When Are Bad Habits Helpful?

Some bad habits can actually turn out to be helpful. They may cause trouble most of the time. Yet, there are those instances when they seem to fit the situation perfectly. Since most people have at least some bad habits, it is probably good that they have a helpful side.

Some people have bad habits with regards to pointing out others mistakes. They are constantly telling their friends or family members what they are doing wrong. It gets annoying and frustrating for the person being picked on. Quite a bit of resentment can build up over this.

However, there may come a time when the person will actually point out bad habits you have not been aware of before. They may stop you from making a huge mistake. You may not be inclined to fall at their feet and thank them, but you may be glad you heard their criticism nonetheless.

Procrastination is usually one of the most common bad habits. People put off doing what they know they need to do. They plan to do it, just not today. Procrastination can prove to be helpful if the situation changes. If you were planning to water your garden you might procrastinate and put it off until tomorrow. If it rains unexpectedly that night, you have saved both effort and water.

If you complain too much, people will tell you that you have too many bad habits. It does create a negative environment when someone is constantly seeing the worst in everything. However, sometimes the only times you can get anything done are when you complain.

Some bosses manage by the theory that the person that complains the loudest is the person who needs the most attention. In other words, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. When you complain in this situation, you accomplish something.

Working too hard is generally a bad habit. It is bad for your relationships and it is bad for your health. You feel that you will not succeed unless you put in overtime. Mostly, this is not true. Yet, there are times when the extra work can pay off. This is true especially if you allow yourself to indulge this bad habit for only the duration of a short project.

If you are too stubborn, you will be accused of bad habits like demanding to have things the way you see fit. You will not give in until you are satisfied that things are going as they should. This is usually a bad habit. Sometimes, though, it takes the form of tenacity. This is a positive attribute that makes it possible for you to hold on through the hardest of times.

Breaking the law almost always involves bad habits. Theft, drug peddling and use, violence, and many more bad habits come into play. On the other hand, some of the world's greatest heroes have broken the laws of their own countries.

They did it in civil disobedience of laws they deemed unjust or inhumane. The world would be a different place if these people had been afraid of having these "bad habits." That is why not all habits can be strictly labeled bad or good. It has to go by the situation.

Support Groups for People with Bad Habits

There are support groups all over the world for people with bad habits. These groups provide a framework by which the person with bad habits can get better. They are available to anyone who wants to attend.

Alcoholics Anonymous is the gold standard for support groups. There people with bad habits relating to alcohol can meet and discuss their bad habits. They can talk about their experiences and share their hopes. They can gain strength by spending time with people whose goal is also to banish their bad habits.

Alcoholics Anonymous practices the Twelve-Step program for those whose bad habits have brought them to seek help. The system is designed to guide alcoholics through their despair and into sobriety. It is a rigorous program, but it is worth the work if you come out on the other side without your bad habits.

Another group the uses the Twelve-Step program for gaining control over bad habits is Overeaters Anonymous. Contrary to what the name implies, it is not just for people who eat too much. The largest number of members of any one group is those who overeat. However, it is also for those with bulimia or anorexia. It is for anyone who is "powerless over food."

This group holds meetings as AA does. It also uses tests and other tools to help people evaluate the extent of their bad habits and depression. The Twelve-Step program leads them to work on their bad habits from perspectives that are physical, emotional, and spiritual. It has helped many people to gain control over their eating disorders.

Yet another group is based on the Twelve-Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is Narcotics Anonymous. It is for people with bad habits with all kinds of drugs. You can be involved in the program no matter what kind(s) of drugs you used.

It does not matter if you used a few times or you used constantly for years. The important thing is what you want to do about it. Narcotics Anonymous provides you with a way to deal with these destructive bad habits in your life if you will do the work.

There are all kinds of smoking cessation support groups to help people quit their bad habits with smoking. There are groups at medical centers. There are groups at colleges. Some groups meet at community centers.

There are even smoking cessation groups that meet online. The websites give quite a bit of helpful information about your bad habits. They often will have a blog where people can compare notes about how their recovery from nicotine is going. Then, there are live chat support groups.

