Is it possible to break bad habits

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

This can set up potentially harmful routines, such as overeating, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, gambling and even compulsive use of computers and social media. Russell Poldrack, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin. Both types of habits are based on the same types of brain mechanisms. And this difference makes the pleasure-based habits so much harder to break.

Enjoyable behaviors can prompt your brain to release a chemical called dopamine A brain chemical that regulates movement, emotion, motivation and pleasure. In a sense, then, parts of our brains are working against us when we try to overcome bad habits. The good news is, humans are not simply creatures of habit. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University. One approach is to focus on becoming more aware of your unhealthy habits. Then develop strategies to counteract them.

For example, habits can be linked in our minds to certain places and activities. Knowing your triggers can help you avoid them. Berkman suggests that smokers dispose of items like ashtrays that might remind them of their habit or people who are trying to cut back on drinking should avoid walking by the bar they always pop into for happy hour.

Capitalizing on major life changes can also help break an unhealthy habit. While you might think a cross-country move or a new job is no time to introduce even more changes into your life, Berkman notes that shifts in lifestyle can actually be the ideal opportunity for eliminating a vice. Some studies have shown that the more you suppress your thoughts, the more likely you are to think about that thought or even revert back to that bad habit.

Similarly, a study published in Psychological Science found that smokers who tried to restrain their thoughts about smoking wound up thinking about it even more. Conversely, if you tell yourself to chew gum every time you want a cigarette, your brain has a more positive, concrete action to do, he notes.

What's in it for you? You let off some steam and feel a little better for the moment. Or you have a bad habit of leaving the dishes unwashed? The payoff could be that you get to spend more time on the Internet! Next, take a look at the trade-off. What is it that you are losing by exercising your habit? This step should be easier. Just think why it is that you consider it a bad habit in the first place. Yelling at your kids is a bad habit because it leaves everybody feeling tense and tears down your children's self-esteem.

You are trading a temporary release of tension for the emotional health of your children. Leaving the dishes undone is a bad habit because your kitchen is a smelly mess. To have more Internet time you are trading off having a pleasant living environment. When you look at it that way it doesn't seem like you are making very wise choices, does it? There has to be a better way. Now that you've weighed both sides of the issue--your payoff and your tradeoff--it's time to make a choice.

It's no longer an involuntary act because now you know that you are making a choice every time you perform this action. You are choosing what you value more: the payoff or the tradeoff!

Each time you start to do whatever the bad habit is now you have to actively choose. Which do you value more?