HABITS AND ADDICTIONS

Feelings of anxiety can manifest themselves in a variety of ways including addictions like smoking or dysfunctional habits like nail biting, comfort eating, or trichotillomania (hair pulling). Often our feelings of anxiety are the result of deeper underlying emotional issues that are deeply interwoven with events from the past and stored at such a deep level in the mind. This can often make it difficult for people to identify the specific underlying cause of their anxiety. As a result, people are often unaware that there are deeper underlying issues causing their dysfunctional habit or addiction.

A habit is a specific pattern of behaviour which has been developed by frequent repetition of the act, over and over, to the point where the brain has been conditioned to do it automatically and involuntarily. A habit is a pattern of behaviour that has been repeated that many times to the point where a person may not even be aware that they are doing it. There are obviously good habits of behaviour which lead to positive outcomes and there are negative habits which lead to some sort of dysfunctional outcome. There is a fine line between a habit and an addiction, where an addiction can often be described as an extreme form of a habit. An addiction is most often associated with negative behavioural patterns. An addiction can be defined as a compulsive need for a substance or certain thing by the body, which when deprived of, causes emotional upset or physical withdrawal symptoms in the body. The substance or thing has become a need of the body. An addiction is different to a habit because it usually requires more effort and time to break than a habit. In an addiction, the pattern of behaviour is so deeply ingrained in the brain that the person has lost control over the act. Most people who have an addiction know that they are addicted to a certain substance, but they are unable to stop the act and turn away from the substance, even if they wanted to. An addiction is often more dangerous than a habit because most addictions cause your body to deteriorate and can also cause death in the long run. The simplest way to distinguish an addiction from a habit is to ask, Can a person live without it? If the act or behaviour is stopped or skipped one day, will it cause any psychological or physical effects? If so, then it is more likely to be an addiction. For example, you won’t experience any withdrawal symptoms if you stop biting your finger nails but you will if you stop smoking when you are addicted to nicotine.

On average it takes just 66 days for most people to form a habit, however it can range from 18 days to almost a full year at 254 days. Some studies suggest that it takes only 21 days to break a habit, however, depending on the neural connections in the brain and on the reasons it became a habit, it can take far longer to break a habit. Often habits can become a substitute for something else and used as self-soothing technique or comfort mechanism. When this occurs, it suggests that there are deeper underlying reasons for why the habit began, and it can be very difficult to break the habit without resolving these underlying causes first.

Habits and addictions are patterns of behaviour that are formed based on rewards. There is a reward that reinforces or strengthens the pattern of behaviour, causing it to be repeated over and over. Every habit begins with a cue or a trigger which tells your brain to begin the behaviour. The behaviour when repeated enough, becomes routine. The behaviour is repeated because there is some sort of reward or “pay off” that the brain likes and which helps it to remember the sequence in the future. Basically, your brain will continue to repeat the pattern of behaviour if it gains some sort of pleasure or benefit from performing the act. The habit serves some form of biological or emotional function in the body and mind. For example, stress may be the trigger which causes you have a cigarette. You enjoy the relaxing effect of the nicotine in your body and so each time you get stressed your brain remembers those pleasurable feelings and so causes you to automatically have another cigarette.

A harmless habit can very easily turn into an addiction. This is because over time a physiological connection is created between the mind and the body. Over time, the simplest habit such as having a drink after work, can “rewire” the brain into believing that the substance is actually beneficial and necessary to make it through the day or certain situations. An occasional glass of wine after work may start off as a harmless habit. However, when one glass turns into multiple glasses and becomes a daily necessity and there is additional stress or anxiety when unable to obtain a drink of alcohol, the habit has then become an addiction.

Hypnotherapy works to break a habit or addiction by disrupting the neural connections and dysfunctional thinking patterns responsible for the dysfunctional habit or addiction. It works by resetting and reprogramming the neural pathways in the brain thereby transforming negative patterns of behaviour into more functional ways of responding. We will help you to first identify and understand any underlying causes of your dysfunctional habit by helping you become aware of the connection between your thoughts, emotions and actions. We will use techniques which transform negative self-defeating patterns of behaviour at the subconscious level so that they are aligned with your conscious desires and goals, enabling you to experience permanent change.

If you have a dysfunctional habit or addiction which is holding you back, please contact us to find out how our hypnotherapy programs can help you!

• Do you want to stop smoking but can’t find the willpower to stop?
• Do you have an embarrassing nervous habit that you wish you could stop?
• Do you use alcohol or food as a comfort mechanism to mask the emotions you are
  feeling?
• What impact is your addiction having on your physical health?
• What impact is your habit having on the quality of your life?
• How is your addiction affecting your sense of well-being?