Breaking any bad habit requires significant time and commitment. This article will cover how habits are formed and provide five tips to help you kick a bad habit. We will also introduce natural alternatives for better health, such as supplements and vitamins for stress.
How Habits Are Formed
Habits allow people to execute daily tasks such as eating, working, exercising, and sleeping. One area of the brain, the dorsolateral striatum, receives a brief surge of activity when the brain begins to form a new habit. This burst of activity rises as the habit grows stronger. Habits are formed through a loop, which consists of a trigger, response, and reward. Various cues may affect our impulse control and trigger the response, such as the following.
Hungry: Impulse control involves the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, with some aid from other areas of the brain that deal with foresight and decision-making. Any calorie deficit will short-circuit this activity region, making it harder to exercise willpower.
Angry/Anxious: When we are angry or anxious, our bodies go into fight-or-flight mode, which causes us to operate from the most primitive areas of our brain and neurological system. Some of the reasoning areas of our brain shut down in this state, reducing our capacity to analyze, reason, and evaluate the long-term ramifications of our actions. In this state, taking several slow, deliberate breaths may help calm your nerves when your emotions are running high.
Exhausted: We lose our self-control and willpower when we are tired, a phenomenon known as “ego-depletion.” As a result, our decision-making abilities are impaired, and it is harder to keep our best interests in mind. Healthy sleeping habits are crucial for your self-care and your longer-term goals.
We get a rush of dopamine, the neurochemical linked with feeling good, when we satisfy an urge—whether it is for calming, attention, or any other reaction. We begin to seek more dopamine after a few bursts, which leads us to engage in the triggering action. This may include lighting up a cigarette, consuming caffeine, or eating fast food. In order to overcome these unhealthy habits, here are five tips to consider.
Five Helpful Tips
- Define your objectives and then commit to accomplishing them. Individuals who recognize that they need to change their lifestyle are more likely to do so than those who believe they may or may not have a problem. Taking active measures to make that change, such as writing down your goals and placing them in a prominent place in your home or workspace or joining a self-help group, can help you break the bad habit. Change is difficult and requires dedication. You may need to adapt your actions and attitudes to your specific behavior objectives by identifying what they are.
- Seek assistance, and don’t face your challenges alone. If you decide to talk about your plans with others, choose individuals who want you to succeed. It is difficult enough to break unhealthy habits without watching others enjoy what you have just denied yourself. For example, if you wish to quit smoking or vaping but your spouse still smokes, your task will be more challenging. Find someone who has the same aims as you and wants to break the bad habit. Friends, family, coworkers, or specialized support groups can all help.
- Establish sub-goals and timelines that are clear and achievable. Keep track of your progress in a notebook or calendar showing how long it will take to break the bad habit. For instance, if you are drinking four cups of coffee in the morning and want to reduce this to one, give yourself a couple of weeks to meet your goal. You may do so by cutting down one less cup of coffee per week. The first major challenge is to maintain the intended behavior for 90 days.
- To compensate for the loss of unhealthy behaviors, add competing beneficial ones. We frequently require something to replace a habit to keep concentration and successfully change our behavior. You are less likely to substitute old bad habits with new ones if you replace them with positive habits. This includes exercise, meditation, spending time with family, and cooking healthier meals. Additionally, you can try natural remedies like supplements and vitamins for stress, explored in the next section.
- Reward yourself along the way. Continue to praise yourself for taking “baby steps” toward overcoming a negative habit and celebrate the small wins. This will help encourage you to take the next step. You may achieve this by establishing a “success amount” that rewards you as long as you keep succeeding. For example, if your goal is to avoid fast food for a month, reward yourself once you meet the halfway point and set bigger goals upon completion.
Natural Substitutes
In addition to the tips mentioned above, you can also consider natural alternatives like supplements and vitamins for stress to help you kick a bad habit. These are effective, healthy substitutes for the bad habit you may be trying to avoid.
Can-i Wellness for Stress
Can-i Wellness is a leading wellness and supplement company that produces high-quality, third-party lab-tested supplements. Can-i Wellness’ numerous product lines are precisely created to fulfill the demands of both athletes and health enthusiasts. Combining vitamins, nutraceuticals, and herbal extracts into a portable and convenient spray canister, the products are designed to function together to provide the best experience possible, resulting in optimal health benefits.
Dealing calmly with everyday challenges will boost your performance and productivity. Our Can-i Fresh experience is created with a powerful blend of Vitamin Bs, L-Theanine, Folic Acid, Thiamin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, and more herbal extracts to leave you feeling stress-free without making you drowsy or unmotivated.
Vitamin B1
- Vitamin B1 is an essential vitamin for balancing blood sugar levels, which plays a significant role in reducing anxiety levels. B-complex vitamins are often referred to as an “anti-stress vitamin”, as it aids in strengthening the immune system and improving the body’s ability to conquer stressful situations.
Vitamin B3
- Vitamin B3 is an essential vitamin for the synthesis of serotonin, which has been proven to help with anxiety. Research indicates that Vitamin B3 works in the brain in ways that are similar to anxiety medications. B-complex vitamins are often referred to as an “anti-stress vitamin”, as it aids in strengthening the immune system and improving the body’s ability to conquer stressful situations.
Vitamin B5
- Vitamin B5 plays a role in supporting the body’s adrenal glands, which help to reduce stress and anxiety levels. B-complex vitamins are often referred to as an “anti-stress vitamin”, as it aids in strengthening the immune system and improving the body’s ability to conquer stressful situations.
Vitamin B6
- Vitamin B6 shows several anti-stress benefits, as it assists in the cellular uptake of magnesium. Vitamin B6 can help to improve your mood, reduce symptoms of depression, and help with emotionality – as it helps to create more neurotransmitters that help to regulate your mood. shows several anti-stress benefits, as it assists in the cellular uptake of magnesium.
Vitamin B12
- Vitamin B12 is an important vitamin for helping to manage your mood. Research has suggested a strong correlation between having low levels of B12 and heightened rates of anxiety. Therefore, sufficient B12 intake is crucial for managing anxiety.
L-Theanine
- L-Theanine helps to ease anxiety, stress, reduce insomnia, meanwhile improving mental function. The intake of L-theanine can aid in significantly reducing anxiety symptoms.
Folic Acid
- Folic Acid works with Vitamin B12 to help the body break down, use, and create new proteins. Folate and Vitamin B12 work great together for balancing out hormones that are related to feelings of stress and anxiety, or depressive moods.
Thiamine
- Thiamine works with Vitamin B12 to help the body break down, use, and create new proteins. Folate and Vitamin B12 work great together for balancing out hormones that are related to feelings of stress and anxiety, or depressive moods.
Niacin
- Niacin is used by your body to convert food into energy and is required for the function of fats and sugars within the body to maintain healthy cells. Increased levels of Niacin in the body can also aid in easing depressive or anxiety symptoms.
Pantothenic Acid
- Pantothenic Acid is a vitamin that is required to support the body’s response to anxiety and panic instances. The body’s adrenal glands require pantothenic acid for the production of the stress hormones, in response this helps to reduce your stress and anxiety levels.
Can-i Fresh can help you deal with regular tensions while boosting your mental clarity to kick any bad habits.