Disrupting Personal Habits

“Habits can be incredibly useful. They allow the mind to multitask and in so doing enable efficiency. Behaviors get linked together into a routine, and once the chain of action is initiated, the rest follows with little mental effort. Yet sometimes habits take hold when they are not useful” (Glasofer and Steinglass). In the article, “Disrupting the habits of Anorexia,” Glasofer and Steinglass outline the idea that routines and habits result in certain destructive behaviors and disorders. The article furthers that breaking the barrier between these old routines allows an altercation in the way we form new habits. Glasofer and Steinglass suggest a “habit-reversal therapy,” through which patients look for cues in their behavior that could lead
From brushing our teeth before or after breakfast to double checking the gearshift twice before pulling out of the driveway, habits revolve around our actions and decisions. The general concept of “habit” can simply be categorized into two areas: positive habits and negative habits. Positive habits include those that result in good test scores such as routine, study habits. Negative habits may lead to more detrimental consequences such as alcohol addiction due to lack of temperance or obesity due to ignorance of nutrition. Observation of personal habits have lead to the analyzation of the “chain of action” Glasofer and Steinglass mention in their article. For example, a positive personal habit would include the determination to drink at least eight glasses of water per day. The cue for this habit is initiated in the morning when a glass of water seems necessary after consuming coffee. All the decisions and actions we take as the progresses is the result of the familiarity of our
Personally, a lesson derived from the consequences of social media is to allow the identification process to take place and to accept the dilemma at hand. Parallel to Jane’s situation, after accepting that such habits were causing destruction, the principle learned is that breaking the routine requires a process. Any habit may seem impossible to break from commonplace routine, however, through the process of recognizing and reverting old habits, a cured life can be accessed by