The Road to Giving Up Unhealthy Habits: 4 Places to Begin
We all know that unhealthy habits are detrimental to us, yet we continue to have them in our lives. But when it comes to breaking these habits, what are the things we need to address so we can overcome these negative habits and mindsets?
Replacing Bad Habits With Better Ones
We all have habits, good and bad. It’s about making sure that we slowly remove the bad habits from our lives. Smoking is one of those things that is notoriously difficult to give up, which is why replacing this habit with vaping is a good place to begin. When it comes to vaping, ejuiceconnect.com is the cheapest online vape shop to get you started with this habit.
The problem most of us have is thinking that any form of addiction is a bad one. The fact is there can be people that have addictive personalities, but it’s about making sure that those habits in our lives are the right ones. So if you are looking for some inspiration, health.harvard.edu lists a few great healthy habits to get you started.
Reduce Your Stress Levels
Many bad habits, for example, consuming a lot of sugar, provide a reward system for the brain. As dopamine is a chemical that transmits signals between neurons in the brain, you can get a euphoric feeling from doing something like consuming sugar or even going on social media. A lot of rewarding stimuli are incredibly powerful, and as we get that major rush from these things, the frontal lobe of our brain becomes overwhelmed. But we can then offset this by opting for less stress in our lives.
It’s not an easy thing to do, but if we feel stressed and we end up comfort eating, if we start to actively focus on stress reduction techniques like meditation or exercising regularly and getting more sleep, this will improve our brain health and our willpower in the process.
Understand Your Triggers
A trigger is the first part of a habit. A habit starts with a trigger, then progresses to the routine, and then the reward your brain or body feels. Many people relapse because they don’t understand their triggers. For example, if you smoke, identifying the situations where you normally smoke and then removing them can help to reduce those triggers. For example, if you smoke during work breaks.
Don’t Neglect Your Progress
It is important to remember that giving up anything unhealthy can take a long time. When we take two steps forward and one step back, we can feel that temptation to chastise ourselves because we’re not demonstrating substantial willpower. But progress is progress, and we must prepare for slip-ups from time to time.
It can be easy to slip back into old patterns, especially when the new patterns haven’t been set yet. It can take around three months for a habit to form, and this is a long time when you want to start creating a healthier lifestyle so you can benefit from it. Therefore you shouldn’t underestimate the progress you have made.