There are not support groups for all the bad habits that people have. No one is going to go around smacking your hand and saying,"Do not drum your fingers!" At least, they will not do it as a support group. Yet, for many serious bad habits, there is help. In some cases, you will have to drive across town. In other cases, it is as near as your computer.

Social Bad Habits

Having bad habits in social situations can make you a very unpopular person. You may not even know how others feel about your social blunders. However, if you are acting in ways that are not considered appropriate, people will notice.

Many bad habits can be noticed when people go out to a restaurant together. It can be a very unpleasant experience if people have certain bad habits. For instance, chewing with an open mouth can be disgusting to the person watching. When a person does this, it is a thoughtless gesture.

Some people have the bad habits of eating other peoples' food. They will just reach over and take a bite of something on their neighbor's plate. They do not consider the fact that the person might want to be asked first. They do not take into account that the person might find it repulsive to share food with someone who has already used their fork.

Loudness in a restaurant is a bad habit that is sometimes appropriate and sometimes is not. In some settings, loudness is the order of the day. In quiet restaurants, though, a person needs to leave the volume turned to a low level. They need to try to fit in with the ambience of the restaurant.

Have you ever heard someone belch, and then say "not bad manners, just good food"? Well, it is bad manners, and bad habits, too. Nobody wants to hear that, and it is not excused by an attempt at humor. Some people seem to do this every time they feel the urge without thought to how others feel.

One of the sickening bad habits people have at restaurants is blowing their noses in a cloth napkin. It is not appropriate to blow their nose at the table in the first place. When they use a cloth napkin, the waiter cannot just throw it away. It has to be handled in order to be washed and reused. It is an inconsiderate bad habit.

Some parents have bad habits when it comes to their children's public behavior. Some will let their children run through the restaurant doing as they please. They will not say a word when their children misbehave. This can spoil an otherwise nice evening.

Other parents are so harsh and critical with their children that it also destroys any chance of anyone having a good time. These are bad habits just as letting the kids be destructive are. Ideally, parents can find a middle ground.

There are also bad habits that affect the way people feel about themselves. If you are a know-it-all, a person might feel inferior to you at first. Eventually, though, it will get old and they will resent you. If you are tactless, you can hurt peoples' feelings without thinking. You do it just because you are in the habit of "telling the truth."

There are bad habits that affect the way you communicate with others in the social setting. Monopolizing the conversation may make you feel good, but others will feel unappreciated. Interrupting can be a bad habit that prevents you from developing closeness with acquaintances.

Correct your bad habits in social situations and you will find that people are friendlier with you. You will see that good habits will get you much more good attention than bad habits.

Research about Bad Habits

Bad habits plague many people in one form or another. We want to know what causes us to fall into bad habits. Questions arise about how are the best ways to quit. New research gives new answers and confirms some of the old ones.

Some research has been done to find out what motivates people to quit bad habits. It turns out that the emotional reasons seem to be the most telling of all. If a person does not have the desire to change, then that person is likely not to have any success with quitting.

Knowledge is only helpful if you use it to influence your emotional well-being. For example, if you work to set up a social network to help you when you quit smoking, you have used your mind to influence your emotions. Penalties help drive people to quit bad habits by playing on their emotions and their intelligence together.

Other research inquires into the effects of habitual activities on the brain. Researchers studied the brain responses in rats. The rats were sent through mazes at the end of which was chocolate. Their basal ganglia (where habitual behavior is learned in the brain) responded to all the information in the maze when they were learning the maze.

After awhile, this area of the brain only responded to the beginning and end of the maze. This would be like the response you have when you have developed bad habits. You are focused on the reward.

Then, the chocolate was removed. At that point, the basal ganglia again began to respond to every part of the maze again. When this happens, it is like quitting bad habits and living moment to moment.

When the chocolate was reintroduced, the area in the brain came alive during the beginning and the end, as before. Finally, the brain is cued to become alert to your addiction again when the desired object or bad habits resurface.

Another study evaluated the ability of people to replace old habits with new ones. This was done by testing using memorization and word tests. The researchers tried to see if subjects could learn new associations after learning similar ones first.

