long-term reward. As adults, we teach our kids to wait patiently all the time. Why? Because waiting and delaying gratification is part of the developmental process.
Maintain a goal-oriented, long-term mindset:
Our brains are neuro-plastic, meaning that they can change! The brain is able to create new neural pathways with repeated thoughts, urges, and behaviors over time. It can take at least 21 days to create a neural pathway using consistent and repetitive habit patterns. So stick with it! Focus on the long-term, rather than the short-run. Practice delaying gratification from one or two days to one or two weeks, and so on. The approximately 21-day period isn’t that long in the larger scheme of your life. Remember how it feels to be stuck in a negative habit pattern and keep your mind focused on the potential positive outcomes.
There are various ways to keep yourself motivated during the time it takes to create new pathways. You could make a list of the benefits of sticking to your long-term goals to reference when you feel like giving up. You could create a physical calendar or use a count down app to remind yourself how far you’ve come. You could use a journal to track your progress day-by-day. Be your own cheerleader and encourage yourself. Find a way to keep yourself motivated in the long-term that works for you.
Instead of telling yourself that you can never break a bad habit, try adapting a more positive mindset. Open yourself to the possibility that you can stop the cycle, and give yourself the encouragement needed to do so. Negative neural pathways can be changed into positive ones if you practice your delayed gratification skills and focus on your long-term outcomes. Negative habits are easier to break than you think! With a few shifts in mindset and behavior, you can train your brain and body to rewire itself. Then you can finally move toward your positive goals.