A Simple Strategy to Change Bad Habits
Use Replacement Habits to better cope with stress and boredom.
If you examine bad habits closely, you’ll find that they’re almost always caused by two things: stress and boredom. Consider, for instance, the following list of common bad habits:
- Biting your nails
- Smoking cigarettes
- Excessive shopping
- Drinking too much
- Browsing social media
- Eating junk food
- Wasting time on your phone
Behaviors like these are coping mechanisms we use to avoid uncomfortable feelings. They provide immediate relief from stress and boredom. And as we turn to them repeatedly, over time, they become bad habits.
So, bad habits aren’t all bad. In the moment, they help address certain needs. And when you stop doing them, you simultaneously stop meeting the need it was addressing.
It’s no wonder breaking bad habits can be so difficult. But it doesn’t have to be. You can learn new and healthy ways of dealing with stress and boredom, and then use them as replacements for your bad habits.
This is best illustrated with an example. Let’s say that you want to stop wasting time online. You’ve…
