...HOW TO BREAK BAD HABITS ENGL106-1205B-212 Instructor: Alaina Lett American Intercontinental University Demantre’ R. Jones February 10, 2013 . Habits are things that people do good or bad repeatedly. People start their own habits, and they are very hard to break. Whether it is good or bad habits; it is something that the person has to choose to change. A habit in terms is: “Jerry likes to ride his bike,” that is one of Jerry’s habits. Breaking bad habits is one of the hardest things to do. Smoking is a bad habit that millions of people choose to do. Some people smoke due to stress and other issues, which still doesn’t make the habit good. People die from cancer because of smoking and people still choose to smoke. Breaking this habit comes with a perfect mind state and patience and a will to stop completely. Drinking alcohol carelessly is a bad habit that some people have. Drinking too much alcohol can eat your kidney and liver, which can end in a terrible illness. Millions of people drink irresponsibly, which is also the main reason for car accident deaths. An estimated 10,839 people died in the United States in 2012 due to drunk driving accidents accounting to 32% of total traffic deaths. (www.centurycouncil.org>Drunk Driving>Research) The process to breaking smoking habits is first to acknowledge that it is wrong. Secondly you have to be willing to quit. The outcome is to stop smoking. Third you have to ask...
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...Bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They jeopardize your health — both mentally and physically. And they waste your time and energy. So why do we still do them? And most importantly, is there anything you can do about it? I’ve previously written about the science of how habits start, so now let’s focus on the practice of making changes in the real world. How can you delete your bad behaviors and stick to good ones instead? I certainly don’t have all of the answers, but keep reading and I’ll share what I’ve learned about how to break a bad habit. What causes bad habits? Most of your bad habits are caused by two things… Stress and boredom. Most of the time, bad habits are simply a way of dealing with stress and boredom. Everything from biting your nails to overspending on a shopping spree to drinking every weekend to wasting time on the internet can be a simple response to stress and boredom. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can teach yourself new and healthy ways to deal with stress and boredom, which you can then substitute in place of your bad habits. Of course, sometimes the stress or boredom that is on the surface is actually caused by deeper issues. These issues can be tough to think about, but if you’re serious about making changes then you have to be honest with yourself. Are there certain beliefs or reasons that are behind the bad habit? Is there something deeper — a fear, an event, or a limiting...
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...How to Break a Bad Habit Julia R Scott AIU Online Abstract People deal with habits every day. It may be biting nails, smoking, sexual addictions, alcohol, drugs, and even popping or cracking one’s knuckles. In this essay three successful tips will be addressed on how to break bad habits in an everyday life. How to Break a Bad Habit In everyday life, people deal with all kinds of habits. Habits usually start off as a single thought, and then become a multitude of thoughts which creates habits. Habits can make up our character, and this character can dictate our life. It is up to a person to stop the initial negative thought from becoming a variety of negative thoughts, if not these thoughts may bring harm or destroy the person as a whole. In this essay, three tips, going cold turkey, replacing the habit, and avoidance will be discussed in order to show how these useful tools can help in guiding through to make a choice to break bad habits. Going Cold Turkey With some bad habits, being abstinent is a goal- trying to have no further relationship whatsoever with the habit. Using this as a way to break away is for people who have habits that will cause physical harm to one’s health and well-being. Usually in 12 step programs such as alcohol anonymous will use abstinence in order to change habits with ones who uses and abuses chemical substances. When a person goes cold turkey, one has to walk away from it or just completely turn their back on it. One may...
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...Running Head: Breaking a Bad Habit Breaking a Bad Habit Abstract There are many bad habits that different people have. This essay will show you some steps to help get rid of one. Breaking a Bad Habit Are you trying to break a bad habit? Do you need some help or advice on some ways to break it? Best believe that after reading this essay, you will be able to break that bad habit in no time. There are many habits that are considered to be bad. There are those like: rolling your hair with your fingers; picking skin off your lip; or smacking when you eat. How about we go with the most famous bad habit that so many people do, and that is biting their fingernails. Many people engage in nail-biting, but there are several steps that a person can use to overcome this bad habit. The first step to breaking the bad habit of nail biting is to set a goal. Most people who set goals for their bad habits have something to look forward to when they finally stop. It is one of the best ways to help gain that little push that is needed. Some people feel that if there is nothing...
