Bad habits

When it comes to bad habits, we can all be guilty, to some degree, at least. So people often consider the question of how to break a bad habit.

Habits are what we do on autopilot. That is, done automatically without thinking.

Do you have any bad habits, dear reader? Now, be honest with yourself.

I refer to those little, irritating patterns of behaviour you simply can’t help. Those obsessions you may have occasionally. Perhaps you have one or two bad habits you’d really like to break?

Now habits can be hard to break, of course, particularly bad ones.

So here’s another question. Could you break bad habits simply by being more curious about them?

Well, the psychiatrist Dr Judson Brewer certainly has an opinion to offer on that issue.

Dr Judson Brewer studies the relationship between mindfulness and addiction, and in the TEDTalk included in this post, he shares his views on everything from smoking to overeating to all those other things we do even though we know they’re bad for us.

If you want to learn more about the mechanism of habit development, then you’ll find this video interesting, and it’s definitely worth watching.

If you have habits you’d really like to break, then it would certainly make sense for you to learn more about how you developed those habits in the first place.

The more you understand, the better you’ll be able to take action and break those bad habits.

So take a few minutes now and listen to what Dr Brewer has to say. It’ll be well worth a little of your time, I promise.