Habits Are a KILLER!

Habitual behavior, commonly called routines, is behavior that is regularly repeated and tends to occur subconsciously. Habitual behavior is learned behavior that becomes so automatic that the person exhibiting the behavior isn't aware she is doing it. It is often used to create order or structure in everyday life. While most habitual behaviors, such as drinking your morning cup of coffee, are harmless, negative habitual behaviors, such as smoking, can be detrimental to physical and mental health.

• Causes of Habitual Behavior

  • Habitual behavior is learned behavior. Humans learn and acquire new behavior patterns in response to particular stimuli. The reaction to the stimuli might not be immediately obvious to the individual, but once the same response to the stimuli is repeated several times, the process is learned and the behavior becomes second nature, as instinctive to us as breathing and requiring little conscious thought. Think about when you first learned to ride a bike. Once the process of pedaling was learned and repeated, this pattern became second nature.Read more...

• Bad Habits: Why We Can't Stop
• It might seem a total wonder that a smoker won't quit after hearing that puffing away is a leading cause of death, or that an obese person can't shed a few pounds after learning that lethal ailments loom for the overweight. But scientists have come up with a host of reasons why humans stick to bad habits, and they are zeroing in on what to do about it.
• Among the reasons:
  • Innate human defiance.
  • Need for social acceptance.
  • Inability to truly understand the nature of risk.
  • Individualistic view of the world and the ability to rationalize unhealthy habits.
  • Genetic predisposition to addiction.
  You'd think people were on a one-track mission to self-destruct rather than desiring immortality.
  "We have found that people aren't changing their behaviors," said Cindy Jardine of the University of Alberta. "But it's not because they haven't gotten the information that these are big risks." She added, "We tend to sort of live for now and into the limited future—not the long term." Read more...