How to get rid of the bad habit
ALL WE HAVE GROWN THE MASS OF QUESTIONS TO THEMSELVES AND THE WORLDwith which there seems to be no time or need to go to a psychologist. But convincing answers are not born when you talk to yourself, or to your friends, or to your parents. Therefore, we asked a professional psychotherapist Olga Miloradova to answer pressing questions once a week. By the way, if you have them, send to [email protected].
How to get rid of the bad habit?
If you honestly admit this to yourself, then almost certainly each of us will find at least one bad habit. Some habits, and we all know it, are harmful to health. Some do not harm anyone, but can be very annoying to you and others. Most of us understand that we need to get rid of them, but constantly postpones the decision for later. How to make yourself finally quit smoking, eat a lot of sweet or something worse? And most importantly, how to make this decision once and for all?
Olga Miloradova psychotherapist
Considering the fact that your bad habit is not the first day with you and, obviously, you do not like it, otherwise why would you want to get rid of it, then why did this desire arise right now? The most important question for making any changes is motivation. Yes, we all know that smoking is harmful, and we have known about it for many years. We also know that smoking contributes to the development of lung cancer, but who among smokers seriously thought that it was after this cigarette that cancer cells originated here and now? We know about cancer, we know about death, but all this will be somewhere not here, not now and not with me. The same story with the endless absorption of sweet: yes, sugar is harmful. Perhaps I use it so much that I will have diabetes, but it will only be all through many, many years.
Even if you think about giving up sweets due to many such close and native desire to lose weight, then here and there are numerous pitfalls that prevent exposure: someone does not lose weight on the move, then he lacks endurance, he becomes psyched and breaks down, and the thing is perhaps not in sugar alone. Someone thinks that he will take a break in the use of buns, dry out a little, and then eat again, but the problem of all these confused conclusions is the same: it is very difficult for a person to believe that something bad will happen to him. And it is even harder to believe that he is responsible for this bad thing. It’s not for nothing that the grown-up avid smoker continues to hide from her mother, the girl playfully hides “one more candy” behind her lover’s side, and someone tries to order the fifth beer as imperceptibly as possible, until friends notice, and pretends to continue to drink the second.
So, no motivation can work until you take responsibility for your actions on yourself. This is very important, and this is the first step: start appropriating your actions. "Yes, I decided yesterday to drink a couple more shots, and therefore I overslept the work" instead of "this is my friend's fault that we could not leave in time" or even more absurd "boss moron, and therefore I got drunk." Or "I like to smoke, because: you can clog uncomfortable pauses / brighten up waiting moments / this is a reason for communicating with colleagues / with a cigarette, I look stylish."
In the awareness of control over your life there is a mass of good - it is a kind of awareness of freedom.
Assigning all these actions and thoughts to yourself, you begin to understand that every action has a consequence, some consequences are unpredictable, and sometimes deplorable, and it may be scary and unpleasant enough to realize that you are responsible for this. Nevertheless, in the awareness of control over your life and the mass of good, it is a kind of awareness of freedom, it is you who decide what you want next, and not nicotine, donuts, or the desire to bite your nails in the end.
For completeness of awareness, I would advise to seriously consider your question. Smokers, for example, are harmless to find out that switching to light cigarettes will only replace central lung cancer with peripheral lung cancer and that everything starts with chronic bronchitis; lovers of nail biting - which changes not only the shape of the nails / it looks bad in public, but also it can ruin your bite and provide a trip to the orthodontist. But the matter is not at all in these facts, which I am writing here, you must find for yourself your own fact, the very important pivot that will become motivation - and this will be the second step.
Despite the fact that the motivation certainly varies, it is nice to realize that even most fitness trainers try to cultivate such an idea these days, which may not be as important as you look and how much muscle you pumped. It is important that by taking actions aimed at maintaining your health, you are making a contribution to the very future that you now may not seem so important. The future in which today's you will depend not only on how much you live, but also on the quality of this life.
We are guilty of many things that will happen to our body.
Since we are talking about bad habits in general, even such a trifle as the habit of snapping the knuckles of your fingers can lead to arthritis. And the same diabetes: while it seems so far away, it is safe, not everyone knows that diabetes often leads to progressive blindness, gangrene of the extremities or chronic renal failure. And again, I’m not trying to intimidate you — I’m trying to make you think logically and move from a length of time to infinity in here and now.
Imagine here and now a person who is addicted to opioids and who is pricking himself with a coaxil. For those who do not know: a coaxil is a once-on-sale, and nowadays, hard-to-reach antidepressant, which in a very large amount causes an effect similar to heroin. The only small detail that almost everyone who used a coaxil is familiar with is that when you try to grind it, the shell is not crushed to the end. Large particles remain. These large particles, when introduced into a vein, cause thrombosis and blockage of blood vessels. Blood clots block the bloodstream, the part of the body where the injection was made is necrotized, that is, dies. And if you ask anyone who is not a fan of heroin and coax in the eye did not see, then he, of course, will say: what kind of fool will introduce himself something, because of what his leg or hand will fall off.
If you look at the long term, ladies and gentlemen, we are all to some extent these coaxial fools, because whatever we do with ourselves today, the consequences will not come this minute or even the next day. But we must clearly understand that even if it is not right now, even if it is not tomorrow (although, my dear, for how many years we all smoke / drink / substitute our own version), then we are also guilty of many things that will occur with our body, our health, our psyche.
Deal with the idea that what you are struggling with should never appear in your life
When you realize - write. Write a lot and in detail. Write the pros and cons, what the habit gives you and what you lose because of it. Keep a diary. In what situation and with what people are you prone to what you want to get rid of. Try to change people, change situations. Keep writing. Write about the breakdown. Do not allow them yourself in advance, but yes, they happen, it is possible that they will, but this is not the end of the story. How, when and why there was a breakdown. What could help you to avoid this. Put yourself in front of a fact and accept the thought that what you are struggling with should not appear in your life ever again.
This statement is 100 percent true about smoking, but some fitness maniacs manage to translate it into a 90 percent statement, coming up with fasting days. These are not the days when you can eat anything, and when you can eat the notorious candy, and even then for breakfast. So-called supporters of controlled alcohol consumption may also want to fit in here. Hmm, well, if alcohol was not so much a quantitative problem as a systemic problem — for example, there was not enough orderliness not to drink on weekdays — then such a trick might work. But, unfortunately, in most cases of serious problems with alcohol, controlled use is a myth that delays either inevitable or imposed by someone, but not at all your desire.
Remember, the most important thing in getting rid of any habit, and especially the most pernicious, is the personal desire of the person himself. It is never possible to get rid of any of its dependencies by force. Therefore, before you again decide to declare that you are losing weight / quitting smoking / taking any other actions whatsoever, seriously think: is this really what you personally want, and are you ready for this?