Summary

We all have habits. Habits can be changed. Some habits may benefit our mental wellbeing. We can change our habits to affect our mental wellbeing. Take time to change habits.

Mental Wellbeing and Changing Habits

Our mental wellbeing can be affected by our habits. Our habits may be contributing positively or negatively to our mental wellbeing. Habits can be changed. Consider your mental wellbeing by changing habits.

Let’s explore further.

What is a habit?

A habit is a regular practice. Habits can be changed. Since habits are ingrained by dint of repeated practice, changing a habit requires undoing of the repetition of the habit. This takes time and effort.

Understanding the formation of habits, including the cues to sustain habits and the motor actions of a physical habit, involves an appreciation of the multiple brain regions implicated in habit formation. The brain regions for encoding habits and executing habits are not mutually exclusive. One of the usual characters who teach me so much in their podcasts is Andrew Cooper-Sansone. Check out his Sense of Mind podcast episode entitled The Neuroscience of Habits & How They Shape Us:

Habits Affect Our Mental Wellbeing

Why we develop habits varies from person to person, habit to habit. Sometimes, a habit is simply a manner of acting that we learnt from a caregiver or a friend or a companion. A habit may be a convenient means to an end, in order to save time or to spend time with friends or to feel better in the moment. A habit may be developed because we truly believe in the benefit of the habit. Our habits may arise and evolve to circumvent dealing with life, as may be the case when a person schedules an activity on the day of the week they are supposed to be doing their laundry or meeting with the landlord or attending couples counseling.

How do habits affect our mental wellbeing? Consider some of your habits.

Perhaps you go to bed at midnight and arise at 6:30am. Maybe you eat ice cream every night. Or you smoke cigarettes when you feel anxious. Or you drink alcohol every evening after work, to “unwind”. You might go swimming once a week after work to relax your body and relieve emotional tension. Potentially, you have developed a habit of smoking cannabis before bedtime because you believe it helps you sleep. Maybe you never cook a meal and most often eat fast food (Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Sonic, etc).

Go ahead and dissect some of your habits. Take, for example, a couple of common habits of people living in the USA.

Smoking cannabis before bedtime sounds like a good decision. You have heard that cannabis can help with sleep. This statement is not based on scientific evidence. We do not have enough evidence or data based on large, randomized controlled studies to substantiate the benefit of cannabis for sleep problems. Further research may provide evidence. In addition, cannabis contains over 300 chemicals which can exert psychoactive effects in the human body. Which combination of chemicals may benefit sleep is still unknown. The 300 chemicals in cannabis products can lead to side effects. The side effects may include an impact on our mental health.

Eating fast food may seem to save you some time. In the short term, this habit may seem beneficial. We have evidence that processed foods such as fast food may causes health issues. Weight gain, impaired glucose (sugar) metabolism (processing by our bodies), elevated lipids (cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL), and nutrient deficiencies (inadequate intake and processing of essential nutrients) are some of the potential health issues resulting from fast food ingestion. These health issues in turn may lead to diabetes, excessive brown fat deposits in the abdominal region, and cardiovascular conditions. Mental health issues are associated with poor physical health, cardiovascular conditions affecting our functioning, and diabetes.

Habits for Promoting Mental Wellbeing

The question which surfaces is whether habits can promote mental wellbeing. I believe they can. Here is my rationale.

Consider the previous posts I have written which addressed how we can promote mental wellbeing. In these posts, I discussed the basis for the assertion that the activity in question fosters mental wellbeing. We can develop a habit of doing some of the activities which favour our mental wellbeing.

Try regularly engaging in physical activity.

Consider learning to play a musical instrument.

Opt for creating a garden.

Expose yourself to nature on a regular basis.

Develop a daily mindfulness practice.

Work on your sleep hygiene by creating a routine: what you do before bedtime; when you retire to bed; what time you awaken in the morning.

Schedule time to prepare your meals at home and select less processed foods.

Share gratitude with people around you.

Feeling Better, Feeling Good: Wellbeing and Habits

You see, it’s not that difficult to decide to improve your habits. It may take time and effort to effect the changes. Change is a process just like Life is a Process. Life is not an outcome. We evolve, we change, we adapt.