Your health can be directly and indirectly affected by engaging with certain bad habits in your life, from smoking to over-consumption of alcohol. If you manage to quit these habits, or at least lower the amount you engage with them, then you will see a range of benefits for your health and overall life. This is what you need to know about bad habits within your life.
Identifying Your Triggers
Identifying your triggers will allow you to find the small steps that make your habit. From there, you will be able to change the small details within your behaviors and move past them. Consider what time of the day you usually engage with a bad habit, and where you are when it happens.
Consider how you feel at the time too, in terms of your mindset and if you feel happy or guilty during the time. Is it something you do alone, or with a group of people? You should also be able to identify if this habit usually happens right after something else you’ve done.
All of these questions you can ask yourself to find out, or ask someone to watch you. Based on the triggers at hand, you can slowly remove them to kick off the habits over time. Most bad habits will have the same core triggers to look out for, from the cue to craving, response, and reward.
Focus On Why You Want To Quit
Depending on what your bad habit is, there could be several reasons as to why you want to quit. One of the best ways to make this happen in all cases is to change your behavior towards the bad habit, to allow the change that you want to come through. This means making it seem more valuable and beneficial to you compared to the bad habit.
You could do this by taking a few minutes to consider why you want to change your life away from this habit and break it. Consider the benefits that could happen and list the reasons you’ve not yet been able to make this happen yet, whilst also comparing it to the reasons you want to change.
If you want to motivate yourself to make this change happen, consider writing down these reasons and putting them somewhere you will see regularly. This could be on the fridge or by the mirror where you get ready each morning. This list could help keep the ideas of change fresh in your mind and help you keep to it.
One of the most infamous bad habits that people want to break comes in the form of smoking. This is because smoking can cause a range of health issues, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, and chronic diseases.
That’s why you should be aware of these early warning signs of lung cancer, as it can be hard to spot the signs otherwise. Tobacco is one of the leading causes of lung cancer which can come in two different forms. Depending on which cancer you could have, will lead to different types of treatment being available, which is why it’s important to find the signs early.
The best solution is to quit smoking as soon as possible, or quitting tobacco-based products in general. This should be one of your motivators to quit, to best protect your health.
Get A Support Network
Another effective way to try and quit bad habits is to talk to those around you about your struggles and issues. This group of people that you talk to will be known as your support network. It’s the reason that many rehabilitation clinics and groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous sit people together who are struggling to discuss the issues that are affecting them.
This is an effective way of getting professional help, as you know the people you are speaking to will truly understand where you are coming from. Speaking to others about what’s going on with your health and habits also makes it seem more real, which can help you to focus on the matter at hand.
If you don’t want to go to any group, then consider enlisting a friend for support. If you find that a friend also wants to quit a habit, even if it’s completely different to you. That way, you can support each other to quit, whilst celebrating each other’s success along the journey.
You could also enlist a friend for general support even if they don’t have any habits that they wish to change. This could lead to your friend encouraging you during any times of doubt you may have whilst on your journey, as well as reminding you of your goal to prevent you from slipping back into the bad habit.
Replace The Habit With A Different One
It can be difficult for people to completely break a habit. That’s why it may be a good idea for you to replace a bad habit with something not as bad. Take snacking for example, whilst it can be difficult to resist hunger when you’re used to snacking throughout the day, it is easier to swap out the snack you’re having.
This means you could change candy out for fruit or nuts in the day, to still satisfy your hunger, but in a much healthier way. The more you repeat this behavior, then the more your body and mind will get used to it until the behavior is rewritten.
Prepare For Slipups
Nobody will be able to get through a bad habit without slipping up in some small way. If you prepare yourself for slipups, then it gives you the chance to learn from the experiences and change the approach if needed. It’s perfectly human to be imperfect.
Slipups can come up in a variety of different ways. It can be very easy to slip back into old patterns especially as you’re still trying to find your way. It will take time for you to get used to the new change coming to your health, so don’t overwhelm yourself in the early stage.
Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels
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