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...have a few bad eating habits, whether it be munching on a bag of potato chips when you talk on the phone or scarfing down a doughnut during break time at work. You may think that it's the taste of that chocolate doughnut that keeps your hand dipping into the doughnut box. Not necessarily so. Surprisingly, some bad eating habits persist even when food tastes bad. Bad Eating Habits Persist Even When Food Tastes Bad Researchers gave groups of people attending a movie a bucket of freshly popped popcorn or a container of stale popcorn to munch on during the show. Moviegoers who didn't regularly go to the movies ate very little of the stale popcorn because they didn't like the taste. On the other hand, those who regularly purchased popcorn at the movies ate the same amount of the crunchy snack whether it was freshly popped or stale. The habit of eating popcorn at the movies was so firmly ingrained they ate it even when it didn't taste good. Even a stale, flavorless bag of popcorn wasn't enough to change their eating habits. This study suggests that once you've formed a bad eating habit, it's likely to persist even when the experience is no longer pleasurable. Outside environmental cues such as being in a movie theater or talking on the phone can be a trigger for some eating behaviors, even more so than the taste of the food itself. How many times have you found yourself mindless munching on something without really tasting it? These automatic eating habits can become...
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...Forming Habits PSY/250 Forming Habits I was raised in a family with three brothers and I had to prove myself all the time. I always felt someone else was telling me how to do things and how to run my live instead of me being able to live my own life and learn from my mistakes. Growing up with three brothers who were already in the habit of arguing when I was adopted into the family, it seems it was hard not to pick up the same habit. Were there role models for this habit? I would not call arguing a good habit. Therefore I would not state my brothers were role molds for this habit, but an influence. When there are three people around you doing the same thing, it is hard to break the habit even as we get older. To date, my brothers still argue with each other. They have to prove their point. One of my little brothers is a lawyer. I guess this is a great way for him to prove his point. Unfortunately this is a trait that my children have picked up from me. My children argue with each other and myself because they feel they have to prove themselves. They argue with me and for some reason, I allowed them to at an earlier age. My children are now 17 and almost 16. They argue with me more to the point that they will not just drop it and let it be. Everyone has to have the last word except my husband. He is the only one that will drop it or walk away. He hates the arguing. I do as well and ask the children to drop it but they do not listen. I know this is my fault because I...
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...Habits Lynette Huff PSY/250 October 28, 2013 David Dakroub Habits Habits are an acquired pattern of behavior that has become almost involuntary as a result of frequent repetition (The Free Dictionary, 2013). Habits are something that people do like either biting nails, smoking, doing drugs, or washing their hands a number of times. Some habits can be good and others can bad. Most people find it hard to break bad habits and take on good habits. The whole world can have bad and good habits those habits are what help make up our personality. Sometimes our habits are how some people perceive us and maybe even the way they treat us. We will look into how these habits can perceive us and how we can use them or not use them. When analyzing one of our habits it would be a bad one because we have a tendency to bite our nails. Nail biting started for us when we were little, why it started could not tell anyone why or how. Looking back we do not remember ever having a role model except maybe other little children that did the same thing. Do remember our mother telling us to stop biting our nails that is was bad. Now that we are older we have stopped biting our nails in some ways, the only time we bit our nails now is when we are stressed. We guess we started biting our nails again when we decided to quit smoking, which is another bad habit we picked up along the way. We started smoking and quit biting our nails when our father pasted away and we had to step up to the plate...
