What are harmful habits? by Aveen Pouranpir
If you open the dictionary and look up bad habits, one of the definitions you’ll see is ‘a patterned behavior regarded as detrimental to one’s physical or mental health, which is often linked to a lack of self-control’ (Segen’s Medical Dictionary). Harmful habits are behaviors or patterns of behavior that have negative effects on a person's physical, mental, emotional, or social well-being. “ These habits can be detrimental to a person's health, relationships, and overall quality of life.
Some examples of harmful habits include:
Smoking and tobacco use: Smoking and using tobacco products can cause a wide range of health problems, including lung cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses.
Excessive alcohol consumption: Drinking too much alcohol can lead to liver damage, addiction, and a range of physical and mental health problems.
Poor diet and lack of exercise: Failing to maintain a healthy diet and regular exercise routine can lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems.
Drug abuse: Using illegal drugs or misusing prescription medications can have serious negative consequences for a person's health and well-being.
Procrastination: Putting off important tasks or responsibilities can cause stress, anxiety, and decreased productivity.
Negative self-talk and rumination: Engaging in negative self-talk and constantly ruminating on negative thoughts can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems.
Overspending and financial mismanagement: Failing to manage one's finances responsibly can lead to financial stress, debt, and other financial problems.
It is important to remember that “a bad habit is a recurring action you do that typically provides instant satisfaction but often leads to long-term problems” (Berkeley) The key is to develop positive habits that enhance one's life while identifying and addressing harmful habits that detract from it. Breaking harmful habits can be challenging, and the process often requires a combination of self-reflection, support from others, and a willingness to make changes. For some individuals, seeking professional help may be necessary to overcome harmful habits that greatly impair their functioning in daily life.. Fortunately, there are many resources available to those seeking help, including counseling, support groups, and treatment programs.
How Habits Develop by Chloe Ford
The development of habits is actually shown to be a whole process through research studies. In this process, which is known as the “habit loop,” there are three steps: (1) Cue, (2) Routine and (3) Reward (Duhigg, 2012).
Cue: a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and prompts the behavior to unfold
For example, you receive a notification from social media.
Routine: actual behavior
For example, you automatically check the notification.
Reward: the benefit you gain from doing the behavior
For example, you find out someone liked your photo.
(University of North Carolina Chapel Hill)
As you can see above, we get into these loops all the time. This may be with social media, checking grades, dating apps, eating, drinking and so on. They grow out of repetition and continue when we reinforce it. This process can help reinforce both bad and good habits as exemplified in the section above.
The “habit loop” mainly demonstrates a more broad explanation of how habits develop, however, this process is much more complex when involving our actual brain chemistry. Dopamine is known as the “reward center” for our brain—inherently making it an integral part of the formation of habits. It acts as both a hormone and a neurotransmitter meaning it has many roles in our body’s processes. When we get to the reward section of this process, dopamine is what we get from it. Moreover, there are parts of the brain that work to form habits alongside dopamine. The basal ganglia works “in the development of emotions, memories and pattern recognition” (NPR, 2012). Along with this our prefrontal cortex helps in decision-making and impulse control. Furthermore, “these brain regions work together to associate behaviors with thoughts, emotions, and, most importantly, motor movements. But when we repeat an action over and over again, like the rats running down the maze, our brains become more efficient and fewer neurons are required to achieve the goal. This means, the more you do something, the easier it gets to carry it out because the behavior becomes literally etched in our brain as our motor movements” (Zia, 2022). These processes showcase how our brains are hard-wired to have habits and form them. Although we are not necessarily creatures of habit, they are not easy to break as our brains can work against us. It’s important to understand all of the nuances to this process as it's not linear, it's more dynamic. When you better understand how habits are formed and the ability to map out where they come from, one can learn to shape their habits to better themselves.
How Harmful Habits can Affect your Life by Phoenyx Greicius
Many harmful physical health habits can have a negative impact on physical health, with several of them contributing to the development of chronic diseases (CDC, n.d.). However, harmful physical health habits can even affect mental health. Kolt and colleagues (2022) found that those who engaged in several harmful habits, such as smoking, sitting frequently, and not getting enough sleep, exercise, and fruits and vegetables, were more likely to report higher levels of psychological distress. They also found that the participants who engaged in multiple harmful habits were more likely to develop psychological distress at a later time. Although this study was correlational, there’s some research suggesting that these harmful physical health habits may negatively impact mental health through inflammation and gut health (Aubrey, 2019).
Harmful social habits can also negatively affect physical and mental well-being. For example, it’s clear from research and personal experiences that overusing social media can harm mental health, making people feel more anxious, depressed, and lonely (Augner & Hacker, 2012, as cited in Reed, 2023). Interestingly, though, overusing social media might negatively impact physical health. Reed and colleagues (2015) discovered that participants who reported overusing social media were more likely to report reduced immune function.
All of this research suggests that physical and mental health can be negatively impacted by all types of harmful habits, whether social or physical. Nevertheless, other researchers are developing interventions to figure out how to improve well-being through health habits. A study conducted by Jacka and colleagues (2017) showed that after following a diet intervention designed to meet Greek and Australian recommendations, participants with moderate to severe depression showed reduced depression symptoms. Additionally, Reed and colleagues (2023) found that participants who reduced their social media usage by 15 minutes not only reported lower levels of loneliness and depression, but improvements in physical health and immune function, as well. It’s important to note that all of this research had their own limitations, such as not being able to identify if there are confounding variables involved. Nevertheless, this work simply highlights that people can always develop and engage in more beneficial habits to replace their harmful ones. It may not be easy and it may take some time, but doing so has the potential to improve mental and physical well-being, ultimately increasing the quality of life.
