Are you in charge of your habits or are they in charge of you?

Mary Beth Knight from Revolution Fitness has expert advice on how to kick our bad habits for good.

Most of us know by now that smoking, over-eating, not exercising and drinking alcohol are all habits that could literally kill us, so why can’t we stop doing them?

These habits (and many others) fire up the reward center of the brain by releasing dopamine, a chemical produced in the brain that makes us feel happier, immediately. The human brain is wired to attach a greater importance to something that seems to reward it immediately versus something that brings with it a delayed reward, which is why relying on willpower only as a mechanism for changing habits rarely (if ever) works.

The other issue that can create difficulty in changing habits comes from the energy that it takes to change, versus the energy it takes to stay the same. Habits are like well-oiled machines, they just keep on rolling down the same track. Switching tracks is a difficult process, one that requires fore-thought and follow through.

Think if a habit like a walk through tall grass; the first time you performed the habit the grass was tall and it took some time and energy to cross the field because the path had yet to be created. Continue to walk down the same path every day thereafter and day by the day the path will become beaten down and easy to see. Not only will it be easy to follow,   you will use less energy following the beaten path compared to the path with tall grass.

It takes energy to create a follow a new path, and then stay on that path. That is why the following strategies, when employed, will increase the likelihood of success.

1)    Repeat the new habit daily – the body and the brain both learn through repetition. Creating new habits and breaking old ones is no accident, and it has nothing to do with luck, but everything to do with repetition. Commit to the new behavior EVERY day for two solid weeks, realizing that sliding back into the old habit will only make it that much harder to get back on track.

2)    Exercise – Moderate physical exertion increases dopamine levels, that happy chemical that also helps your brain memorize activities thus creating habits. Exercise also creates new pathways in the brain, literally builds brain matter giving you the ability to create a new message, send it down a new pathway so that you can have a new outcome.

3)  Reward yourself with something you truly enjoy —and is not in any way shape or form related to your current behavior/habit that you are trying to break. For instance, if you go an entire day without smoking then reward yourself with a new book, new nail polish. Go a whole week and treat yourself to a massage, or a new pair of jeans.

  Stop other habits that are related to the one you are trying to break. For instance if over-eating is your bad habit then do not go to your favorite restaurant

If your bad habit is a reaction to stress in your life then you must replace this coping mechanism with a healthy one, music, reading, meditating, a book, exercise- create a diversion from the stress that also acts a diversion from the habit caused by the stress.

  Change only one habit at a time. Your brain is on an energy/fuel budget and if you try to change too many habits at one time there won’t be enough energy to go around. Remember that exercise creates energy, exercise daily and you will increase the amount of energy that you have to follow that new habit.

  Don’t give in too soon. Your new habit needs to occur enough times in the brain for the brain to realize it is now the habit of choice. Most failure comes from not giving it enough time to solidify the new habit.

Habits are not impossible to break, in fact breaking them can be quite easy when you understand how the brain organizes itself and its energy. A little knowledge and a lot of repetition will have you breaking those old habits and replacing them with new ones in less than a month, that is if you repeat them daily!

There's a free seminar on how to change your habits on Saturday, Jan. 21 at 10:30 a.m. at Revolution Fitness. For more information go to http://www.revolution-fitness.com/asp/index.asp.