If you’re reading this, I know you are struggling to break your bad habits.
Maybe you’re ashamed you’ve let it come this far.
Maybe you’ve just started a bad habit and are realizing you don’t want to keep it.
Perhaps you’re going through a transitional phase in life and realize it’s time for a change.
Maybe you’re not trying to break a bad habit for your sake, but for the sake of someone else.
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Before we get started, I want you to know that it’s okay to take your time.
It’s okay to struggle and fail.
You’re here. You showed up. And you’re ready to go for it now.
The Basics
There are good habits, bad habits, and neutral habits. But how do these work in the brain?
Let’s dive into a simplified understanding of neuroscience so we can optimize the process of breaking our bad habits.
Or, feel free to skip ahead if you’re not interested in all the sciency stuff.
Habits in Your Brain
In your brain, there is a clear distinction between habitual and goal-directed behavior, and for a good reason!
For both types of behavior, your brain creates a circuit between different areas of the cerebral cortex (responsible for a lot of things, including higher cognitive functions, language, personality, and consciousness) and the striatum (responsible for, among other things, motivation, reward-based learning, and movement control).
Okay, now that we know that, why does our brain distinguish between the two?
The brain is the most energy-consuming organ in the body and uses up about 20% of your metabolic energy.
This makes sense because the brain controls, among other things, our movements, senses, digestion, thinking, and learning.
Forming habits saves our brains time and energy when it comes to learning new things.
Imagine waking up every day having to re-learn how to walk, how to talk, how to cook, how to do the dishes, etc.
These kinds of behaviors, ones we do often, are registered in our brain as a habit.
When we frequently follow this specific order of actions, we strengthen the neural pathways through neuroplasticity, creating a sort of ‘habit loop’ in the brain.
The Habit Loop
There are three parts to the habit loop in the brain: cue, action, and reward.
This is entirely the same for good, bad, and neutral habits.
Cue/trigger
A habit starts or can start when our brain recognizes a feeling, situation, or action.
This could be anything. For example, seeing your phone, hearing your alarm clock, feeling stressed, arriving at work, or getting ready for bed.
This is what initiates the habit.
Action/routine
This is the behavior itself, an action you take as a response to that cue.
Let’s say the cue is seeing your phone. Your action could be to open social media.
Or the cue is feeling stressed, the action could be eating a tub of ice cream, smoking a cigarette, or watching TV.
Reward
The positive feeling or satisfaction that you experience when you’ve completed your action or routine is what keeps you going back to the routine.
Checking social media may make you happy.
Smoking that cigarette may make you feel less stressed.
Brushing your teeth may make you feel clean.
This is the part where your hormones play a role, specifically endorphins and dopamine, two “happy chemicals”.
These are the chemicals that are released when you do something that boosts your mood.
Now that we know how habits work in the brain, there are three more things I want to point out about habits:
We all have certain good habits that we are unaware of
Think of the things you do in the morning, or before bed. Do you brush your teeth? That’s a good habit.
Maybe you walk to work or school instead of taking the bus. That’s a good habit.
Do you usually eat a healthy snack instead of a bag of chips or candy? That’s a good habit too.
If you think about your daily life, you might have more good habits than you’d expect.
We all have some neutral habits.
Neutral habits don’t necessarily contribute to a healthier life, but also don’t take away from it.
Think about always opening a jar with your left hand.
Taking out the trash before work.
Closing the door behind you after you’ve walked through.
These are all habits that don’t necessarily contribute to happiness, but they definitely make sure your brain doesn’t use up as much energy as it would when constantly doing it differently.
I’m telling you this to help you realize that fighting your bad habits, or forming new ones, might not be as hard as you think it will be! YOU GOT THIS
The key to breaking bad habits is consciousness.
To be conscious is to be aware. In this case, it is to be aware of your triggers, actions (your habits), your emotions, and your intentions.
It is important to learn to recognize what it is that triggers you, or what your cue is, before a certain action.
This way, you can tackle the bad habit heads on, instead of trying to start in the middle and never getting to the bottom of it.
Feel, Feed, Find
Now that we know the science behind habits, we can use that to form and break habits more effectively.
We will focus on the three aspects of a habit: cue, action, and reward, to rewire our brain and change our habits.
Before we tackle our bad habits, I want to encourage you.
Forming and changing habits takes time. It doesn’t just come naturally, without effort.