How to Change Harmful Habits by Christina Dinh To summarize, bad habits are a quintessential part of life. They can manifest in many different forms and can affect one’s life in many different ways as we discussed but fear not, WISE is here to provide some advice on how to go about changing harmful habits! Targeting harmful habits can be difficult but with time comes change.
First, here are some steps to begin changing a bad habit (psychcentral.com):
Make a list: Make a list of the habits you would like to change. It can be as long or as short as you like.
For example:
1. Less social media
2. Stop biting nails
Identify the cause: Try to think about what causes your bad habits. To do this, when you engage in your bad habit, you can take notes about the situations and feelings that result in the habit to identify triggers for your behavior.
For example:
1. I was feeling bored after class today, so I went onto Instagram and ended up spending two hours using it.
Feeling bored after class -> going onto social media -> too much social media use
2. I was in class and when the professor started to talk about the midterm I felt really nervous and started biting my nails.
Feeling nervous -> Biting nails.
Remove the cause (if you can): Try to remove the cause of your bad habits, like leaving your phone where you cannot reach it like under a sofa or in a cabinet in the kitchen. If stress is causing you to engage in bad habits, many college students find meditation and mindfulness to be useful practices for coping with stress.Below are some resources to connect with who can provide additional help if you are undergoing stress and would like someone to talk to!
You do not have to do so forever but only until you feel like you have slowly curbed the bad habit.
Replace the habit: Try to think of alternative behaviors and techniques to do instead of the bad habit. And do so with a behavior that is not similar to the bad habit you tried to break.
For example:
1. Less social media -> Going on a mindful walk or reading
2. Stop biting nails -> Deep breathing exercises to calm oneself down
Go about it slowly and simply: Change does not happen overnight so please be patient with yourself! The more you integrate new habits to replace old habits in your routine, the better the habits will be slowly broken. For example, stopping social media use 1 hour before bed or biting your nails only once a week could be initial steps you challenge yourself to take. Once you master those, you can build on that and slowly continue to reduce the bad habit from your life.
Be forgiving with yourself: Please make sure you acknowledge that change does not happen overnight and it is okay if you go back to the bad habit. All that matters if you pick yourself up and try again. We are human and it is okay to be such. Habits are habits for a reason, and they will slowly go away if you continue to work at it, so be forgiving with yourself.
Reward yourself: If you’ve made progress in removing your bad habit, you can reward yourself! Incentives and awards can be great ways to reward yourself for a job well done. It does not have to be expensive or complex, but just something you like, like a favorite meal or a favorite film.
Do not give up!: As mentioned, habits are habits. They are quite hard to break but with the implementation of such steps, it will be a lot easier to change them slowly, but surely. Patience and persistence are key to slowly change habits throughout the next few weeks and months. Even if you slip up, it is okay! It is not futile, just stay determined.
Furthermore, Time.com underscores the importance of having a reason behind why you would like to change your bad habits. So, throughout these step implementations, make sure to keep your motivation and goals for changing your habits on a sticky-note somewhere you can see it or set reminders on your technological devices. Even a Google Calendar event can help to make sure the focus and reason behind changing are constantly highlighted.
RESOURCES:
UCI Wellness, Health, and Counseling Services
UCI Counseling Center
UCI CARE
REFERENCES:
Aubrey, A. (2019, October 9). Changing Your Diet Can Help Tamp Down Depression, Boost Mood. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/09/768665411/changing- your-diet-can-help-tamp-down-depression-boost-mood
Blount, A. (2021). Ways to change a habit. PsychCentral.
https://psychcentral.com/health/steps-to-changing-a-bad-habit
CDC. (n.d.). How You Can Prevent Chronic Diseases.
Duhigg, Charles. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York, N.Y. : Random House : Books on Tape.
Jacka, F. N., O’Neil, A., Opie, R. S., Itsiopoulos, C., Cotton, S. M., Mohebbi, M., Castle, D. J., Dash, S., Mihalopoulos, C., Chatterton, M. L., Brazionis, L., Dean, O. M., Hodge, A. M., & Berk, M. (2017). A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial). BMC Medicine, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017- 0791-y
Kolt, G. S., Davidson, I., Masri, A. E., Meade, T., & Kolt, G. S. (2022). Unhealthy Lifestyle Behaviours and Psychological Distress: A Longitudinal Study of Australian Adults Aged 45 Years and Older. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(7), 4399. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074399
NPR. (2012). Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them.
https://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/147192599/habits-how-they-form-and-how-to-break- them#:~:text=Neuroscientists%20have%20traced%20our%20habit,brain%20called%20the%2 0prefrontal%20cortex.
Reed, P. (2023, February 25). Social Media Use and Poor Health. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/digital-world-real-world/202302/social-media- use-and-poor-health
Reed, P., Fowkes, T., & Khela, M. (2023). Reduction in Social Media Usage Produces Improvements in Physical Health and Wellbeing: An RCT. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-023-00304-7
Reed, P., Vile, R., Osborne, L. A., Romano, M., & Truzoli, R. (2015). Problematic Internet Usage and Immune Function. PLOS ONE, 10(8), e0134538. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134538
Shortsleeve, C. (2018). 5 Science-approved ways to break a bad habit. Time.
https://time.com/5373528/break-bad-habit-science/
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. (n.d.). Changing Habits. The Learning Center.
https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/changing- habits/#:~:text=According%20to%20experts%20with%20Psychology,etched%20into%20our. %20neural%20pathways.%E2%80%9D
Williams, T (2018) Bad Habits: Definition, Examples, and How to Break Them
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/bad-habits.html
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Break your bad habits. American Psychological Association.
https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2009/09/bad-habits
Zia, Shafaq. (2022). Making and breaking habits. McGovern Institute, MIT.
https://mcgovern.mit.edu/2022/09/07/making-and-breaking-habits/
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