Bad Habits Are Hard to Break—These Tips Can Help

Woman biting her nails

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It often feels like everyone is talking about habits. There are supposedly a million little habits that can 'change your life', but what about getting rid of the ones that inhibit us from becoming our best selves?

Habits are a valuable part of a healthy lifestyle because good daily behaviors get locked in as they become automatic. However (though we may not always like to admit it), we all have bad habits, which can range from the merely inconvenient like biting your nails, to seriously longevity-threatening like smoking. But man are bad habits hard to break!

Unfortunately, there's no single answer that will work for everyone. However, just becoming aware of your negative behaviors is an important first step. Habits develop with repetition. Understanding the pattern that supports a bad habit can then help you short-circuit the loop.

As New York Times investigative reporter Charles Duhigg outlines in his authoritative book The Power of Habit, all undesirable behaviors share these fundamental traits:

Let's dig into some of the reasons we perpetuate our bad habits and unpack some (admittedly, probably not so easy) ways to overcome them.

At a Glance

The information in this article should help you devise a plan to break a bad habit, and perhaps substitute a healthier or more positive behavior in place of the negative one. If it's social contact you desire, plan a walk with a friend instead of drinks at the end of your work shift; if it's a calm moment in a frantic day, consider a mini-meditation session to refocus. You need to find the cue, identify the reward, and trust that very small behaviors can lead to big change.

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How Is a Bad Habit Reinforced?

It's easy to see that a habit like brushing your teeth may be triggered by bedtime (the cue), the teeth brushing itself (the routine) follows, and the reward delivered (mouth tastes clean and fresh, bedtime readiness is underway).

Even negative behaviors offer a reward of some kind. Perhaps it's anxiety relief, as it might be in the case of cigarette smoking; maybe you crave social contact and find it most easily over too many drinks at the bar after a stressful day at work. Unless you try and dissect the powerful components of this loop, you are doomed to repeat the bad habit.

According to Duhigg's research, the only way to short-circuit the habitual pattern is to identify the cue, the routine, and the reward they deliver. Since the habit (the routine) might be more obvious as the behavior you're trying to eliminate, the greater challenge can be isolating the cue and the reward.

Steps to Breaking a Bad Habit

Try these strategies to help you interrupt the cycle of negative behavior.

"It's important to remember that any change (good or bad) can feel overwhelming. When we want to change a behavior, it can be difficult (but not impossible!) and take time. We need to be patient and kind to ourselves," says Rachel Goldman, PhD.

Find the Cue

Try writing down at least five events that occur the moment the urge for the automatic behavior hits, to reveal the cue. Ask yourself who else is on the scene, what time of day it is, or what happened immediately prior? After a few days, the cue should become evident.

Identify the Reward

This can be more difficult and may require a bit of experimentation. Try altering the routine to get a different reward. Is it the fresh air? Does it provide a distraction? Or is it an energy boost?

Be curious and open to whatever you discover. Duhigg recommends writing down your impressions or emotions as the routine wraps up. After a few tries, the reward may be revealed.

Small Changes Make a Big Difference

Sometimes a simple tweak can derail an entrenched habit. For example, a team of psychologists led by David Neal of the University of Southern California studied subjects eating popcorn at a movie theater. The cinema setting was the contextual cue.

Subjects ate the popcorn regardless of whether they were hungry, and even when it was stale. When asked to use their non-dominant hand (for example, a right-hander forced to eat with their left hand), however, the habitual eating stopped.

Published in 2011 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the study concludes that disrupting the automatic consumption pattern brought the subjects' eating under "intentional control." In other words, the unconscious eating habit stopped, and the subjects became more aware of what they were doing.

Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones

When we've been doing something consistently for many years it takes up a specific amount of time in our lives. That time is filled with you doing something, so when you stop a bad habit that time can suddenly feel like a void.

For instance if we bite our nails or pick at our cuticles when we're idling, we associate doing something with our hands during the in-between moments. Instead of stopping the hand centric action altogether, you might try buying a fidget toy that you can play with in order to replace the finger biting or picking.

If you tend to go out to a bar with friends after work but you want to drink less, you don't have to stop hanging out with your friends. Have fun trying out the different mocktails your local bar offers, or suggest meeting up at a place that has fun coffee and tea options in addition to alcohol.

A Word From Verywell

The information in this article should help you devise a plan to break a bad habit, and perhaps substitute a healthier or more positive behavior in place of the negative one. If it's social contact you desire, plan a walk with a friend instead of drinks at the end of your work shift; if it's a calm moment in a frantic day, consider a mini-meditation session to refocus. You need to find the cue, identify the reward, and trust that very small behaviors can lead to big change.

1 Source
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
  1. Neal DT, Wood W, Wu M, Kurlander D. The pull of the past: when do habits persist despite conflict with motives? Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011;37(11):1428-37. doi:10.1177/0146167211419863

Additional Reading
  • Charles Duhigg. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business. Random House. 2012.

  • National Institute of Health. Breaking bad habits. US National Institutes of Health Public Information Sheet. Published January 2012.

By Sharon Basaraba
Sharon Basaraba is an award-winning reporter and senior scientific communications advisor for Alberta Health Services in Alberta, Canada.