Cracking bad habit down to try ... and try again

Breaking a bad habit takes about one month and a key to be successful in doing so is to not beat yourself up about it if you falter. That's according to Irish Times columnist and GP Dr Pat Harrold, who will be giving a talk on the issue on Wednesday, October 28th.

Harrold says people need to bear in mind that having a bad habit “doesn’t make you a war criminal”. He says you should concentrate on breaking the habit – “take the ‘good’ or ‘badness’ out of it, it’s just a habit”.

He advises people to take stock of their lives – look at the things you can do with less of (or more of) in your life. “You need to maintain a sense of perspective.”

Harrold also advocates that people should set realistic goals. “If you take up running today, it is unlikely that you are going to be running the Dublin marathon in three or four months.”

Wedding

And when is a good time to start trying to change a habit? “There is never a perfect time to start,” he says, “but there is sometimes a bad time – eg if you want to give up smoking, but you know you are going to a wedding or a party this weekend, then this is not the time to start”.

Another key to successfully giving up a bad habit and retaining the change is to develop it to a stage which Harrold calls “muscle memory”.

He likens it to driving a car – you don’t think about going into fourth or fifth gear, you do it automatically, without thinking.

“You want to get into the habit of it just being something that you do, or don’t do anymore, so that you don’t always have to be making the decision,” he says.

He adds: “You can only get so far by willpower alone.”

The conscious mind is smarter, he says, “but the unconscious mind is stronger”.

" Dr Pat Harrold will be giving a talk on breaking bad habits – everything from social media to smoking and drinking – Wednesday, October 28th, at the Sheraton Hotel, Athlone at 7pm. The talk is free and is part of the Irish Times/Pfizer Healthy Town project, 2015.

For further information log on to irishtimes.com/healthytown.