How to Kick a Bad Health Habit

Adopting healthy habits will benefit you in the long run as you feel much better in body, mind, and soul. It’s only natural that people sometimes gain a bad health habit. Maybe you cope with stress by smoking a cigarette or drinking your favorite alcoholic beverage. Overeating can lead to other long-term health complications, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Whatever your bad health habit, it’s best to first identify the triggers, track your progress towards change, and then follow up on your progress regularly.

Identify the Triggers

Any bad health can turn into an addiction. Addictions can have many different triggers, and finding what they are for you is key to ultimately kicking the habit. Some triggers are daily stress, how you feel physically, seeing others with the same addiction, or being near the thing, place, or action that you associate with your bad habit. Bad health habits can be more than just smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, or overeating. Maybe you go to the mall or shop online more than you should and overspend on possessions you do not actually need. This habit causes unnecessary debt when you could be using that money to pay off bills and start a savings or investment pool.

Track Your Progress

To maintain personal accountability for breaking your bad health habit, it can be helpful to track your progress by journaling daily. Journal in the format that works for you. Some people prefer bullet journals, whereas others like to write in full paragraphs. Consider some topic questions for effective journaling. What steps have you taken to break your habit? What tactics are you using to not act on your habits? Reflect on your growth, and make a goal to achieve for the next day.

You can find many resources online where you can learn more about how to identify triggers and cope with them related to drug abuse recovery, but this can be applied to any bad health habit.

Follow Up on Your Progress

Whether you do this daily, weekly, or monthly, pick a regular time frame in which you follow up on your progress. Review your daily journal entries and continually make goals toward keeping up with your new, healthy habit. Reward yourself for not engaging in your habit for a prescribed length of time. For example, have a night of eating out for dinner each month so you do not fall back into your habit.

It can take some time to kick a bad habit, but the effort it takes is very much worth the reward of better health. Just follow the above steps and you’ll be well on your way to making better habits to change your life.

Related: The Exorbitant Costs of Abusing Prescription Drugs