So, allow yourself the time, be patient with yourself, start small, and grow gradually.
You will get there. But you don’t have to get there right away or all at once. You are allowed to grow gradually over time.
Celebrate the small victories and keep going!
Feel: Become Aware of Your Cues
The first step to breaking your bad habits might be the most confronting, and therefore potentially the hardest.
You need to figure out what your cues and triggers are.
Every time you feel the need to have a cigarette, to grab that ice cream tub from the freezer, or to doomscroll on social media, think about why you want to do that.
What are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
What do you need?
Why do you want to engage in your bad habit?
The answer to these questions is the beginning of breaking a bad habit.
If you can figure out what it is that you are actually craving on a deeper level, you can feed that feeling with a positive rather than a negative thing.
Honestly, this feeling can be anything.
Here are a few examples of cues that could trigger a bad habit:
- Feeling stressed after a day of work
- Feeling upset because you miss someone
- Feeling left out if you don’t drink
- Feeling unhappy
A cue isn’t always a feeling. It could also be a location, time, or activity. Think about maybe wanting dessert after dinner, or wanting coffee after lunch.
These are not quite examples of bad habits, but you can see how a situation might influence your actions.
You could try recognizing your cues a few times before even starting to change your habits.
Again, it’s a process, and it doesn’t have to be perfect right away.
It’s important that you experiment and learn about yourself.
Once you recognize your cues, it’s time to actively start replacing the bad habits with a better alternative.
Which brings us to step 2.
Feed: Satisfy the Underlying Need Positively
The second step in the process of breaking bad habits is to feed your feelings.
This can be in a quite literal sense, where you’re actually consuming food, or drinks, or something, or in a less literal sense, where you’re feeding the feeling by doing something else.
In the beginning, it will be quite hard to replace your bad habit with a better alternative.
We have already determined what drives our bad habits: our cues, our feelings.
There are two steps to feeding our cue or emotion.
- Realizing how our bad habits actually feed our emotions
- Replacing our bad habits with different actions that will feed our cue or emotion
Here is a simple example to understand what that means.
You just got home from work or school, and are feeling down, sad, and stressed. Your boss yelled at you, and you just want to forget about it and feel better. (CUE)
Usually, you’d sit down on the couch, start up your favorite TV show, and binge it until you fall asleep (ACTION).
The next morning, when you wake up, you feel soggy and full of regret, over wasting another night and not doing what you wanted to do.
So, when we analyze this, how can we change it?
- Recognize your feelings
In this case, feeling down, sad, and stressed.
- Recognize how you deal with those feelings.
Watching a TV show so you don’t have to think about the way you feel.
- Realize what it actually is that you need.
You want distraction and a sense of happiness.
This brings us to the last step: find a replacement for your bad habit.
Find: Discover New, Positive Habits
Once you’ve realized what you feel, what you need and want, you can channel your energy towards finding a positive routine as a replacement for the bad habit.
Here are some ideas on what you can do for some cues, instead of whatever you’re doing now:
- Feeling sad? => Listen to happy music, dance
- Feeling stressed? => Do breathing exercises
- Feeling overwhelmed? => Journal, write a poem
- Feeling bored? => Pick up a creative hobby such as painting or knitting
- Feeling anxious? => Go for a walk, or do yoga
- Feeling angry/frustrated? => Do an explosive workout such as HIIT, boxing, running or fitness
- Feeling lonely? => Call or text a family member or friend, or have a coffee in a cafe
- Feeling empty? => Refuel by practicing one of your hobbies
These are just some ideas to get you started and give you some inspiration on what to do instead.
For some people, it can really help to track their progress, for example, through a journal or even the notes app on your phone.
Or maybe you can tell a friend or family member that you are trying to break a bad habit, and ask them to help you stay committed and consistent.
Remember to take small steps to walk towards great balance.
It takes time for your brain to rewire, so allow yourself the time and commitment.
Keep using these cues to replace your bad habit instead of breaking it down.
Focusing on the positive feeling of your new habit or routine will help you stay consistent.
Feel, feed, and find. Make it personal, because it is personal.
Celebrate the small wins and the great achievements alike.
You are allowed to feel proud and happy, even if it seems like you barely achieved anything.
Are you ready to start your journey of change today?
What is the first thing you’re going to work on?
Share it with us, so we can keep each other motivated and accountable!
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