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How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

thelogicaloptimist.com

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Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#41

Post by jmyeet »

I envy the neurotypicals who can just form habits, 21 days or otherwise.

People are neurotypical rarely if ever understand what those with ADHD go through. The best description I've heard is that people with ADHD don't have habits: we have trauma.

The meaning of that is that neurotypicals have the capacity to simply go into a rom and do something. It almost passively happens. ADHD people do not. Even getting up in the morning involves 50 questions being mentally asked and answered. Do I need to take something to the bathroom? Did I run the dishwasher? Did I leave the heating on? Do I need to do laundry today? And I'm 5 seconds into my day.

A brain that seeks novelty quickly gets bored with reptition. The only way you form habits is by the trauma of the consequences of not having that habit.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#42

Post by kodt »

crazygringo wrote: post #34
cco wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very clearly implied only in the title. I agree that it should be included but it is unnecessary to convey the meaning imo.

There is not. I too assumed it must mean it takes less, otherwise there would be an "only", or "It takes more than".

I assumed it would take longer than 21 Days based on the title alone.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#43

Post by jbs789 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #40
OnionBlender wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your healthier breakfast? I never really learned what is considered a healthy breakfast.

I think part of the problem is we don't really know what a healthy diet looks like. We can point to what is probably unhealthy: eating tons of sugar filled items is probably bad, eating a lot of fried food is at least questionable, but beyond that we really don't know. The research is either poorly done, impossible to do, or you can find studies that go both ways.

Pretty sure the verdict is in - natural foods over processed.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#44

Post by girvo »

crazygringo wrote: post #34
cco wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very clearly implied only in the title. I agree that it should be included but it is unnecessary to convey the meaning imo.

There is not. I too assumed it must mean it takes less, otherwise there would be an "only", or "It takes more than".

I wonder what bias I have that made me read the title and assume "Huh, must be way longer" then?

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#45

Post by peterldowns »

jmyeet wrote: post #41

I envy the neurotypicals who can just form habits, 21 days or otherwise. People are neurotypical rarely if ever understand what those with ADHD go through. The best description I've heard is that people with ADHD don't have habits: we have trauma. The meaning of that is that neurotypicals have the capacity to simply go into a rom and do something. It almost passively happens. ADHD people do not. Even getting up in th…

Funny, intentional routine / habit-formation has been the most effective way to help manage my ADHD. Sorry to hear that it's been impossible for you. For anyone else reading this, I would still recommend paying attention to your routine and seeing if you can help yourself by making adjustments.

> It almost passively happens. ADHD people do not.

I don't find this to be true for me or many other ADHD friends.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#46

Post by _JoRo »

What has been most reliable for me has been instead of going from bad habit A to good habit Z, I just replace A with the easiest alternative that is less bad than A.

Obviously, this means going from A to Z can take years instead of weeks. Though, from my own personal experience and from what I see of others, trying to go too quickly from A to Z just results in whiplash and irractic behavior--where I have seen it work is when there is an existential crisis demanding that the behavior change.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#47

Post by m463 »

I suspect there're other factors to forming habits.

Forming a running habit is probably harder than say heroin.

I also recall from the "atomic habits" book, that you can chain habits together.

The idea was that if you already have a habit of getting out of bed in the morning, you could hydrate. Just say "as soon as I get out of bed, drink a glass of water" and it is easier to form the habit.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#48

Post by moron4hire »

codr7 wrote: post #39
rpmisms wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually making decisions is pretty great. I quit a really heavy nicotine addiction by simply deciding I wasn't going to use nicotine anymore.

There are different kinds of dependencies; the human brain needs nicotine to function properly, more than you get from modern food. Not recommending tobacco, nor big pharma crap, there are supplements.

Yeah, it's weird. I'm actually a much nicer person on nicotine than I ever was before I got addicted. It makes it really hard to quit, because even after a few weeks, while I don't feel miserable anymore, I do miss the person I was on nicotine.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#49

Post by chimpanzee »

hammock wrote: post #24
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #3

>"If you’re trying a new diet, attempting to quit smoking or changing any daily routine, don’t expect new habits to be created in a week, or two or even three. Research suggests that the process requires 66 days (on average) and up to 8 months." Something about the title suggested it was going to be much less than 21 days; maybe it's the domain name biasing my reading of the title.

Effort is usually quoted as a minimum ("It takes 20 minutes to drive there" "It costs $100 to buy this") which leads to a strange quirk that the negative is then interpreted as being a lower minimum, rather than a higher one ("It does not take 20min to drive there, "it does not cost $100 to buy this")

Your examples make me wonder if the language of marketing has changed our assumptions about implied meanings where otherwise we'd recognize ambiguity.

Or perhaps, marketing aside, it is just human nature to conjure implicit meaning rather than be confronted with ambiguity.

Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)

#50

Post by _dark_matter_ »

hansvm wrote: post #37
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #3

>"If you’re trying a new diet, attempting to quit smoking or changing any daily routine, don’t expect new habits to be created in a week, or two or even three. Research suggests that the process requires 66 days (on average) and up to 8 months." Something about the title suggested it was going to be much less than 21 days; maybe it's the domain name biasing my reading of the title.

There's a tendency sometimes to leave certain words implicit. "It does not [even] take 21 days to form a habit." Some of those linguistic habits never leave their birthplace, giving you colloquialisms like "do you want to come with [us]" in the Midwest. Most don't have any regional association though, and sentences with dropped fragments sound perfectly normal, with your mind filling in the gaps. In this case, the se…

"Do you want to come with" is a Midwest colloquialism?? Wow I say it all the time. Very weird to find out.
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