Saturday, 26 March 2016

Using Curiosity to Break Bad Habits

I have been watching so many TED Talks recently and I've never watched one that hasn't sparked my interest. Today I watched a talk about addictive behaviours and how to break these bad habits. The concepts most spoken about are smoking and eating bad foods but it is explained that these behaviours are not the only ones this concept applies to. It gives other examples like checking emails when procrastinating from work. HERE you can find the link to the video.



In this video Judson Brewer shows us a simple way to break these bad habits that are so simple to acquire. They are described as a system that goes like this: Trigger; behaviour; reward... Repeat. E.g. See food; eat food; feel good... Repeat. Listening to this simple routine made me a little sad. We so easily fall into this trap when it comes to bad habits when Judson also explains a simple way to break it.

As much as I eat healthily I'm also really bad at enjoying chocolate and cake. In the last month I've improved massively. I've tried cutting out a lot of sugary and fatty foods. When approached by unhealthy foods I've applied this to my thinking: Am I hungry? If I am, I ask; Could I find something/make something healthier? Yes I could. If, no, I am not hungry I find pleasure in the ability to say no to this bad habit of eating unhealthily. I find that when I'm researching foods that are good for you and the reasons why, my curiosity leads to my healthy decisions feeling all the more exciting.

Watching this video has definitely made my mindset towards my bad habits even better. The suggestion he gives us is to, "notice the urge, get curious, feel the joy of letting go and repeat." Throughout his talk he talks about curiosity feeling good. And it does feel good. I have a sense of purpose when I'm curious and I feel delighted when my curiosity leads to answers. It's easy to be curious and so it's easy to kick these habits.

I'm going to be thinking about this talk a lot in the next couple of weeks in order to make Judson's routine become part of mine!

Curiosity & Joy,

The Girl in the Moonlight.

P.S. I'm blogging twice a day every day this March and you can read my last post HERE!

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