Breaking Up With Your Bad Habit
By: Grace Jecelin
If you’re a student (or, let’s face it, a person), you’re probably not living your best life 100 percent of the time. Maybe you have a PB&J for dinner multiple times a week because you can’t bring yourself to meal prep, drink coffee just to be able to work on homework for more than 15 minutes at a time, or hit the snooze button at least three times every morning.
Whatever it is, most students have something they do all the time that isn’t good for them, but they can’t seem to shake it…AKA, a bad habit.
Tristan Williams, a writer for the Berkeley Well-Being Institute, defines a bad habit as “a recurring action you do that typically provides instant satisfaction but often leads to long-term problems.” When I asked Temple students about their perceived bad habits, I was met with similar responses.
Most of us do something that offers us happiness in the moment, but eventually comes back to bite us — whether it’s online shopping during lectures, going out the night before a 9 a.m. class, or, the big one, procrastinating.
According to Denae Sisco, assistant director of advising for Temple Honors and a learning specialist, not all of these habits are necessarily bad.
“I always talk to my students about the fact that procrastination is a natural habit,” Sisco said. “It feels bad; we know we’re not supposed to do it, but animals do it! We are animals; we do it.”
So, what’s the key to ‘fixing’ our procrastination habit, or any bad habit, for that matter? Learning that ‘bad’ habits aren’t always bad.
Sisco argues that deciding whether a habit is good or bad is dependent on how it makes you feel.
“I generally, except for really dangerous things, don’t believe in objectively bad habits. You have to decide for yourself what’s bad, what doesn’t work for you, what’s not productive,” Sisco said.
We usually call the act of snoozing your alarm a ‘bad habit’ because it’s super unpleasant to be rushing around in the morning and getting ready for class in 15 minutes or less. But, needing to sleep isn’t a bad thing — it’s natural!
“If a habit doesn’t work for you, let’s find a way to reframe your thinking about that and optimize your daily schedule to allow for the time that your body naturally needs,” Sisco said.
It turns out that the key to breaking a bad habit isn’t to overhaul your entire routine and force yourself into a box based on what other people do. It’s to figure out what habits don’t make you feel good, and to slowly break them.
But, how do we break them? Rewards, or, as I like to call them, little treats! Positive reinforcement works by rewarding yourself after completing a good habit, which trains your brain to associate something not so pleasant (like completing an assignment with time to spare) with something that makes you happy (like an hour of watching your favorite reality TV show).
The time is now to throw out whatever habits that don’t serve us without comparing ourselves to anyone else. If your roommate can wake up at 5 a.m., go to yoga, and still be awake enough to go to class, good for her! Keep rooting for her, but prioritize a routine that leaves you feeling awake, alive, and fulfilled – even if that means drinking your morning coffee early enough to enjoy it (and even if it’s slightly before your 11 a.m. class).
Remember, it’s not about conformity, but about understanding yourself and your needs. Small changes and some cute rewards may just be the recipe for breaking up with your bad habit.