10 Common Bad Habits And How To Break Them
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Everyone has habits that they would probably be better off without. You may not have any major vices but minor ones add up and deserve attention too. “The small stuff really matters in our lives,” says Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and author of Uncovering Happiness: Overcoming Depression with Mindfulness and Self-Compassion. “Life is full of the little things.”
In reality, you’re probably not eating poorly or shirking on sleep just once a month, but, more likely, multiple times a week. If you need some help identifying changes you might aim to make, here are some of the most common bad habits and two universal fixes from Goldstein about how we can change for the better.
Related: 6 Habits That Are Aging You
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Stress-Eating
We’re a country of high-stress and high-calorie foods, so it should be no surprise that emotional eating is a common issue. There are many reasons people turn to food when they experience negative emotions, like stress, sadness, and boredom. First of all, food can serve as a distraction from unpleasant goings-on. Research has also suggested that foods that are high in fat and sugar may actually (temporarily) quiet parts of the brain that create and process negative emotions.
Related: 15 Healthy Habits You Should Already Have
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Sitting Around
Surveys have found that people, on average, spend more than six hours a day sitting. Many people sit while commuting, at work, and while unwinding at the end of the day. It may feel like your body is happier taking a seat, but spending so much time off your feet has serious health effects including increased risk of obesity, diabetes, cognitive decline (like dementia), cancer, bone loss, and even a weakened immune system.
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Not Getting Enough Sleep
Days can feel far too short, especially when you want to catch up with friends at a late dinner or binge-watch your favorite show. Late nights in moderation are okay but getting too little sleep — less than seven hours — on a regular basis can make you more prone to long-term diseases, like hypertension and diabetes, and even short-term illness. Being tired can also affect how you function during the daytime, making you less productive and more prone to errors and accidents.
Related: How to Get a Deep Night’s Sleep
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Over-Grooming
Picking at your nose and mouth and biting your nails are already social faux pas. They can also be bad for your health. As you should already know, our hands are usually teeming with nasty germs. Putting your fingers in your nose or mouth — even to fish unwanted spinach out of your teeth — is a good way to give those germs easy access to your body. Nail biting, in particular, can also raise your risk of getting skin infections on your fingers and spreading warts to other parts of your hand. In some cases, excessive grooming behaviors are considered a mental disorder related to obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Related: 9 Ways to Make Your Sleep More Efficient
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Smoking
This may feel like beating a dead horse but more than 42 million people in the U.S. still smoke cigarettes. Although this number continues to drop, it’s good for people to remember why this habit is such a serious one. Smoking is known to cause several types of cancer — including cancers of the lung, mouth, stomach, and pancreas — and increases a person’s risk of heart disease. It’s also harmful to people who are inhaling second-hand smoke. Plus, smoking is expensive. Even a “cheap” $5 pack every day adds up to $1,825.00 each year.
Related: 10 Tips to Quit Smoking
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Skipping Breakfast
There are mixed findings about whether or not skipping breakfast can help people lose weight. Generally, experts support eating a healthy morning meal because it fuels your body and mind for the beginning of the day. Research has shown that people who eat breakfast perform better in school and at work. If that’s not enough incentive, a recent study from Harvard found that men who regularly skipped breakfast were 27 percent more likely to experience a heart attack or death from coronary heart disease.
Related: The Perils of Skipping Breakfast
Overspending
Another common bad habit is overspending, usually in the form of compulsive shopping. Credit is partially to blame because it is easy to obtain and use, helping people forgo responsibility and knowledge about their finances. Overspending is also an easy trap to fall into because buying things makes people feel good in many different ways. It can give us a sense of control and add some excitement to a dull day. Being able to spend money can also make us feel better about ourselves.
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Listening to Loud Music
Hearing is something that often goes with age but there are still steps people can take to give theirs its best possible chance. Very loud, short-term sounds and sounds that may not seem so loud (but occur over a long period of time) can both contribute to noise-induced hearing loss. This affects about 15 percent of Americans, ages 20 to 69 according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Some loud sounds may be unavoidable but exposure anything above 85 decibels (equal to the sound of heavy city traffic) should be minimized. If you have to raise your voice to speak with someone two to three feet away, the sound level is likely over 85 decibels.
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Phone Addiction
No, your phone isn’t exactly the most threatening addiction. That doesn’t mean it’s something to ignore. Thanks to the advent of push notifications, many of us are now trained to grab our phone the second it flashes — or when we only think it has. This behavior takes our attention away from other things that we should probably value more, like the work in front of us or talking with friends and family.
Related: 9 Tech Habits You Should Break Now
Problematic Thinking
This is not as concrete as other bad habits people often display but it’s a crucial issue. “Our biggest bad habit is our thinking,” says Goldstein. “Before we do any of these bad habits, our mind gets in the way and says, I need this, I want this.” Although some undesirable behaviors may bring out physical reactions, the way we behave and want to behave can also be broken down by examining our thought patterns. Even for physical addictions, like smoking, the mental aspects shouldn’t be ignored.
Fix 1: Urge Surfing
Urge surfing is a mindful wait-and-see approach to fight bad habits. This practice involves paying close attention to the physical urges you feel when you want to engage in your habit. “See if you can watch your urge as it rises and it peaks and it falls away,” says Goldstein. Urge surfing is designed to train your mind to understand that your urges are temporary.
Fix 2: Find the Reason
Another way to address problematic habits is to figure out why you engage in them. This can allow us to replace our bad habits with good ones that serve the same purpose. Even if you can’t substitute your bad habit for a better one in the moment, Goldstein recommends prepping for that situation by visualizing the swap in advance. This conditions your mind to associate whatever craving you have with the better action.
Often our bad habits fulfill a need to be soothed or connected to others, so surrounding yourself with a supportive and nourishing community is another way to get rid of unwanted behaviors. “There’s no more powerful cue to make change than people,” says Goldstein. He suggests using sites like Meetup.com to find groups of people who share your self-improvement goals, whether that’s running, healthy cooking, or a tech-free weekend camping trip.
By Taylor Kubota
