Habits - Make it 'Till you Break it...

I have heard many versions of "They say it takes...(think of a number)...days," to form or break a habit. The number being determined according to who you are standing beside at the bus stop. Also,"They" might be a "Them" as the number keeps changing, being strung between "7 days", "28 times", "3 months", "up to a year" and "just twice"... Ah..here comes the bus. Thank God...

This debate appears to land somewhere in the approximate postcode of "Scientific Philosophy" although is actually neither one, nor the other. But on hearing another friend, just yesterday, propose that "They say"... "it takes 28 days for UK tourists coming to France, to get used to driving on the right".. I decided that enough was very much, enough. I mean, if that were true, the roads from Calais to Calvados would be piled high with smoking, twisted, right-hand-drive Dacia Dusters.

Time then, for a bit of proper research. The first proponent of defining a definite timeline around "habitual behavior adjustments" turns out to be an Amrican chap called Maxwell Maltz - a plastic surgeon in fact, who said in 1968, that it took "28 days" for his patients to adapt around the physical changes he crafted on their boobs, beaks and backsides. The 28 day number was picked up like chewing gum on the shoes of sundry self-help book writers, and eventually became another "that'll do" urban myth. Because, dear readers, urban myth, it very much is.

January is richly aligned with habits - letting go of the ones we we feel no longer serve us, and adopting those we deem better and more worthy of us. But there are surely some sub-sets here that beg identification - habits, compulsions and addictions. Some conquered more easily than others.

Will Durant, the American philosopher best known for his Magnum Opus "The story of Civilisation", proposed obliquely - "We are what we repeatedly do", which simplifies things nicely. And also fits well into the pre-supposition that habits are inately neutral. They can be both objectively and subjectively, good or bad, - within the broad, borderless parameters of generally accepted, social norms. "I say please and thank you / I pee on other peoples flowerbeds. Good / Bad. ish.

When we stray into "compulsive behaviour", psychologists will suggest that an element of anxiety begins to rear its head. Brushing our teeth is habitual. We can either chose to do it or not. Compulsion looks more like we fear going to bed, not having done it. Addiction, on the other hand, aside from being an issue that the most basic comprehension of, is utterly impenetrable to those who have not suffered through it, is not really as simple as the next stop on the behavioural train. It is the end of the line. Way off down the tracks. We should deal with that another time. It is an area that needs way more space.

Habits typically develop over time through a natural process called, sensibly enough, "habituation" - an activity that though consciously initiated, eventually becomes entirely subconscious, carried out without us really specifically thinking about it. There is not set time around this adaptation, it varies with each of us. Some amongst us develop a habit in as few as four days, others can take a year and a half.

One important determinant around behavioural "uptake", is the effort required, or what the people behind the research call habit strength. This refers to low effort habits, like drinking more water or taking a daily vitamin C supplements, versus Running 6 miles every morning before 8am in flip-flops, which is bound to take longer to settle, as a regular routine, if at all...

You see, I thought... (and I might actually still think this..) that it was ultimately down to choice. To do simply what we choose to do. If I excercise the choice muscle, it seems more simple to get my head around. If I choose to follow a vegetarian diet then surely my eating habits, will form like barnacles around that central, choosy construct. I don't know.. I have just said both out loud.. "I am choosing not to eat potato chips in 2026", seems less onerous somehow, than saying "Next year, I need to get out the habit of eating chips". Perhaps by "choosing", I feel it is less shame-based, and that might be the key.. It might be too close to call, and this article might be an excercise in pedantry.

What are habits to you, dear reader? Does the word lean towards inate "goodness" or "badness"? Or is it totally Switzerland and inherently neutral? For me, the word "Habit" leans left - towards the undesirable, where as "choice" veers the other way entirely. Is it the same for you?

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