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...Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits PSY/250 Psychology of Personality Faye Flanagan December 9, 2013 Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits Can habits be changed or broken? Change is a process that does not happen overnight and generally it can create doubt or take a person down a winding road to their past. The result of change can be twofold and the impact depending on the person can be detrimental. For some that trip can be the very thing that improves their life or the quality of their life; for others change has the potential to cause more harm than good depending on their internal drive or emotional state of mind. From time to time it is necessary for a person to conduct a self-evaluation. Generally this activity occurs when the person wants to make a change thus the change process tends to be a smoother process than when an acquaintance, employer or friend has pointed out a flaw or offered some type of a critique. Those situations are considered as forced change and pose some type of resistance. Forced change is normally uncomfortable and causes people to leave their emotion or physical comfort zone. To answer the initial question, yes habits can be broken or changed. However, when attempting to break a habit it will be imperative to be realistic, honest, and willing to confront the past. A few years ago I noticed that something was not right. I was feeling depressed, tired, and everything irritated me. During a self-evaluation...
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...Habbit A habit can be defined as any action that we have performed so often that it becomes almost an involuntary response. If one considers a habit to be undesirable, than it may be labeled as a bad habit. Every person has some sort of bad habit and many people want to break them, but it is a very difficult task for most. People spend so much time and even money trying to break these bad habits, but have little success. In order to break these bad habits, a person needs to work very hard to want to change. Change is not easy. It does take hard work and there is no short cut to achieving it. Nancy Schimelpfenig states that the first step in breaking a bad habit is to look at why you find the action so compelling. Is there some kind of payoff for doing these bad habits? If you think about it though, there are payoffs for everything that you do whether good or bad. In order to start breaking bad habits, you need to realize the payoff of it and think if it is something really worth it, or just some k A final solution to breaking bad habits it to substitute another action in for the habit. Doing so will help to focus more on a good thing rather than a bad thing. For example, if you feel tense from something that has happened, and you need to cool off by performing in your bad habit, go out for a walk or jog to cool off instead. For one, it is healthy and good for you, and you will be progressing on breaking your bad habit. In conclusion, there are many good options to...
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...hardship we may face in our lives. It helps us overcome failures and setbacks. It makes or breaks the habits in failure and success, and it applies to all of us. It is a need we all have in our lives. It is the need for courage. “That's why courage is tricky. I mean any fool can have courage. But honor, that's the real reason you either do something or you don't. It's who you are and maybe who you want to be. If you die trying for something important, then you have both honor and courage, and that's pretty good. I think that's what the writer was saying. That you should hope for courage and try for honor. And maybe even pray that the people telling you want to do have some too.(Atom 1)” This clearly sums up how you define courage, in my opinion. With courage comes honor. When you face your obstacles knowing that they’re going to be hard or tricky, or break a habit that is courage. Although, when you do them the right way and come out on top. That is truly an honor. A person who never...
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..."Good habits are hard to develop but easy to live with" and "Bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with", according to Brian Tracey, a well-known motivational teacher. You may recognize that to successfully manage habit changes, breaking bad habits may be required in order to develop new ones. Breaking bad habits takes at least 21 days. Of course, in difficult cases, it can take as long as a year. Here's an example of the process of how to change an unhealthy habit to a healthy habit. Suppose you've decided that coffee is not good for you and right now, you drink coffee with sugar daily. The new habit you would like to institute is to drink herbal tea without sugar. At first, it may be challenging to break the bad habit of drinking coffee. You will have to use self-discipline for the first few weeks but gradually it will get easier. Once you are able to change the old habit to a new healthier one, it will serve you very well. Habits are remarkable because they don't require thinking. You just "do it" for years until you find yourself changing the habit again. There are 5 easy steps for changing habits .The first step is You must become aware of your habits. What is this habit exactly? How is this bad habit or group of bad habits affecting you? How is this habit affecting others? For example, smoking often has negative effects on others as well as on you .Secondly as someone with a health problem, you must decide that breaking bad habits through a conscious effort is...
