How Do Bad Habits Form?
It is a question that has plagued scientists, psychologists, and common people for years. The answer is complex and still not fully understood, but you have a general idea of how it works. Bad habits form through a process of conditioning. We start performing a behavior (the bad habit) because it gives us some pleasure or relief.
The more you do it, the stronger the neural connections between the behavior and the pleasure become. Pretty soon, you’re doing the behavior without even thinking about it. You need to unlearn those neural connections and replace them with new ones to break the habit. This process takes time and effort, but it’s possible.
“There are no shortcuts for nurturing the movement toward wholeness other than drinking from the well of self-love.” – Don Stapleton
How To Break Bad Habits? Replace them with Good Habits – Explained
Habits are things you do often repeatedly and unconsciously. They can be helpful, like brushing our teeth each morning, or harmful, like chain-smoking. We’ve all acquired behaviors or patterns that haven’t served quite well in our pursuit of pleasure or success during our lifespan. We frequently face resistance free from such habits, even though they have prevented us from reaching our objectives.
These harmful habits can become so habitual that we don’t even realize we’re doing them. On the other hand, bad habits will inevitably become hurdles, weighing us down and compelling us to admit that these are not beneficial for us. We’ll soon feel compelled to break free.
Table of Content
- Why Is It Difficult To Unlearn Bad Habits?
- How Do Bad Habits Form?
- The Process Of Unlearning Bad Habits
- Tips For Unlearning Bad Habits
- People Who Have Unlearned Bad Habits
Warren Buffett stated it quite nicely when he said:
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
You often find it difficult to break bad habits, even though you know they’re not good for you. But why is that? And more importantly, how can you go about changing them? This post will explore the science behind habit formation and breaking and give you some tips on unlearning bad habits.