If you read our last post Breaking the Habit – Part ONE, you know that bad habits can be hard to break; you know that bad health habits can be blamed for much of the world wide chronic disease epidemic; and that lack of knowledge is not the problem. People are aware that their habits are detrimental to their health, and they still can’t give them up.
How to Successfully Change a BAD Habit
Charles Duhigg, author of Power of a Habit, suggests that the best way to change a habit is to break it down into parts.
A habit can be broken down into 3 different parts:
1) A cue → 2) The Behaviour itself → 3) A Reward
Identifying the behaviour itself is usually the easiest place to start. Whether its eating baked goods, drinking pop, or eating fast food. Once you chosen a habit that you want to change, you can work on identifying the other two parts in the habit loop.
The cue: To accurately identify the cue, you should keep track of what happens preceding the behaviour. Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of a Habit, suggests writing down details about the habit for about a week. The details should include how often the habit occurs in a day and what goes on before the habit takes place:
- Where you are (at Home, in the office, commuting)
- What time it is (early in the morning, mid afternoon)
- How you feel emotionally (bored, stressed, happy, sad)
- How you feel physically (tired, energized, sick, healthy)
- What action have you just done (just answered emails, just drove home)
At the end of the week take note of the similarities.
*Note: This shouldn’t make you feel guilty and you shouldn’t be actively trying to change the habit while you do this. You are simply just learning about your habit and doing some research before you form a plan.
3) The Reward: Identifying the reward is important because it is what satisfies your craving. Some rewards may be more obvious than others. Sometimes it is beneficial to play around with different “behaviour substitutes” that lead to different rewards to identify what it is your body is really craving.
|
Cue |
Behaviour |
Reward |
|||
| 1) | Boredom + Late Night |
Junk Food Eating |
Hunger Satisfied |
||
| 2) | Mid Afternoon |
Eating a Sugary Snack |
Boost of Energy |
||
| 3) | Stress |
Drinking Alcohol |
Feeling more Relaxed |
||
THE PLAN: Instead of eliminating a habit – try to replace it. The idea of simply not doing something might seem easy. However, we now know that our behaviour is happening to get some sort of reward. So not doing anything and not getting any reward might be a lot harder.
| Cue | Behaviour | Reward | Behaviour Replacement |
| 1) Boredom + Late Night | Junk Food Eating | Hunger Satisfied | Eating More during the day |
| 2) Mid Afternoon | Eating a Sugary Snack | Boost of Energy | Going for a walk and/or socializing |
| 3) Stress | Drinking Alcohol | Feeling more relaxed | Taking a bath and/or drinking tea |
A Couple other Ideas to Buff Up your Plan:
- Do it with a Friend – Having a partner helps to increase motivation to stick to your goal.
- LEARN more about it – Build your knowledge and awareness surrounding your habit. The more you know about how your habit affects your body, the easier it will be to let it go.
- Make it LESS Convenient – Keep the junk food out and alcohol out of your house and have healthy substitutes readily available instead.
References:
Orbell S, Verplanken B. The automatic component of habit in health behavior: Habit as cue-contingent automaticity. Health Psychology, Vol 29(4), Jul 2010, 374-383.
Neal D T, Wood W, Quinn J M. Habits – A Repeat Performance. Association for Psychological Science. Duke University. Volume 15. Issue 4. 2006.
Duhigg Charles. The Power of a Habit. 2012. Double day Canada
Marteau T, Hollands G, Fletcher P. Changing Human Behavior to Prevent Disease: The Importance of Targeting Automatic Processes. Science 21 Sep 2012: Vol. 337, Issue 6101, pp. 1492-149