Habit how long

If you eat badly, you might resolve to start eating well, but if you're eating burgers and ice-cream to feel comforted, relaxed and happy, trying to replace them with broccoli and carrot juice is like dealing with a leaky bathroom tap by repainting the kitchen. What's required isn't a better diet, but an alternative way to feel comforted and relaxed. This column will change your life: How long does it really take to change a habit?

Illustration: Chris Haughton. Topics Life and style This column will change your life features. According to psychology professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne, sometimes a habit can be broken quickly: "In extreme cases, the habit can be broken instantly, such as if you happen to become violently ill when you inhale cigarette smoke or nearly get hit by a bus when texting and walking. But in most cases it's going to take longer than that, and you should probably allow for at least two months.

To successfully break a habit, you need to think of your strongest motivation, which will drive you along. In these cases, it's worth the time and energy to break that habit. You may have heard that it takes 21 days to break a habit, a myth that originated in the s book Psycho-cybernetics. The book was written by cosmetic surgeon Maxwell Maltz, who claimed it took patients about 21 days to become accustomed to altered parts of the body, which eventually morphed into altered habits.

The science suggests that habit change actually takes much longer to occur. A small study found that it took anywhere between 18 to days to change habits. The study participants were asked to incorporate a healthy eating, drinking, or exercise habit of their choosing into their lives. On average, the study found that it took participants 66 days of repeatedly performing a habit before the habit became automatic.

Missing a day to do the desired behavior did not hinder the habit-forming process, but repeating habits at a consistent time each day allowed people to form them quicker. While consistency is key to altering habits, know that it's not a linear process — you may revert to old habits and have to start the process over again. The prefrontal cortex, the frontmost part of the frontal lobe, deals with decision-making. How long does it take to form a habit? Again turning to popular internet lore, the most commonly quoted number is that it takes 21 days to form a habit.

This belief apparently originates from Psycho-Cybernetics, a book published in thes by plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz. Maltz noticed that his plastic surgery patients took 21 days, on average, to get used to seeing their new faces in the mirror.

His amputee patients still felt their phantom limbs for roughly the same amount of time. He extrapolated that it takes at least 21 days for something to become second nature to us humans.

Although Maltz was careful not to claim his observations as facts, society quickly adopted the days myth. On average, it took participants in a study 66 days to solidify their new habit. Dr Phillippa Lally and her collaborators conducted a more rigorous study in Researchers recruited 96 people who were interested in forming a new, daily habit like, say, drinking a glass of water before bed, and monitored them over 12 weeks. For some participants, they only needed 18 days for a behavior to become a habit.

So, on average, it took participants 66 days to solidify their new habit. How can you make a new habit stick?