With the new year comes an opportunity to reboot our habits – drop the negative ones and start better ones.
The first fact to face is that our habits are largely invisible to us. That is, though we may know we need to eat or listen better, our repertoire of habit resides in a part of the brain that is ordinarily off-limits to our awareness. The home of habits is a structure deep down in brain called the basal ganglia.
The first step in changing them has to be noticing them in the first place. That means not letting them just go by on automatic, but becoming mindful of them. You can do this in two ways: getting familiar with the triggers that start the sequence, and noticing the way the habit operates.
Once we bring these into awareness we can decide how to change them as they are occurring, or are about to. Mindfulness de-automatizes habits.
And finally, we can replace that dysfunctional habit with something that works better for us like yoga or exercise or meditation.
The first fact to face is that our habits are largely invisible to us. That is, though we may know we need to eat or listen better, our repertoire of habit resides in a part of the brain that is ordinarily off-limits to our awareness. The home of habits is a structure deep down in brain called the basal ganglia.
The first step in changing them has to be noticing them in the first place. That means not letting them just go by on automatic, but becoming mindful of them. You can do this in two ways: getting familiar with the triggers that start the sequence, and noticing the way the habit operates.
Once we bring these into awareness we can decide how to change them as they are occurring, or are about to. Mindfulness de-automatizes habits.
And finally, we can replace that dysfunctional habit with something that works better for us like yoga or exercise or meditation.
A new year means new resolutions. The important thing about changing your bad habits is to listen to what people think about it, and take it in a positive way.
ReplyDeleteThis is really a good thought to change your bad habits periodically. It will become easy for one to do. We should make a list of bad habits first if we want to get rid of them
ReplyDelete