REASON WHY WE RETURN BACK TO OUR HEALTHY HABITS
Reasons why we return back to unhealthy habits or addictions.
Winning the battle against things that render negative impacts in your life is a great milestone. It takes courage, dedication, and sacrifices to mitigate unhealthy habits such as addiction to alcohol, food, among others, and demarcating yourself from a toxic relationship. However, even after the much-needed victory, some people end up falling back into the pitfall of unhealthy habits or addictions. Research taunts self-love as [the] major contributing factor to the habit turnaround, but let’s explore the main reasons why we slump back to unhealthy habits.
Obsession
Obsessions lead to most habit pull-backs in many people. You might have just graduated from unhealthy habits like excessive drinking, overeating fatty, and greasy foods, or from a toxic relationship but in the long run, you find yourself back on the unhealthy diet and in the stressful relationship. Simply because you are “very interested” in such foods, alcohol, or the relationship partner.
It kicks in as an urge to bend the rules a bit to experience the feeling once more. Some people would convince themselves saying, “Taking 3 glasses of whisky and a few snacks per day doesn’t mean I am on my unhealthy habits.” However, this is just to fog their obsession for whisky and snacks. On the other hand, those obsessed with a partner in a toxic relationship will claim that “It’s easier to work things out than starting over again.” In time, the latter will fall back to unhealthy habits while the former returns to the toxic relationship.
Peer Pressure
After embargoing some habits in your life like drinking alcohol, smoking, and unhealthy eating, you might feel segregated from society. Your friends can stop hanging around with you. Just because you have isolated yourself from their unhealthy habits. This could lower your self-esteem and feel unfitting in the environment.
In the long run, you decide to acquire back the respect they showed you before. You don’t mind the consequences of reverting back to unhealthy habits but just earning respect and acceptance from society. In such cases, peer pressure hooks many people back to unhealthy habits and addictions.
Impatience
Changing your diet from cholesterol and sugar-based foods to healthier meals such as garlic chicken stir fry could only take a day. However, teaching your body to accept the new diet could take a lot more. You have to give yourself time to mitigate the cravings for such unhealthy foods. But if you’re impatient, self-love for the previous diet could still lure you back.
After the transition, most people think they have walked away from the unhealthy habit. Be it alcohol drinking, physical inactivity, or unhealthy food eating. Although, this is not the case especially if it was an addiction. According to research, addictions effects can linger in your system for up to 18 months after stopping. During this time, if you’re not patient enough, the temptations will return you back to the unhealthy habit or addiction.
Failure to set achievable goals
High levels of addictions are very difficult to combat. If you are a heavy drinker, it’s unrealistic to wake up and say, “I won’t drink from today henceforth.” Quitting from excessive drinking or any unhealthy habit sometimes requires a strategy. Researchers suggest that it’s easier to unwind the situation with a well-analyzed plan.
For starters, alcoholics can set achievable goals like avoiding bad influences, informing friends and families they are trying to quit, and maybe phasing it out by drinking small quantities once in a while. However, the process demands self-discipline. If the goal is to avoid social settings involved with alcohol, then you cannot visit the nearest pub for any beverage. Likewise, it’s impossible to abruptly quit alcohol or any addictive unhealthy habit. You have to be smart when structuring the goal-staircase from an unhealthy habit or addiction.
Ignorance
Believe it or not, ignorance is a major setback on your journey to overcoming unhealthy habits. For example, some people are so attached to unhealthy foods and toxic relationships so much. Sometimes, it takes their friends and families’ effort to pull them out of the habit. But, the victims may be unaware their sources of self-love are wounding their lives.
When such people are retrieved from toxic relationships or unhealthy habits, they don’t realize the gravity of the situation. Some deem they know what’s best for their lives. They ignore all it took to save them from unhealthy habits. And end up returning back to addictions claiming, “What can go wrong?” “Am only doing it this once!”
Not reframing our schedules
Once you have outgrown an unhealthy habit or a toxic relationship, it’s ideal to substitute it with something else. What I mean is, if you were used to having a cake for breakfast every morning, you can substitute it with a fruit or at that specific time, do something different like going jogging. This helps substitute the unhealthy food or curb yourself by reframing the schedule with another activity.
Remember you have self-love for cakes. There is an imprint of I take a cake every morning in your brain. And the best way of erasing it is substitution or keeping yourself busy during that time. Over time, your system will adapt to the new routine. However, if you fail to subject yourself to new things after moving from unhealthy habits, there’s a likelihood you can return back to such habits.
Conclusion
It is true to conclude that if unhealthy habits were a source of your self-love, there is a high chance of returning back to them. Most of the unhealthy habits in people are a result of self-happiness. Some people drink alcohol or smoke because the habit makes them feel happy or, as many claim, stress-free. This makes the competition stiff when trying to quit and as reiterated on the reasons mentioned, returns you back to the unhealthy habits.
