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Bad habits are just the nervous system trying to regulate itself

Writer's picture: Sam StoneSam Stone

Nail biting, smoking, eating mindlessly, hair pulling, skin picking, staying up late, drinking alcohol, scrolling through a social media vortex, and any other activity that you find yourself habitually and mindlessly doing. Although none of these activities are a crime within themselves, if you do not like the fact that you do any of these habits, or they are getting in the way of other important things, and still continue to do them, then this could indicate that your nervous system is trying to regulate itself in some way. Even though these habits do very little to regulate the nervous system, because they are even more activating to the system, they are a good way to distract you from actually feeling the discomfort or distress.


This is how your bad habit began – as a short term relief, associated with certain contexts. Through repetition, it gains traction in the mind and body which then produces a complete “absence of awareness, conscious control, cognitive effort, or deliberation”. It may have gotten to a point where you do not feel in control of it anymore, because it is consistently overriding other helpful and adaptive habits.


Interestingly, new research is demonstrating that habits are their own living breathing things and not simply individual responses to triggers or stimuli! They are described as “self-sustaining networks of bodily, neural and interactional processes that become a person’s normal identities” which then weave into perceptions, thoughts and behaviours.


Newer research indicates that habits have a life of their own. How does this feel as you reflect on that statement? Emotions on different ends of the spectrum can emerge. It could feel validating and you may have the thought “I knew it”! You may feel anger and grief at the time and energy lost berating yourself for continuing to engage in these habits. (Self criticism activates the nervous system in a way which makes it even more likely that you will use these habits to cope! It activates the amygdala and down regulates the prefrontal cortex). You may even feel a little sad, with a sense of powerlessness of how to overcome the monsters that have been created. Whatever reactions you are experiencing are normal and can be useful in moving towards your next step in gradually overcoming your bad habits in a holistic way (Ramirez-Vizacaya & Froese, 2019).


Research suggests that to break a bad habit, high motivation AND effective self regulatory skills are required, to override the strong, seductive pull toward the path of least resistance (Hagger & Rebar, 2020). It will be helpful to use top-down and bottom-up approaches to increase motivation and to self regulate.

Choose one habit to break at a time. Trying to break lots of habits at the same time will dilute your motivation, concentration and effort. Let’s streamline all your motivation to one thing at a time.


Identify your first habit to break.


Top down approaches to increase motivation.


Make the bad habit unattractive. Take your journal and write down all the advantages and disadvantages of engaging in this habit in the short term, one year from now, five and ten years from now. Write down what will happen, how this will feel emotionally, physically and the consequences. Note down all the benefits and drawbacks of breaking it in the short term, one year from now, five and ten years from now. Write down what will happen, how this will feel emotionally, physically and the consequences.


Yes there are advantages of engaging in the habit and disadvantages of breaking it, otherwise you would have stopped by now. It is normal to feel sad when breaking a bad habit. Other emotions may emerge as a consequence. Be curious, be compassionate and stay with it. If this is too difficult or activating, please seek support!


Build awareness of the times of day, and cues to when this habit occurs. Create a motivation ritual by doing something that you enjoy before these times. This will create some room between the cue or trigger, and the response to it. Eventually you will be able to stretch out this moment enough so that you can make a more informed choice.


For example, lets say that you usually crave chips at around 3pm. You know the disadvantages of engaging in this behaviour and advantages of stopping. Just before 3pm, you create the ritual to take three deep breaths and smile. You connect into the feeling that you want to feel and suddenly those chips will feel less desirable because eating them would produce the other less desired feeling (Clear, 2018).


Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) is a technique used in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) where you fully expect the discomfort of resisting the urge to act on the compulsion or bad habit. Even still, you 'ride the wave' of the discomfort until it surpasses, without distracting from it. The bottom up approach here will help you do just that.


Bottom-up approach to enhance self regulatory skills.


Breathing techniques achieve the desired relaxation response that the bad habits are trying (but failing) to do. As long as this is diaphragmatic breathing. This means breathing in right down to the diaphragm as opposed to shallow breaths up in the chest. Deep breathing in this way stimulates the vagus nerve, which wraps around several of our internal organs and sends the message right back up to the brain that it is safe to relax. This process is very fast and can take as little as 45 seconds (Sweeton, 2019).


Box breathing is practiced by navy seals to help them keep their cool under pressure. This is where you breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four and hold for a count of four. Try a couple of rounds of this.


References


Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. New York: Penguin Random House LLC


Hagger, M. S. & Rebar, A. L. (2020). Habits. In: Sweeny, K., Robbins, M. L. & Cohen, L. M. The Wiley encyclopaedia of health psychology. (Eds.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119057840.ch64


Ramirez-Vizcaya, S. & Froese, T. (2019). The enactive approach to habits: new concepts for the cognitive science of bad habits and addiction. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00301


Sweeton, J. (2019). Trauma treatment toolbox. Eau Claire: PESI Publishing and Media.


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