The conclusions of the test were interesting. First of all, the habits learned first were more automatic and below the conscious level. Second, stress caused people to revert to old habits.

Third, aging that affected the memory seemed to leave the subjects with more susceptibility to older habits. All this information can be used by people who struggle against bad habits.

One study took a look at the way people think about risky behavior. Surveys were given out in two different parts of Canada to find out what these people thought were the most dangerous. In the majority of cases, people thought that bad habits like smoking, overeating, and other health habits were more risky than non-habitual behaviors.

It is important to study how we think and feel about, and react to bad habits. The more we know, the better chance people have of learning how to overcome them. With good research being done, bad habits may be easier to break in the long run.

Self Help Books About Bad Habits

Bad habits can take over your life. They can make you fail at work, school, and relationships. It is important to address these issues. Self help books are great for this. Here are a few.

The 12 Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back: Overcoming the Behavior Patterns That Keep You From Getting Ahead is a book by Waldroop and Butler. This book focuses on bad habits in the workplace. It explains how you can understand your own bad habits and learn new ways to relate to people. They suggest that doing this will help you to advance and prosper in your career.

James Claiborn, Ph.D. and Cherry Pedrick, R.N. have collaborated on a book about all habits. It is called The Habit Change Workbook: How to Break Bad Habits and Form Good Ones. This book follows a cognitive-behavioral approach to bad habits. It uses psychological principles to get to the root of bad habits. Then, it goes into great detailed steps of how to break them. It also tells about a group of people who have bad habits and explains how each one is conquering theirs.

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do: Bad Habits and Addictions is a short book on the subject by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. It offers a religious perspective to those who feel overcome by their failings. It gives advice on how to find ways out of habits and addictions.

One book is a rather heavy read on the subject of addictions. However, it does offer some sound psychological advice. It is titled Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward. The authors, James O. Prochaska, John Norcross, and Carlo DiClemente, work together to put together a system of coping with undesirable behaviors. It involves six steps, which are discussed in full.

If you have children you want to help, there is a book for you, too. It is called Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children. In it, Jennifer Tratchenberg discusses the kinds of habits children have as they are growing up. She gives insight into how these habits can follow them into later life. Then, the author helps parents set up a program that is designed specifically for their child. This will help the children to break bad habits.

Of course, what subject would be complete without an "Idiot's Guide?" Suzanne LeVert has come up with the Complete Idiot's Guide to Breaking Bad Habits. This book is a tremendous introduction on the subject of bad habits. At the same time, it does it with a sense of humor and warmth. Reading this book may not break your bad habit. However, it may put you in the right frame of mind to do it.

Self help books for breaking bad habits are very useful tools. They help those habituated to understand their problem behaviors and find ways to banish them. It always helps to have a second opinion. Reading these books on bad habits will give you advice that you would never think of on your own.

Medical Treatments for Bad Habits

Can bad habits be cured through medical treatments? Some say yes; they have succeeded in overcoming their addictions through science. There are many medical treatments for smokers and others who want to block their cravings.

For smokers, there is a variety of nicotine replacement options. Nicotine patches are probably the most popular for bad smoking habits. They can be adhered to the skin and forgotten until the end of the day. Or, if you are a person who suffers morning cravings, you can wear the patch all night. In any case, you do not have to be constantly thinking about your smoking.

Nicotine gum is also used by many people with these bad habits. It is handy for those who like to do something with their mouths. It cuts their urge to smoke at the same time. You just chew it for awhile, and then place it in between your cheek and gum. The nicotine will enter your bloodstream. Nicotine lozenges work much the same way.

You can get nicotine nasal sprays and nicotine inhalers through your doctor by prescription. The spray delivers an instant burst of nicotine to the system. The inhaler gives users an experience somewhat like smoking. It helps to wean you from your bad habits.

The downside of nicotine replacement is that you cannot cheat when you are using it. If you smoke when you are wearing a nicotine patch, for instance, you can trigger an episode of very high blood pressure at the very least. Your health will be in danger if you keep your bad habits up.

