There is one fundamental error people make when trying to break a habit, and that’s relying on restriction.
Well, how else are we supposed to do it? Let’s get into why restricting doesn’t work, and what to do instead.
The Problem with Restricting
Here’s my beef with fully restricting a habit.
1. Forbidden fruit
It’s classic psychology–we want what we can’t have. Desire cannot exist without deprivation, so by restricting a habit that brings us joy or pleasure, we only amplify its worth. The more you tell yourself you can’t have something, the more you want it.
2. Rebound
Strictly cutting yourself off from something might work in the short-term, but it makes you much more likely to bounce back twice as hard. If you have a hard restriction on eating processed snacks, you’ll eventually break and eat one, which leads to the rebound effect that can cause a binge.
3. Stress
Constant restriction can spike your cortisol. Consistent stress causes a myriad of mental and physical health issues that can leave you worse off than whatever habit you’re trying to break. The mental effort required for cold turkeying can be exhausting and counter-productive.
4. All-or-Nothing
The all-or-nothing mentality does you no favors. Slipping once can make you feel like the whole venture is a failure, leading to a violent relapse into that habit, or causing a disproportionate amount of stress.
5. Biology
Depending on the habit you’re trying to break, your body might already have a dependency. This can even apply to things like phone addictions, since scrolling and checking our inbox can give a shoot of dopamine. But this will mainly apply to things like dieting, substance avoidance, and other habits that have a direct effect on our body that we’ve come to depend upon.
In some cases, ignoring biology to 100% hard-cut a habit can lead to sickness and even death.
6. Willpower does not exist
This is the problem we pointed out with Eat That Frog! Willpower is at best a fleeting and evasive ideal and at worst a complete figment of our collective imagination. Fully cutting something out of our lives, particularly something we very much enjoy, is requesting too much of our soft human flesh.
Restricting is not an effective way to break a habit.
Breaking The Habit with Replacement
Okay, if we can’t restrict ourselves, how do we curb our habit? Replacement.
Replacing a negative habit with a counteractive positive habit is much more effective than deleting the negative habit and leaving a void.
Let’s look at a few cases where this can apply.
1. Diets
The easy-grab example is dieting. Scientifically, caloric restrictions are not effective at losing weight and keeping it off. 95% of dieters will regain that weight (and often more) within the following year after losing it through diet restriction. But beyond that, banning the foods you love is not sustainable.
Instead of restricting, replacement has been observed as significantly more effective.
Instead of setting a rule like: I won’t eat anything processed.
You can set a rule like: I will eat an extra serving of fruit and an extra serving of vegetables daily.
By adding those healthy options, the fiber can keep you satiated, naturally causing you to eat fewer of those sugary, processed snacks.
The difference really comes down to framing. You’re not telling your brain and body that it can’t have something. You’re just giving it something good that will benefit it, and knowing that those yummy snacks are still an option makes them less desirable.
2. Technology
We all want to be on our phone less, but a simple resolution of, “I will not use my phone,” can leave you staring at the wall with your phone sitting on the couch beside you. And what do you do in 20 seconds? You pick it back up.
Willpower can’t help you.
So we can replace that time we spend on our phone. The first step is determining what picking up your phone does for you. Do you get entertainment? Socialization?
I will not use my phone can become:
- I will hang out with friends an extra day this week
- I will enjoy a hobby for an hour a day
- I will read 2 chapters of my book every evening
Giving yourself something enjoyable and constructive to do that doesn’t involve your phone will use up that time, automatically making you spend less of it on your phone.
14-Day Digital Detox: Break Your Phone Addiction
3. Smoking/Drinking/Substance Use
The following examples aren’t used to demonize any of the mentioned products or activities, but controlling our usage is often a reasonable desire.
I will stop using this substance can be:
- Before I smoke weed to manage anxiety, I’ll go for a 20 minute walk and see how I feel after
- Instead of going out, I’ll do an escape room this weekend
- Before I open my bottle of wine, I’ll drink 32 ounces of water
Walk > weed. Sunshine, nature, and movement naturally decrease anxiety–you might not feel the urge to smoke at all after. And if you really feel you need to, you can.
Escape room > bar. An escape room will take up your time, leaving less for going out, and it’s an amusing activity to do with friends.
Water > wine. Drinking water before you drink wine will fill your stomach, quench your thirst, and ultimately make you drink less wine. It doesn’t mean you can’t drink any.
4. Being Sedentary
Instead of saying that you’re not going to sit on the couch or watch TV at all this month, you can think up activities to fill that time instead. If you’re too tired, sick, or disinterested in those activities one day, you can still watch TV–you just won’t be doing it every evening.
5. Negative Self-Talk
Negative self-talk can be one of the hardest habits to crack. You can’t stop yourself from thinking. Thoughts come on their own. So saying, “I will stop thinking negatively of myself,” is a wild and unachievable goal.
Instead, your goal can be to replace a negative thought with a positive. This practice is so simple: if you think, “I’m not good enough,” simply think, “yes, I am, actually.” You don’t even have to believe it! Just think it intentionally, and move on with your day.
You can expand on this by making a habit of writing down positive affirmations (even if you don’t believe them at first) anytime you find yourself in a negative self-talk rut.
6. Shopping addiction
Online shopping has become a problem for most of us, and for good reason. If willpower doesn’t exist/is so rare no one can really depend on it, then having an infinite amount of products so available that you can click a few buttons and it will appear on your doorstep the next day? Like, how are we supposed to contend with that?
I will not shop can break into more achievable replacements, like:
- I will fill my shopping cart as usual, but not purchase until the end of the month, when the impulsivity has passed, and I can consider my choices objectively
- Instead of walking the mall, I’ll take a nature hike once a week
You might still walk the mall, but that nature hike will occupy at least one of those days, giving you fewer for shopping.
Supplemental Behavior
Along with replacing a negative habit with a healthier one that is roughly equivalent in purpose, we can use supplemental behavior to boost our success.
1. Practicing moderation
Classic advice. What’s it mean?
Moderation is best applied in the beginning of something. The person who just moved to a legalized state and begins to partake in marijuana consumption might set some intentionality with usage, such as:
- not using it two days in a row
- not using it to lift a low mood or if you’re sick
- not smoking inside
- taking a tolerance break every three months
Having specific guidelines for moderation makes it easier to practice than a vague intention of not over-indulging.
If we’ve already got the weed habit, the difference would be that we gradually introduce those guidelines instead of implementing them all at once.
2. Gradual change
With making any life alteration, one of the surest ways to fail is to change too much at once. Small, incremental changes that you let yourself and your schedule adapt to overtime will stick more reliably than larger ones that are too different from your current lifestyle.
Don’t try to renovate the entire house at once–pick one room at a time.
3. Mindfulness
Mindfulness can be a powerful tool against any habit. It can help you realize when you’re about to partake, what triggers you to do so, and maybe even why you do it. That information is crucial to your success in changing a habit.
4. Support system
Having supportive people around you makes everything in life easier. You might clue some friends in about what habit you’re trying to break so they can help keep you on track. You might even consider joining a support group, if friends are unavailable or if the habit warrants.
Key Points
When breaking a habit, restricting yourself completely from something you enjoy can cause you to relapse into that habit even harder, or even harm yourself.
Instead, we can break habits with replacement, where you swap the activity or item with something that gives you comparable, but healthier, results. Instead of restriction, this makes you consume or participate in that habit less often because you have something else in its place.
Along with replacement, we can supplement more positive behavior by practicing moderation, introducing change gradually, using mindfulness, or finding a support system.
