Breaking Bad Habits
If you were to look in the dictionary one of the definitions of habit states that it is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. Acquired means your client wasn’t born with it and fortunately doesn’t have to die with it. Here are a few examples of bad habits:
- Eating junk food
- Smoking
- Eating unhealthy
- Nail biting
- Being late
- Cracking knuckles
- Emotional eating
Bad habits as a way to cope
Bad habits are generally acquired through necessity. People need to find comfortable ways to cope with things that happen in life. Bad habits are behaviors learned to help deal with usually ordinary everyday events due to a lack of healthier options to deal with these situations. For example, a client might eat junk food to deal with anxiety versus taking a deep and moving through the anxiety.
Why does a bad habit feel involuntary?
A bad habit feels involuntary because it’s been used as an automated way to cope for a long time. Using the above example, when anxiety comes up your client will automatically eat junk food. If eating junk food satisfies the need to cope the bad habit continues. An event happens and without much conscious thought a bad habit follows. This is how people lose their sense of controllability over the habit. Bad habits are not an inherited trait and your clients have control over whether or not they continue to use bad habits to cope.
How can I help clients reverse bad habits?
Your client will generally change when they perceive a problem or need for change. Initially they may focus on the difficulty of change and the reasons for not changing may outweigh the reasons for changing. If the problem continues they will start to see the positive in the reasons for change and beginning plan for that change. Change is this area generally happens slowly. It may start through education, talking to family and friends, or doing some research on options to help figure out what else is going to work for them.
It’s difficult to change what’s comfortable and familiar even if it is negative. Many people may not realize (for years) that what they are doing is ‘bad’ or ‘negative’. Once realized people begin to feel like they don’t have options. They don’t feel like they have any control over the bad habit.
After realizing that change is inevitable, help your client feel like they have control by providing them with some education on what their options are or who they might talk to (if this is out of your scope of practice). Starting there will help build your clients self esteem and begin to help them feel as though they are in control of the situation.
How can I help clients to change bad habits?
Bad habits are reversible and one way of reversing them starts with understanding the root cause. For example, have a conversation with your client around when she started eating junk food and why. She’s probably never thought about it and probably had a very good reason for initially eating junk food when she felt anxious. If she wants to stop eating junk food help her to find a better way to deal with her anxiety as it pertains to the work you do with her. For example, if a better way to deal with her nerves is to take a deep breath, she will need to change that cognitive-behavior link from junk food to taking a deep breath. She will have to remind her brain (over and over) that she is going to use a deep breath rather than eating junk food. This will take time. Here are a couple of tips to suggest to your clients to help them remind their brain of the change:
- Post sticky notes in high stress areas
- Put ‘deep breath’ on her computer and cell phone wall paper
- Suggest that she ask loved ones to remind her during times of anxiety
- If you see this behavior don’t focus on the junk food but suggest that she take a deep breath; focus on the positive
Seeing this, hearing this and doing this over and over will then start to feel involuntary and will build a new blue print and replace the old blueprint in your client’s brain.
How can I help a client stick to a change in a bad habit?
The key to help your clients stick to changes in bad habits is to help them have a sense of control over what they are doing, when they are doing it and where. For example, maybe your client has anxiety around working out which leads to eating junk food. Help her choose a workout she loves or something she thinks she’ll grow to love and have fun with. Add in social support such as friends, co-workers or family members to help keep her engaged. Similar to anything new, she needs to realize that she is starting off with a sense of newness but those feelings go away; as with anything in life that is new.
Follow that up by helping your client set realistic goals to help her stay motivated. Realistic means what’s reality for your client; what can she do that will push her but not put her so far that she fails and feels unsuccessful. As your client finds herself reaching one goal she’ll find her confidence increasing to reach the next goal.
Conclusion
It is definitely not your job to assess your client’s habits and make a determination (judgment) about which are good and which are bad. If your client asks you can: give them options of alternatives, help clients build ways to change their automated response and collaboratively help them develop goals so they see successes.
If they don’t ask here are another couple of solutions to helping your clients break bad habits.
- Add some questions to your PAR-Q around how clients deal with anxiety, lack of motivation, lack of focus, etc.
- Once you get to better know a client ask about behaviors that are unhealthy.
If you need helping breaking bad habits or helping a client develop some healthier coping skills let me know.
Happy Wednesday!
Dr. Michelle
Photo credit: Morgaine