Many people now use prescription medications for relieving the destruction of these bad habits. Zyban has been used for several years now as a stop-smoking aid. This medication is also an anti-depressant. It helps to eliminate the urge to smoke.

It does not hurt your health (any more than smoking ever did) to smoke or use nicotine patches while using Zyban. However, many people report that they just do not feel like smoking any more.

Chantrix, or varenicline, is a newer medication for those who wish to quit smoking. It eases withdrawal symptoms and makes smoking less pleasurable afterwards. It has been shown to be even more effective than Zyban. It also has been show to help with alcohol addiction. This is helpful since many people drink and smoke in the same situations.

Addictive gambling is another of the bad habits that afflicts many adults. Gamblers seem to have cognitive distortions that prompt them to keep gambling until their money is gone. There may be some physical basis for this. There is now a new medication being studied that is supposed to curb those urges.

For some serious bad habits of opiate addiction, methadone has been used for over thirty years. It controls withdrawal symptoms that come on after quitting heroin, morphine, or similar drugs. It has a well-documented history of success.

While drug treatments of bad habits have their problems, there are some advantages, too. It seems that many of the treatments have helped people to stop addictive behaviors. This is not automatic, but comes with the medication along with a determined effort.

Picking Up Bad Habits from Others

You may feel that you have evaded the bad habits that many people have. That is, you feel that way until you catch yourself picking up the bad habits of others around you. The other person may pass on their habits intentionally or not, but they affect you all the same.

You can pick up bad habits from others in the way they eat. If you spend enough time around a person, you will often begin to eat the same way. It is just easier to make one meal and split it. It is easier to go to one restaurant instead of stopping at two. If that restaurant happens to have only greasy foods, you will end up eating things you would not otherwise eat. You are picking up your companion's bad habits.

Smoking cigarettes is another bad habit you can easily pick up from other people. You sit in the room with your companion evening after evening as they puff away. You gradually either get very sick from it, or you get used to it. You may even come to enjoy it. That is when you are in danger of picking up the bad habit.

Fighting is a bad habit that many couples get into in a relationship. Your spouse may start a fight. You may have no intention of getting into the argument. You may get up to walk away from it. However, your spouse may not let you go. A fight ensues and pretty soon, you are both in it. This may go on over and over until it becomes a bad habit.

In the workplace, carelessness seems to be contagious. If one crew member is irresponsible with the heavy equipment, his attitude can contaminate the attitudes of the other workers. Before you know it, they all have bad habits at work.

Also, if one employee gets in the bad habit of telling everything he knows, the habit can spread. If one tells information about his pay, soon they all will. If one tells private company business, the gossip mill will start churning. The bad habits can get out of control.

If you have the bad habit of practicing one-upmanship, you can lead others to pick up the bad habit from you. A person tells something they did, and suddenly you are telling the better thing you did. Some people will fall into the trap of following your lead and trying to one-up you. This can go on ad infinitum.

Pessimistic people have the bad habit of looking on the negative side of everything. This can rub off on anyone who spends a good deal of time with them. You can only hear about the worst things in life so long before it has an affect on you. You may be next to predict bad times ahead.

Of course, you cannot blame the other person for your choice. That is all up to you. If you want to avoid the bad habits of others, you can do it if you stay strong. Remember that you do not have to always conform to those around you.

Kids and Bad Habits

Kids go through periods of having bad habits. Some of their bad habits are worrisome and some are just really annoying. Parents agonize over what to do about their children's unacceptable behaviors. There are a few things they should know.

1. What you see as bad habits may actually be natural stages of child development. If your very young child is examining the lint between his toes regularly, you might think it is a bad habit. It might be, though, that the child simply finds toe lint interesting. The child will outgrow the fascination and the bad habit will disappear.

2. So-called bad habits may be ways for the child to soothe themselves. At times when they would ordinarily feel like screaming and crying, they may suck on their clothes instead. This makes them feel calm and secure.

3. Children may use bad habits to feel a sense of control over their environment. If they are dropped off at a daycare center for the first time, they may start having odd behaviors. This could be, for instance, rubbing the material of their clothing. As time goes by, if the daycare center continues to feel threatening to them, rubbing the clothing material could become a bad habit.

