Breaking Bad Habits: A Psychological Viewpoint

By Kellie McClain

                Preventing the occurrence of unwanted habits and behaviors can pose as extremely stressful and frustrating, especially if the habit is deeply embedded into an individual’s routine. The main problem that those with bad habits experience when attempting to prevent the behavior is discouragement due to increase resistance. Most often, someone will take action toward preventing the behavior and make substantial progress, but once prevention reaches its peak difficulty, that individual then gives up and loses any progress that was made.

                Tackling this issue from a psychological perspective could help individuals understand how the process of habit breaking works, which will give them more knowledge and motivation when encountering difficulties.  From a psychological view, habit forming occurs under a learning process knowing as conditioning. An individual learns to perform a specific behavior based on the rewards that are received by that behavior. These rewards then make the behavior stronger and turn it into a habit. These habits can only be broken through extinction, which is the process through which a conditioned response decreases or is eliminated completely.

                Through the process of extinction, one will experience increased frustration and difficulty with preventing the behavior. At the peak of this frustration, extinction bursts, which are known as explosions of unwanted behavior, are often displayed by the individual. It is at this point that many individuals get discouraged and give up. However extinction bursts are often followed by complete extinction of the behavior, which means the habit has been successfully broken.

                The take home message for breaking bad habits is to keep in mind the mental process that occur during extinction and to have faith that this process will lead to eventual success. Next time you are trying to rid of an unwanted habit and encourage significant difficulty and frustration, remember that this only means that you are getting closer to reaching your goal.

SOURCE: http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201311/putting-thoughts-action/bursting-through-bad-habits