Break a Bad Habit Forming a Bad

¶ … Break a Bad Habit Forming a bad habit can be one of the most problematic things a person can do it their lives. A bad habit can be time consuming, costly, bad for you, and even embarrassing. There are all kinds of habits that can be considered bad; biting your nails, smoking, procrastination, overspending, gossiping, and lacking punctuality to name a few. Any one of these things can be considered socially unacceptable in many cases and in some cases can even cost people their jobs.

This paper will examine the complex process known as a "habit." It will provide information about how to identify one, why they are bad for you, and what can be done about it. There are many ways to identify the ways that bad habits form. If you are a scientist, you might look at the actual brain processes.

Research by Assistant Professor Kyle Smith, who joined the faculty of Dartmouth's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences last month, has a light switch that could be flipped to turn off a bad habit in lab rats (Platt). While this research sounds incredibly interesting, most of us will have to deal with our bad habits the old fashioned low-tech way. One of the first steps in this process is to identify the presence of the habit.

While this might sound easy, it is often the case that many people do not even know that they have a bad habit; sometimes they have lived with it so long that it just seems natural. Furthermore, habits can often be situation specific. For example, you might show up to work every day on time, but be late to virtually everything else in your life.

Other examples of habits that are situation specific include (Phil): You might eat well at home, but order a large burger and fries at a restaurant. You might drink too much when you spend time with particular friends. You might find that you smoke a cigarette whenever you get home in the evening. You might bite your nails when you sit at your desk at home. Sometimes it will take work to identify these bad habits and other times they can be so disruptive that they are hard to ignore.

Once the bad habit is identified then that person has something of a choice to make. They can either chose to ignore it, like most people do, or they can try to break that habit with some kind of habit intervention. Sometimes just recognizing the habit will be enough. For example, if you notice that you are biting your nails at your desk then you might say to yourself "you know, I should quit doing that" and the habit will be broken.

However, other times the habit can become such a deep part of us that it takes all of our strength and courage to challenge it. Breaking a bad habit can be one of the most challenging parts of a person's life; especially if the habit is something like smoking where the habit is accompanied by a physical addition as well. It can be very difficult to break a habit and most people have at least one bad habit at any given time; some people have lots.

Bad habits may be fairly innocent in our daily lives but in some cases they can be so serious that they can cost you your job. "A single bad habit is not likely to get you fired immediately, but the cumulative effect of the bad habit over time can," says Dr.

Katharine Brooks, executive director of the office of personal and career development at Wake Forest University and author of You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path from Chaos to Career: "People might notice one bad habit, and it preps them to notice other faults or problems (Smith)." Therefore, it is often good to nip bad habits in the bud as soon as they are identified because these can sometimes seriously affect your career whether it is in the workforce or even in school.

A bad habit is basically a negative pattern of behavior that develops over time and is generally done unconsciously. There is a difference between a bad habit and an addiction or even a mental condition. For example, smoking can be considered a habit when the smoker has the ability to make themselves quit or a regular basis. However, after the habit has continued for some time then it grows to a point in which it can be considered something more than just a habit, it can be considered an addiction.

Addictions normally require much stronger interventions to correct than a habit; especially if the habit also includes a physical dependency. The good news is that it you have a bad habit is that these are possible to break on your own with a little research and a lot of will power. Most of your life works in something of a habitual manner; it is estimated that out of every 11,000 signals we receive from our senses, our brain only consciously processes 40 (Young).

Therefore, much of our lives consist of habit type behaviors that we rely on just to make it through the day. Most of our habits are harmless and in most cases even useful. They simplify things that would otherwise require our full attention. For example, we develop patterns of behavior devoted to hygiene and getting dressed in the morning. You may go through pretty much the same routine every day without thinking much about it.

This allows the brain to think of other things like what you have on your agenda for the day or how much you are going to enjoy your weekend plans. The problem occurs when this type of pattern picks up some kind of negative behavior. Once the habit is detected, one of the first things you can try is to break the habit for a thirty day period (Young).

If you can consciously prevent yourself from using that behavior for thirty days it is a strong possibility that the habit is broken forever. The thirty day period is something of a milestone. However, other people put this milestone at three weeks (21 days) to 90 days, depending on the type of habit.