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...A lot of parents -- maybe yours -- have strong opinions about how kids study. Maybe they think kids should do their homework right after school. Maybe they think good study habits mean kids should study in the same quiet place every day. Maybe they think that you should sit still until all your work is done.Well, parents aren't always right!A lot of new research shows that the usual ways of studying may not always be the best ways. Different kids study best in different ways. Here are some twists on study tips and good study habits. You just have to figure out what works for you. Study Tip: Move Before You Study Maybe your mom or dad tells you to do your homework as soon as you get off the bus. Ask if you can shoot hoops or run for 15 or 20 minutes first. Explain that you're not trying to put off your work. It's just that exercising your body may help your brain.Kids in a Chicago-area school do PE first if they're having problems with math or reading. They do much better on tests after they exercise. Moving before you do homework can help get your brain ready to study. Study Tip: Pick Your Study Spot Your parents may have set up a great desk in a quiet room. But you feel better doing homework on the floor in the living room or in your bedroom. The important thing is to find a place where you'll pay attention.Your bedroom might give you privacy. That's great if you have annoying brothers or sisters. But if you start looking at the stuff in your room instead of your math...
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...her daughter and two nieces all who were in the same car. That women will serve her sentencing but will never be able to bring back her loved ones back from the accident. The constant reminders of roadway accidents ending in tragedy, such as those police reports, are widely spread across our nation. All tragic stories are disheartening to hear and think about; a reminder to play our part in keeping our roads safer. Tragedy may effect your next door neighbor or a stranger in the local supermarket; no matter who we are or what our background is tragedy exist and does not discriminate against anyone. People can make a difference to their daily living. There are those small percentage of people who has a habit that is difficult to break. For example, the habit of their constant smartphone use plays a major role in contributing to the dangers on our roadways. Inevitably our culture lives in the age of technology. Everywhere you look, everyone you hear are reaping the benefits from social networking which is healthy to so many socialites. Social networking connects to a wide range of groups from...
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...her mouth to bite her nails. This habit constantly makes her sick because of all the germs she puts into her mouth from daycare and everyday activities. Also, Lia has another bad habit of playing with multiple types of toys and leaving them all over the house for others to trip on. With both of these bothersome and dangerous behaviors, Lia’s mom (my sister Emily), has been trying to teach Lia not to continue these bad habits. In order for Emily to really teach Lia to stop her bad habits she must appreciate operant conditioning. Operant Conditioning is how Lia will learn to differentiate between her behaviors and the consequences that Emily enforces. In some cases, Emily can also use classical conditioning to help Lia break her habits. Classical conditioning is when there is a neutral stimulus that causes an unconditioned stimulus which eventually translates into a conditioned response. The difference between operant conditioning and classical conditioning is that operant conditioning involves some type of reinforcement or punishment to a behavior whereas classical conditioning involves signals that produce automatic behaviors. The first bad behavior Lia has, as mentioned above, is her nail bitting. This is a behavior that Emily is specifically trying to decrease. Since Emily is trying to decrease Lia’s behavior she is using a form of punishment. Emily bought a paste that has a bitter taste, specifically designed to stop nail bitting habits, which she rubs over Lia’s nails...
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... Thursday January 10, 2012 i. Introduction: a. We all know we shouldn't smoke, but why is smoking bad for you? Instead of just taking it at face value let's break down the specific reasons why smoking is bad for you and, if you are a smoker, why you should stop smoking as soon as possible. b. Yes, smoking is bad for your health. c. There is health, cosmetic, and financial reasons why smoking is bad for you. ii. BP 1- 2nd best argument a. First of all, smoking can cause many risks in your health. b. First and foremost, smoking is horrible for your health and leads to numerous diseases and disorders. c. “Smoking leads to cancer, heart diseases, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD alone kills thousands of smokers yearly. From the first breath of smoke the damage begins and the longer a smoker continues smoking the worse the damage becomes.” d. Basically it explains how smoking is bad for you, and affects your health. Just by smoking it leads to many risk factors. Lots of damages go towards your lungs, respiratory system, but also to other parts of the body. e. Smoking could change your life dramatically. iii. BP 2- least effective argument a. Second of all, smoking has many unpleasant cosmetic on the smoker. b. Smoking gives you bad breath. Continuous smoking also leads to yellow teeth. A smoker is three times more likely than a non smoker to lose their teeth. ...
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