Habit Definition

Few things are more difficult than kicking bad habits or developing more positive ones. But it is definitely worth the effort. Bad habits like smoking, overeating or self-criticism shorten lives and lead to underachievement, and unsuccessful attempts to change them lower self- esteem. In contrast, good habits create a kind of success auto-pilot, leading to greater accomplishment with less thought and less effort. So how do you best eliminate bad habits and create good ones? Research from the new field of positive psychology the scientific study of happy, successful people points to at least four proven techniques for successful habit management. 1. Replace a bad habit with a good one. Completely eliminating a habit is much harder than replacing it with a more productive habit. Studies of people who compulsively bite their fingernails have shown that it is very difficult for them to completely give up their habit, and much easier for them to substitute biting with the more productive habit of grooming their nails. Similarly, people who talk too much during meetings struggle to become silent, but find it much easier to replace their compulsive talking with highly attentive listening. 2. Exercise. A habit of regular exercise is obviously important for lasting weight loss. But you may not realize that exercise helps in accomplishing a variety of goals, and in eliminating a number of bad habits. Frequent exercise helps break habits of overeating, and in kicking all kinds of addictions, particularly if exercise is substituted for an end-of-the-day cocktail or cigarette. Among smokers who become competitive runners, for example, over 80% give up smoking. 3. Reward success. The most fundamental law in all of psychology is the law of effect. It simply states that actions followed by rewards are strengthened and likely to recur. Unfortunately, studies show that people rarely use this technique when trying to change personal habits. Dieters, for example, routinely overlook weeks of exercise and restrained eating, only to let a single lapse snowball into a total relapse and complete collapse. Setting up formal or informal rewards for success greatly increases your chances of transforming bad habits into good ones, and is far more effective than punishing yourself for bad habits or setbacks. 4. Schedule your bad habits. If you are really struggling to kick a bad habit, try limiting the habit to a specific time and place. If you are struggling to quit cigarettes, allow yourself to smoke from 9-9:30pm, and only in an uncomfortable smoking stool. When the urge to smoke strikes, tell yourself that youll have plenty of time to smoke during your pre-scheduled smoking period. Research and case studies confirm that this rather unconventional approach can be a useful first step in changing bad habits.

REFERENCES The findings and recommendations in this article are based on scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals. For complete references, see Psychological Foundations of Success: A Harvard-Trained Scientist Separates the Science of Success from Self-Help Snake Oil by Stephen Kraus, Ph.D.
Source : http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Definition_Personal_Habits.html

Habit

Definition: The usual condition or state of a person or thing, either natural or acquired, regarded as something had, possessed, and firmly retained; as, a religious habit; his habit is morose; elms have a spreading habit; esp., physical temperament or constitution; as, a full habit of body.

Habit

Definition: The general appearance and manner of life of a living organism.

Habit

Definition: Fixed or established custom; ordinary course of conduct; practice; usage; hence, prominently, the involuntary tendency or aptitude to perform certain actions which is acquired by their frequent repetition; as, habit is second nature; also, peculiar ways of acting; characteristic forms of behavior.
http://ardictionary.com/Habit/23

Habit (psychology)
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Habits (or wonts) are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously.[1][2][3] Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habituation is an extremely simple form of learning, in which an organism, after a period of exposure to a stimulus, stops responding to that stimulus in varied manners. Habits are sometimes compulsory.[3][4] The process by which new behaviours become automatic is habit formation. Examples of habit formation are the following: If you instinctively reach for a cigarette the moment you wake up in the morning, you have a habit. Also, if you lace up your running shoes and hit the streets as soon as you get home, you've acquired a habit. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioural patterns we repeat are imprinted in our neural pathways.[5]

Formation
Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes habitual. As behaviors are repeated in a consistent context, there is an incremental increase in the link between the context and the action. This increases the automaticity of the behavior in that context.[6] Features of an automatic behavior are all or some of: efficiency, lack of awareness, unintentionality, uncontrollability.[7] Habit formation is modelled as an increase in automaticity with number of repetitions up to an asymptote.[8][9][10]

Habits and goals

The habitgoal interface is constrained by the particular manner in which habits are learned and represented in memory. Specifically, the associative learning underlying habits is characterized by the slow, incremental accrual of information over time in procedural memory.[11] Habits can either benefit or hurt the goals a person sets for themselves. Goals guide habits most fundamentally by providing the initial outcome-oriented impetus for response repetition. In this sense, habits often are a vestige of past goal pursuit.[11]

Bad habits
A bad habit is a negative behavior pattern. Common examples include: procrastination, fidgeting, overspending, nail-biting.[12]

Will and intention

A key factor in distinguishing a bad habit from an addiction or mental disease is the element of willpower. If a person still seems to have control over the behavior then it is just a habit.[13] Good intentions are able to override the negative effect of bad habits but their effect seems to be independent and additivethe bad habits remain but are subdued rather than cancelled.[14]
Eliminating bad habits

There is an arbitrary threshold at which the pain or destructiveness of doing something conflicts with the negative tendencies of any habit. It is this threshold point that The Habit Code is based around. According to author Bill Borcherdt, the best time to correct a bad habit is immediately, before it becomes established. So, bad habits are best prevented from developing in childhood.[15] There are many techniques for removing bad habits once they have become established. One example is withdrawal of reinforcersidentifying and removing the factors which trigger the habit and encourage its persistence.[16] The basal ganglia appears to remember the context that triggers a habit, meaning they can be revived if triggers reappear.[17]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habit_%28psychology%29