4. Kids sometimes do things adults see as bad habits that they do not understand. Sometimes, the kids are simply solving a problem. If their hands are cold, they may put them between their legs to warm them up. Adults often misinterpret this and overreact. If they knew the problem was cold hands, they might have a different solution to offer.

5. Shaming and punishment are the worst things you can do. If a child is doing the bad habits in an effort to soothe herself, making her feel bad is counterproductive. It will give her more to self-soothe about. This is why parents often become frustrated when trying to deal with a child's bad habits.

6. Substituting more pleasant behaviors for the annoying or destructive bad habits can work better. You can teach your child to be aware of when they are doing a bad habit. Then, you can teach them another behavior to do instead. When they do, reward them.

7. Incentives work to help some older children get over bad habits. This is especially true if they are old enough to think in the long term of at least a few weeks. You can offer them a reward every day that they do not do their bad habits. By the time they have quit, they will have a large reward waiting.

8. Usually, the best thing you can do is to wait for the bad habits to go away all on their own. As long as you do not reinforce the bad habits by doing them yourself, the kids should grow out of them. Once they get older, their school mates will make it more attractive to them to stop doing their bad habits. Kids like to fit in.

The most important thing to remember about your child's bad habits is that you should not be too alarmed. Only when they are destructive or dangerous is it essential for you to stop them immediately. Otherwise, be understanding and gentle when dealing with your kid's bad habits.

Irritating Bad Habits

Some bad habits can irritate the people around you. These habits can grate on peoples' nerves until they feel like physically stopping you themselves. Some of them are nervous habits and others are thoughtless behaviors.

Some bad habits have to do with shopping. You can really irritate someone if you have the bad habit of following their car to a parking space and waiting with your car close behind. This makes them feel rushed, and it may make it hard for them to get out. By the time the leave they will be very irritated.

You might display bad habits when you get in line to check out at the store. If you cut in line, everyone behind you will be annoyed with you. You make them later, and you give the impression that you are more important than they are.

Sometimes people have bad habits when it comes to what line they choose. They may get in the express line where you are only supposed to have 15 items. They may get in that line with 30. Some people will get in the express line with a whole cartful. It irritates people who want to use the express line for just one or two items and have to wait for you.

There are many nervous bad habits that irritate. Some people crack their knuckles. This sound can in turn get on other peoples' nerves. It is worse for the one listening because they do not know when the next crack of the knuckles will happen.

Rhythmic behaviors are also bad habits to get into if they are not related to the arts. These are behaviors such as tapping a pencil, tapping your feet, or drumming your fingers on a desk. These behaviors often occur when a person is in a stressful situation.

They can be detrimental to you or others. If you tap your pencil when taking a test, it can distract others and keep them from doing well on the exam. If you drum your fingers on your boss's desk, it will make you look bad. You might lose yourself a promotion.

People can irritate with other noise-producing bad habits. Grinding your teeth can irritate others. Clicking your teeth can do it also. Smacking your lips can annoy. Any extraneous noise that you make repetitively with your body can be an irritating bad habit.

Other sound-related bad habits annoy, too. Popping your chewing gum can drive other people to nearly mad with exasperation. If you regularly leave your faucets dripping it is an irritation that they must take care of themselves if you will not. They may find themselves following you around, shutting off faucets. They will not be happy.

Another bad habit is letting your dogs bark at the top of their lungs all night long every night. Sometimes there is a reason and it cannot be helped. However, there is usually a solution to this problem that will be better for the dogs. At the same time, it will make the neighbors' nights more restful.

It is usually hard to break irritating habits. Often, people are not even quite aware that they are doing these behaviors. Yet, if they try, they can make themselves alert to their irritating bad habits. They can do wonders for the nerves of those around them if they can stop.

Inconsiderate Bad Habits

Some bad habits are just plain inconsiderate. The person does their behaviors without a thought to the person he is affecting. A little attention to the feelings of others would stop many of these bad habits in their tracks.

Many people have inconsiderate bad habits in the kitchen. You will find them drinking from the milk jug or juice carton. They do not consider that someone else might not like to drink after them. They are in the habit of doing it, so they do not think about it.

