People who exercise in the morning, prepare their meals in advance, and arrive five minutes early all have the ability to develop healthy habits and, more importantly, maintain them. Despite our best efforts, it can be challenging to develop healthy habits. Good or bad habits are not indicators of willpower or lack of drive. In reality, simple elements like our environment, our incentive system, and our capacity to make healthy lifestyle decisions influence how we behave.
The rationale for a habit: Our days are made up of small, repeated tasks that serve as the foundation of our habits, whether it is fluffing up our pillows in the morning or brushing our teeth at night. People have long been curious about habits since we don't really understand how they function, we find it difficult to manage them, and many of the decisions we make on a regular basis, aren't very healthy for us. Our habits have become fundamental to our contemporary culture (both good and bad). It seems like we don't have much control over our decisions, but we can grow smarter.
The following is "Your" guide to rerouting your poor habits…
Find a substitute - It can be quite tough to just stop bad habits because they often have some advantage in your life. Because of this, simple counsel like "simply quit doing it" rarely has any effect. Instead, you should swap out a negative habit for one that offers a comparable advantage. Consider this: skipping your evening dessert for a week in order to reduce your sugar intake could result in an ice cream binge after the week of restriction if you enjoy eating something sweet after dinner. Instead, switching to a healthier option like yoghurt and berries could be the best course of action.
Improve your environment - Our environment is an underappreciated factor in habit development; what and even who we surround ourselves with can have an impact on whether or not our habits stay. Create environments that help you make wise judgments whenever you can. Buying smaller plates, for instance, can facilitate weight loss by determining portion sizes for you. Similar to this, putting your willpower on autopilot by employing software to block social media sites can help you beat procrastination. When we are creating habits, more than only what and where are important. If you want to begin a regular yoga practise, enrolling in a class with others who share your goals will help your habit persist.
Reward your positive behaviours: Rewards are crucial for two reasons. The first is that you are more likely to continue engaging in rewarding behaviours, and the second is that when you receive a reward, your brain produces dopamine, one of the chemicals that connects context and behaviour in memory and aids in habit formation. Dopamine is regarded as the "feel-good" hormone, yet it has a significant impact on our habits. In actuality, dopamine surges are linked to behaviours like using social media, playing video games, and consuming sweet foods. We can maintain our commitment to our delayed rewards, like more flexibility, increased energy, and other desirable qualities, by rewarding ourselves in lesser amounts to help us establish positive habits.
Recognise the pattern: Due to the way our memory system functions, we constantly develop habits. Whether we want something to become a habit is not up to us. You only need to be conscious that whenever you repeat something, you're creating a habit. As a result, you should only do things that you truly want to do since you'll find that you'll repeat them in the future, even if you don't want to. Repeating your behaviour will make it more likely to stick, but the important thing is how you handle mistakes. One reason why learning how to see patterns is important is that one error is only an deviation, but two mistakes signal the start of a pattern.
Try the following Hacks for breaking bad habits…………………
Here are some suggestions to help you improve your negative habits in just 30 days, now that you are aware of the science behind quitting them.
Week 1: Switch your phone for a book.
Even if it's important to take a break from responding to emails, research reveals that our brains do not perceive social media browsing as true relaxation. But don't give up. There are two methods for you to assist. Moving your phone to a new area, even if it's just the room next door, can assist making it harder for you to become distracted in the first instance. In the second, a replacement for the activity is created.
Top Tip: This week, try putting your phone in a drawer in a different room and turning it off.
Weeks 2-4: Adjust your morning schedule
Adding improved habits on top of your current routine is a terrific approach to integrate them into your day. You can benefit from how behaviour is interconnected. Once you have mastered this fundamental framework, you can start chaining smaller habits together to form larger stacks. This enables you to benefit from the momentum that naturally results from one behaviour moving to the next.
Top tip: Before you make yourself a cup of coffee, consider what you'd like to include in your morning ritual. It could be as simple as reading three pages of a book or engaging in a five-minute meditation session. Do whatever it is every morning for two weeks before your cup of coffee.
Weeks 3-4: Restructure... develop new virtuous behaviours
It's time to make place for some new, healthier behaviours now that you've let go of the ones you no longer want. A quick and easy technique to rewire your mind to make a habit more appealing is to frame your behaviours to emphasise their advantages rather than their disadvantages. Consider the practise of meditation, which many overthinkers find challenging because they believe it necessitates switching off. When you realise that each distracting thought gives you a chance to practise coming back to your breath, you may turn that aggravation into delight. Although these mental adjustments are not magical, they can alter the emotions you associate with a certain behaviour or circumstance.
Top tip: Try for two weeks
Give it go and break the loop of harmful habits by moving forward.
Article by Mamuna Arshad – Cosmetic/Aesthetic Industry Professional, Lifestyle Specialist & SPORTS/COMPS Lecturer
The Busy Girl’s Guide to Aesthetics
www.thebusygirlsguidetoaesthetics.co.uk
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