How long does it take to give up a routine?

Forming a habit is not easy, however, giving up a habit is even harder when it takes a lot of time and determination.

From brushing our teeth daily to drinking coffee at 11am, we all have dozens of habits that are hard to quit every day.

Some good habits, such as regular exercise, are often recommended. However, some recommended habits should not be maintained such as smoking an whole sack of cigarettes a day or eating pizza too often.

There is no shortage of apps designed to help you form good habits. Some applications are built on the assumption that all you need to form a routine is 21 days.

The figure comes from a famous 1960 book called Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon who found his patients seemed to take about 21 days to get used to the new face.

However, according to a 2009 study, the time it takes to form a real habit is not obvious.

Researchers from University College London examined the new habits of 96 people within 12 weeks and found that the average time for a new habit to truly stick with each person was 66 days, moreover, the individual time changed from 18 to a whopping 254 days.

The message given by the researchers is that if you want to develop a new habit, it will take at least 2 months and you should not despair if 3 weeks do not do this or for most people, simply not enough time.

Meanwhile, you can end a routine without a little thought. But what happens to trying to give up an unwanted habit?

It can be seen that the formation and abandoning of a habit is quite closely linked. As the psychoapper Timothy Pychyl explains, they are two sides of the same currency: "Giving up a habit actually means establishing a new habit, a new potential reaction. Old habits or reactions are still there in the form of a neural reaction pattern in the brain but less dominant with new habits."

"It's much easier to start doing something new than to stop doing something habitual without alternative behavior" - neuro scientist Elliot Berkman said - "That's why smoking cessation-assisted drugs like nicotine gum or inhalers tend to be more effective than nicotine patches."

Experts agree that there is no typical time frame for giving up the right routine and formula that will be a mixture of personality, motivation, circumstances and habits in question.

"People who want to give up the habit for reasons that are consistent with personal values will change their behavior faster than those who are doing it for external reasons such as pressure from others," Berkman said.

According to psychology professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne, sometimes a habit can be broken quickly: "In special cases, the habit can be broken immediately, such as when you are seriously ill from inhaling tobacco smoke or are nearly hit by a bus while texting and walking."

However, in most cases, it will take longer than that, at least about 2 months, to quit a routine.

To successfully abandon a habit, you need to think of your strongest motivation, which will help you do this. Think of an "alternative behavior" for the habit but make sure it is a positive behavior, for example replacing smoking with snacking is one of the common remedies.

And be patient. The longer you have a habit, the longer it takes to give it up.

"Perennial habits are literally entrenched at the neurological level, so they are strong deciding factors of behavior" – Berkman explains – "The good news is that people are almost always capable of doing other things when they are aware of habits and have enough motivation to change."

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According to P.L of vtv