Breaking bad habits

[Martin]

Hi, I just want to know if anyone has any tips for getting out of bad subconcious habits. I have quite a few that I seriously want to get out of which vary in degrees of seriousness (biting fingernails, habitually typing "which" instead of "that" in grammar-sensitive texts despite knowing the difference, staying up into the small hours to the point where it's probably affecting my health, forgetting to eat/floss/shave, and a few others too) and I've been having no luck despite my best efforts to break from a lot of them and want to know if anyone has any mechanisms that they used to break from habits or even just ones that they have heard work. Thanks in advance!

 

[Rugi]

The first stop is recognise your crippling addiction to porn and use that to fuel your nofap life into the future

Seriously though create a timer or calendar system, make some visible feed back to show you how badly habits are affecting you and just put a tick on a chart somewhere in your room for everyday you've broken from a bad habit. These kinds of things are hard to do because they feel slow and having some sort of very simple visual representation of your progress can help greatly IMO

 

[Cam]

I can't say much about the others but for biting fingernails, its not normally just something you do, is it a reaction to something? Try and look at the times you find yourself biting your fingernails and see if theres a correlation between when you do it. I do it when I'm anxious so now when I'm anxious I try to keep my hands in my pockets and focus on something else. There's also something you can put on your fingernails which give them a really shitty taste to them so you could always try that, maybe you'll get discouraged if you find yourself wanting to vomit everytime you bite your fingernails.

 

[Like A Star]

"On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally's study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit."

You just have to start and keep at it sadly. Its a common phrase...but just do it. Keep doing it until its a new habit like stated in that quote.
Its annoying and hard, but you just have to get started and stick to it. :/

what made me stop biting my nails was getting braces and having the guy "push" my teeth back by doing some weird polishing. Ever since then, I can't bite my teeth the correct way and gave up.

 

[Lemonade]

Create a...trigger(I guess?) to make you consciously think about the habit. I used to bite my nails, so I painted them, which 1) reminded me about my habit and 2) deterred me because I'm pretty sure eating nail polish isn't good for you. Honestly, I still put my nails against my teeth, but I don't bite them off anymore and they grow to the point where I clip them. Or, you could go from another angle and just always have something in your mouth (I personally don't like gum, but that could work). I don't know about other stuff myself, but you could try for example taping the floss box (or the pick if you use those things) to your mirror so it's always in view when you go to brush your teeth and such.

 

[Gord0n]

habitually typing "which" instead of "that" in grammar-sensitive texts despite knowing the difference

I do that all the time--so much so that I've begun to question if I really know the difference or not.

 

[Yoshi]

Well I mean it's really hard to not eat while watching the show, I know friends who practically eat their fingers while they watch. I wish there was a new season coming soon though...

 

[Snap]

I'd say every habit has different solutions to break. It's really all about trying to find a unique way to make yourself think about said habit everyday or as frequently as it comes to you. When it comes to these below, these are my tips:

(biting fingernails, habitually typing "which" instead of "that" in grammar-sensitive texts despite knowing the difference, staying up into the small hours to the point where it's probably affecting my health, forgetting to eat/floss/shave, and a few others too)

Biting fingernails: If you're a girl (or a confident enough guy) you can paint your fingernails so that whenever you go to bite them they'll taste poor and remind you not to do so. Or if you bite individual fingernails like only the first one, you can wrap a bandaid around it. This would look more odd in public but not as weird at home)
Typing which instead of that: If this is mostly only on mobile, you could try setting your autocorrect for "which" to autocorrect to something ridiculous that you'll notice that way you take the extra second to think about it. That being said, if you don't truly know the difference you can't really fix it.
Staying up: (never heard the phrase "small hours" and thought that was pretty neat). This one's a bit harder since I'm currently trying to break it for myself as well but I know a friend of mine who was very successful in setting an alarm on here phone for 10:00 that would tell her it was time to sleep and then would set her Do Not Disturb to enable shortly after that so her phone wouldn't start bugging her.
Forgetting to eat/floss/shave: This is all about making the routine honestly. For eating, you could try setting an alarm on your phone for specific times that reminds you to eat and if you're really bad at it, try setting an extra couple after it as well. For flossing if you remember to brush your teeth, try setting the floss right in front of your toothbrush every morning that way you see the floss there and have it click in your mind that you need to do that. Honestly, I don't know about the shaving one, I can't think of anything. You could try writing a note on your mirror but that's all I got.

Another big thing is that trying to break/create multiple habits at once is very difficult, it's much easier to take things one at a time that way you can be sure that they stick. I Hope some of these help you though.

 

[Taylor]

I agree finding a new interest/hobby to replace the habit you want to kick is the best way to go about giving up on something you wish to stop. It may not be the exact same thing you are used to, but offering yourself the time to fallback on ways to do other things will keep you from suffering as much.

Like I have been asked to quit smoking and thought that with my current living condition and life-style, the best way to accomplish giving up the habit would be to find a replacement, similarlarities to the nicotine addiction I have, and do that instead. Now, rather than going out and buying a pack of (BAN ME PLEASE) every morning (with me not working that means I get ten pound a day on average), I will go on to buy a bag of weed. I will get a small nicotine fix when mixing (I'll lend a (BAN ME PLEASE) or two for my joints) so I don't cold-turkey myself into dangerously damaging my health as well as benefit from all the positive effects of marijuana. It works wonders because in a morning my craving for a ten bag outweighs that of a pack of cigarettes, and thus I don't feel obligated to smoke anymore.

Another example of mine is buying prescription drugs from behind the counter. I like those Solpadeine Max tablets (red ones) and they cost roughly six-to-seven pounds a flip, so whilst being advised to cut them out gradually for fear I may rely on them heavily, my mom suggested buying a cheaper alternative in co-codamol tablets costing under £2 a box! The effects are different but I am still satisfying the void of changing my habitual habits, addictions and so forth but I am also saving myself a little extra buck for pop and other goodies (or more boxes of co-cod lol).

When you break up with your partner, the heartache of it all is rather overwhelmingly upsetting and full of bad feelings/emotions which take a tole on your life after. What does one do in this instance? Get a new relationship and move on is easier said than done however.

These may be on a grander scale than say being addicted to porn and masterbation but they all have alternatives to keep you from winding yourself up and around your annoying compulsion to depend these habits/conditions.

 

[Ashaebi]

When I try to break away from bad habits I'll do two things, ask families to constantly remind you not to do certain things and stay away from compromising situations. For example if you're addicted to gambling, walk around a casino instead of a street where there is one.