Someone might have the bad habit of opening two liter bottles of pop and leaving the caps off. This is inconsiderate to the person buying the soda because the soda goes flat. No one will drink it. It is also a bad habit to open carbonated drink cans and drink a few swallows only. Many people will do this and then right away open another.

The refrigerator is a source of trouble in some homes. People have certain bad habits there, too. They might take food out of the refrigerator and leave it on the counter to spoil. They may simply stand in front with the door open, staring as all the cold rushes out.

If you have an older refrigerator, they may have bad habits about not filling ice cube trays, and leaving them in the freezing compartment empty. Some people have bad habits of freeloading. They will clean your refrigerator out of food in no time at all if you do not watch them. They will take food when they have been offered none, and when they are offered some, they will take more.

Sometimes people staying with you, or living with you as roommates, will do some cooking. If they have bad habits and do not clean up their messes, you will not appreciate the food they cook no matter how good it is. After awhile, you will just wish they would stop cooking altogether.

Other bad habits have to do with the bathroom. Sometimes, people hog the bathroom. They will not leave time for anyone else to get in to use it. You may need to go to work the same time as they do. If they do not let you get in to get ready, they will be on time and you will be the one who is late. That is very inconsiderate.

Men have been told forever, it seems that their bad habits of leaving the toilet seat up are inconsiderate. They do not realize that a woman, not expecting the seat to be up, can actually get injured by falling in too hard. It is not a pleasant subject, and it is not a pleasant thing to happen.

Other bad habits involve vehicles. You might be in the habit of leaving your car windows down. If you are accustomed to this, you will be ready to put them up if you know rain is coming. However, if you leave someone else's windows down, they may not be prepared. Also, it is a bad habit to borrow a car and not put gas in it.

If you think of other people every day, you will be less likely to engage in inconsiderate bad habits. You will find that you are appreciated more if you find ways to control your behaviors and curb your bad habits.

Illegal Bad Habits

Some bad habits are not only illegal. They push the envelope of what can be considered merely bad habits. However, in a way they are bad habits. They are definitely bad, and they happen frequently enough to call them habits.

Serious fighting can be illegal bad habits. This is the kind of fighting that leads to assault arrests and convictions. People do not think before they act. Or, if they do, they only think angry, destructive thoughts. This fighting can cause injury or even death.

Some fighting happens in bars. Barroom fights are bad habits. Too many people are intoxicated. There are not enough reasonable people in the room to calm things down. There are also often shortages in bars.

There may be a shortage of available men, or of available women. There may not be enough places to sit. This causes animosity, which leads to fighting. Just being in a bar where fights are known to occur is sometimes a bad habit.

Some people, both men and women, have bad habits of domestic violence. They do not think twice about hitting their partner in the face on the way in the door. They have no compunctions about throwing their spouse on the floor, even if she is pregnant. Are these bad habits? Yes, they are the most extreme forms of bad habits.

There are illegal money transactions that are bad habits. There are many forms of illegal gambling. There are restrictions in every state about where gambling can take place. The kind of gambling is also regulated. Abiding by these rules will keep you out of jail. It will also keep you from losing money in a betting scam.

Shoplifting is an illegal bad habit that young people get hooked into before they even think about it. One day they are going to the store and trying on clothing to purchase. The next day, they are going to the store to see what they can stuff under their coats. This can give a young person a very bad start in life. It can also give them bad habits that are hard to break.

Sometimes, people who deal with other people's money decide to borrow a little for an emergency. They find out how easy it is, and they do it again and again. Eventually it becomes the bad habit known as embezzlement. This can land them in jail for years and cause them to pay restitution for the rest of their lives. It can also put the people they took the money from in a terrible situation.

Arson is not always a malicious act. It is not always a well thought out scheme to collect insurance money. Some arsonists simply have a bad habit of starting fires. They are obsessed with flames and torch buildings for their twisted pleasure. It is a bad habit that can cause incredible destruction.

Bad habits are more than just picking your nose. There are bad habits that can destroy property and ruin lives. It is these behaviors that society must work on.