Good afternoon,

I hope you are well and have had a good week?

I have a question for you……have you picked up any bad habits during lockdown? It could be you are drinking during the week when you only drank at weekend, you are watching more tv, eating more, drinking more, going to bed later. Get the gist.

Do you want to know what mine is CHOCOLATE, yes I am eating more chocolate.

Did you know habits are made up of three components: a trigger (for example, feeling stressed), a behaviour (browsing the Internet), and a reward (feeling sated). Each time we reinforce the reward, we become more likely to repeat the behaviour.

Have you noticed it can be really hard to break a habit?

What I am going to do about it – over the next week I am going to do the following:-

Work out where the habitual behaviour is coming from?
What time of the day it is?
How I feel when it happens?
Are other people involved?
Does it happen right after something else?

I then need to address why I want to break the habit. I will make a list of the benefits of cutting back on the chocolate. It is great to write things down and stick it somewhere to remind you. 

Another option is to tell a friend so you have encouragement/support, hence why I am telling you. 

Practice mindfulness -it can help you develop awareness around your thoughts, feelings and actions.

Replace the habit with a different one.

Are you an all or nothing person – it is up to you whether you cut something out completely or gradually.

Visualise yourself breaking the habit.

Motivate yourself with a reward. 

People ask me how long it takes to break a habit. At Kick Start when we do a 28 day detox I always say to my clients after 14 days you will see/feel changes and start to feel better and more positive but everyone is different. A lot of findings say it is 21 days but personally I think it depends on the individual.

I would love to know if any bad habits have crept in with you? 

Take care and enjoy your weekend.

Love Paula xx