22 Bad Habits Americans Are Crushing, Poll Shows
Depending on who you ask, breaking a bad habit can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to six months or more. But for any of us who’ve tried to break a habit, we know it’s easier said than done.
Some bad habits are harmless. Others can take our lives.
To determine which bad habits Americans are best at breaking, YouGov ran a poll. The results shed light on what habits Americans may place a greater emphasis on breaking.
Gathering the Data
Prior to running a poll on the bad habits Americans have broken, YouGov first polled participants on the types of bad habits that people believe they have. Participants wrote the habits in their own words, and YouGov randomly selected some of them to perform their poll of the bad habits people have broken.
Two thousand Americans participated in the poll. Of the respondents who identified with a bad habit, they were asked whether they’ve gotten rid of the habit or still have it.
The following results can help give hope to those struggling with getting rid of a habit for good.
The Strength of Habits
Habit formation is critical to human functioning. The reason? It allows the brain not to think about routine activities, freeing up space to focus on new situations that are vital to our survival.
Many of us know the feeling of driving to work and wondering if we brushed our teeth, only to notice the minty taste of our toothpaste on our breath. And many of us also know the feeling of arriving at our office parking lot, not remembering an ounce of the drive to get there.
Brushing our teeth and driving to routine places without focusing on what we’re doing are examples of habits engrained in our daily lives. In the case of these two situations, habits are helpful.
Breaking Bad Habits
According to a piece published by Harvard Medical School, habits cause the brain to release dopamine, regardless of whether they’re good or bad. This, coupled with a fight-flight-or-freeze response in which your body sees the change of a habit as a threat, makes it so that it doesn’t take long for bad behavior to turn into a bad habit.
Experts suggest that one of the first steps in breaking a bad habit is identifying the “why” behind it. Is it for your kids? Your health? Your ability to travel?
It’s also important to dig down and figure out what you’re feeling when a bad habit emerges. Figure out how you feel and if a certain place or person triggers a bad habit is vital to knowing the type of environment where you’re more likely to perform it.
When possible, try to physically alter your environment to make it as easy as possible to start a new habit and avoid the bad habit. For example, if you want to exercise more, place your workout clothes beside your bed in the evening, making it easy to slip into them the following morning.
Practicing Self-Control
Research suggests that practicing self-control in many areas of your life can help you stop your bad habit and keep it away for good. For example, even if your posture isn’t terrible, consistently working on sitting up straighter may set the discipline to help you overcome bigger bad habits.
Visualization can also be useful for some people trying to break a bad habit. By envisioning yourself in the environment where your bad habit usually occurs and mentally practicing replacing the bad behavior with a good behavior, it may become easier to do so in real life.
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