How to break bad habits? Psychotherapy seeks the root of the problem

Getting up early, drinking coffee in the afternoon, biting our nails, singing so we don’t feel alone, cursing when something frustrates us, smoking… Some of our habits have been with us since childhood, and others we acquired as adults. Once installed, and if we want to leave them, they will resist.

Most habits develop by imitation and learning during the first years of life. says clinical psychologist Glenda Pinto Guevara. They are part of the routines that are learned in the family, institutions and the social environment. “Both good and bad habits are actions that we fix through repetition and execute on autopilot within our daily routine.”

They have a function. They relieve us of the emotional burden or help us to carry out certain tasks. By creating a habit, the brain can focus on more complex processes and more elaborate decisions, Pinto says.

Why is it harder to break bad habits?

The appeal of a bad habit is the immediate gratification it gives us.summarizes Pinto. Junk food generates pleasure right at the moment of consuming it and prevents us from worrying about hunger, even if it is not healthy.

“In contrast, good habits take time to show their long-term rewards, but they have enormous depth that transcends immediacy. Its benefit is evident and the empowerment it generates is transformative”, deepens the psychologist.

Replacing bad habits with healthy ones is not something spontaneous or instantaneous. “There is no specific time to achieve it,” warns Pinto, and disagrees with the theory that in 21 days it is possible to get rid of a bad habit or master a good one. “It is a myth. The time will depend on the person, their perseverance, their strength and how deep-rooted the bad habit they want to change is.

Nor is it a matter of pure discipline. It is the joint work of at least three areas of the brain.

1. The basal ganglia play an important role in positive forms of motivation and are involved in the formation of habits and routines. Pinto explains what constitutes a reward circuit.
2. The extended amygdala handles the stressful feelings such as anxiety, irritability and restlessness, which are activated particularly in situations of (drug) withdrawal, which drives them to use again.
3. And the prefrontal cortex directs the ability to think, plan, solve problems, make decisions, and Control your own impulses. It is the last part of the brain to reach maturity, and this explains why children and young people have more difficulty controlling impulses.

The feeling of pleasure is a healthy brain’s way of identifying and reinforcing beneficial behaviors such as eating, socializing, or sexual activity. “The brain is designed to increase the chances that we will repeat pleasurable activities”says Pinto. Every time the reward circuit is activated by a healthy and pleasant experience, a burst of dopamine sends the signal that something worth remembering is happening. Form habits.

If the brain is abused, those synaptic circuits are damaged, the reward nucleus is affected, and the brain needs more dopamine than it normally asked for.

Once you’ve become accustomed to immediate gratification through a bad habit, the brain will try to suppress the stress the amygdala generates by seeking enough dopamine from the basal ganglia for immediate gratification. And you will get it through bad habit. Hence, the bad habit is the first thing a person thinks of when unpleasant sensations appear. in his mind, triggering the automatic impulse.

Therefore, the most important thing when it comes to changing habits is to find an internal motivation, not a duty, but a strong internal commitment that is only achieved after personal work and understanding of how the mind works and how bad habits affect to the life. From this you get inner strength to take the step towards a healthy life.

“Even if external circumstances change, the engine will remain intact because you will have the power to feed it.”

Is it true that to break a bad habit you have to replace it?

This is not a rule, contributes Dr. Mónica Llanos Encalada. “To abandon a bad habit we first have to be aware of what caused it; if we don’t identify its source, we may make the mistake of replacing it with something just as bad.” Someone who turned to alcohol may change it to smoking or compulsive eating.

Stress and anxiety play against. These states of mind lead us to acquire bad habits, because when they are strong and frequent they lead us to think that we cannot handle them, and we try to anesthetize emotions with something momentarybe it drink, food, drugs or any other type of addiction or evasion.

“First we must deal with the source, and then replace the thought and emotion attached to that bad habit. By modifying the former we are working on making new neural connections that will make it easier for us to change negative behaviors”. Llanos proposes a “systematic and persistent comprehensive reprogramming”, because just as a bad habit was consolidated, a new action will require determination and constant practice.

Here are some guidelines to follow:

• Identify the cause or root that gave rise to the bad habit.
• Replace the thoughts (justifications) and emotions linked to it.
• Make the conscious decision of the convenience of leaving it.
• Find different and healthy ways to process the strong emotional states that overwhelm us.
• Adopt positive habits whose result is personal well-being and that of others.
• Do a constant repetition even when we do not see results or it is difficult for us to do so.
• Ask for support from someone who encourages and monitors in the first phase, which is the most difficult to overcome.

A bad habit not only affects us personally, but also our interpersonal relationships and work performance. Today’s society promotes complacency and indulgence as a right, with the risk of falling into excessive tolerance towards destructive habits, under a false concept of freedom, says Llanos. “We are allowing the development of a sick, dissociated society, which is not projected to transcend.”

Anxiety, fear and bad habits

Anxiety and bad habits interact with each other, “as if one caused the other and vice versa.” They form trapping circles, says Pinto. Anxiety can precipitate us into a bad habit. And this becomes the reflex act to relieve anxiety.

Not only eating or drinking can be considered bad habits. There are dysfunctional behaviors such as overreacting to situations, adopting a sedentary lifestyle as a lifestyle (accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic), polarizing thoughts (all or nothing, good or bad, beautiful or ugly), avoiding social contact, mismanaging time, worrying more about health, overloading with information…

At the axis of the combination of anxiety and bad habits is irrational and disproportionate fear, that makes behavior that is initially healthy become harmful, if taken to the extreme, such as taking care of yourself or protecting yourself from contagion. Anxiety can give a harmless habit an intensity, frequency, and dysfunctional thoughts that make it uncomfortable. A good habit should not cause torment or anguishteaches Pinto.

“To work on anxiety and bad habits, there are very effective psychotherapies to retrain the brain and our behaviors, unraveling the motivations that guide and provoke them, so that you regain control over your own ideas and behaviors.” Pinto mentions the cognitive behavioral therapies (especially in addictions), and the strategic brief therapy (SBT) techniqueswhich help to unblock behaviors, guiding towards the desired change, with a psychotherapeutic work of relatively short duration. (F)