How long does it take to break a habit or addiction? Many people find themselves asking this question when they’re struggling to kick a bad habit to the curb. Because habits are often embedded in your daily life, it can feel intimidating to try to quit a bad habit cold turkey.
Everyone has a habit they’d like to change, whether it’s nail biting or “doom scrolling” on social media. Knowing how long it takes to break a habit can help you set realistic expectations and motivate you to change.
How long does it take to break a habit?
Research suggests it takes an average of 66 days to break a habit. However, scientific evidence also shows it can take as little as 18 days or as long as 254 days. The length of time it takes varies widely depending on the habit’s complexity, how long the habit has existed, and the person’s motivation.
Health psychology researcher Dr. Phillippa Lally found the 66-day average through a study of 96 volunteers who took on a new daily health habit for 12 weeks. In addition to finding that it can take a long time to break a habit, research indicates that more complex habits take longer to change. For example, it’s generally more difficult to stop smoking than it is to stop biting your nails.
Breaking an addiction, however, may take longer than breaking a habit. An addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease. A habit is a behavior that has become automatic because it has been repeated many times.
While many addictions start as habits, addiction is associated with changes in your brain chemistry that take time to reverse. These chemical changes can impair your ability to think, make decisions, and maintain self-control.
What is the 21/90 rule and is it true?
You may have heard that it takes 21 days to build a habit and 90 days to create a permanent lifestyle change. This is known as the 21/90 rule, and it’s often applied to both making and breaking habits.
However, this “rule” is a myth. It originated from a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz, who observed that his patients seemed to adjust to their new appearance in about 21 days. This observation was published in 1960 in his book titled “New Psycho-Cybernetics.”
Maltz did not conduct a scientific study and based his estimate solely on what he saw in his practice. No research exists supporting a 21- or 90-day time frame for building or breaking a habit.
6 strategies for staying on track when breaking a habit
It’s easy to decide you want to break a habit, but it can be challenging to do this in practice. You may feel more motivated initially but find yourself slowly slipping back into your old habits after a few days or weeks.
Breaking a habit requires consistency and self-determination, but it is within your reach. Use these tips to keep yourself on track.
Understand the 'why'
In 2012, a reporter named Charles Duhigg introduced the “habit loop” in his book “The Power of Habit.” This concept claims that habit formation follows a three-step loop:
- It starts with a cue, which triggers the habit behavior.
- It leads to a routine, which is a repeated pattern of the behavior.
- The routine leads to a reward system, which reinforces the habit.
To successfully break a bad habit, you need to figure out the cue that started the habit in the first place. This is your “why.”
For example, say your habit is regular online shopping. Boredom may have triggered this habit. Maybe the first time you shopped online, it helped cure your boredom. Now, you shop online regularly whenever you’re bored.
In this example, the cue is boredom, the routine is the shopping, and the reward is entertainment.
Consider what cue you’re responding to when you start your habit behavior. Try replacing the behavior with a different, healthy habit.
If you want to break the online shopping habit in this scenario, try identifying when you feel bored. Then, you could choose to react with a different activity, such as going for a walk. This can help you break your habit loop and replace old habits with positive new ones.
If you aren’t sure what to replace your negative habits with, try tapping into the common habits of successful people. These include getting organized, creating a daily routine, and practicing gratitude. Practicing these habits can help create the best conditions to support positive change.
Prioritize self-reflection
Breaking bad habits and forming good habits requires self-reflection. This means setting aside time to think deeply about your thoughts, motivations, and behaviors to identify what you want to change.
Taking time to self-reflect creates a self-awareness that can lead to benefits like the following:
These benefits can help you think through your behaviors and cues more clearly. If you aren’t sure where to start, try asking yourself these self-discovery questions:
- What habits get in the way of my happiness?
- How will changing this habit bring value to my life?
- Why do I struggle with breaking this habit?
- What obstacles might I face when trying to break this habit?
- What is one thing I can do every day to work toward positive habits?
Prioritizing self-reflection about your habits can help you develop a game plan to tackle them. Think about your habits, what you want to change, and what challenges you may encounter.
Start small
Because breaking habits requires consistency, it’s best to start with incremental changes that add up over time. For example, if you want to break a bad habit of constant snacking, don’t set a goal to cut out all snacks at once. Doing so can lead to unrealistic expectations and set you up to fail.
Instead, try cutting out the snacks you have after dinner or while watching TV. Once you’ve successfully met that goal, gradually build up to cutting other snacks. This behavior can help the change feel less drastic and make it easier to achieve.
Try habit stacking
Habit stacking is the practice of choosing an existing habit and “stacking” a new habit on top of it. For example, you might practice gratitude while brushing your teeth. Or, when you eat breakfast, you may take vitamins at the same time.
This practice helps form new habits by making an existing habit a cue. It also makes it easier for your brain to remember a new behavior, positioning you for success.
To create a stacked habit, consider adding your new desired activity immediately before or after something already part of your routine. For example, you can take a walk immediately after eating dinner. Or, you could meditate right after making your bed each morning.
Find an accountability partner
You may find it challenging to hold yourself accountable to your new routines. This is when finding an accountability partner is invaluable.
An accountability partner can check in with you regularly to make sure you’re staying on track. They can also help you stay motivated and brainstorm ideas for when you hit roadblocks.
You can ask anyone to be your accountability partner, such as a friend, neighbor, or life coach. If you aren’t ready to involve someone else in your habit-forming journey, you can also use habit tracker apps. Research shows that monitoring your progress can help you achieve your goals, acting as a motivator to show you how far you’ve come.
Find professional support
Depending on the complexity of your habit, it may be beneficial to get outside, unbiased help. Coaching is great for this. Personal coaches exist to help you successfully make lifestyle changes and achieve personal growth.
Working with a coach can help you develop a personalized plan to rid yourself of negative habits once and for all. A coach can hold you accountable, talk you through any mental barriers, and help you reflect along the way.
Which habits are most difficult to break?
Some habits are harder to break than others. Most of the time, the hardest habits to break involve the strongest rewards.
For this reason, habits like the following may take extra time to change:
- Addictive behaviors: Addictive behaviors such as smoking or alcohol use can be especially hard to break. Because you’re dealing with chemical changes in your brain, you may need professional help. This may include working with a coach or mental health counselor.
- Health-related habits: Habits related to your health, such as exercise, weight loss routines, and personal health goals, can be hard to form because they can be heavily tied to emotions. These habits can also be hard to break. For example, if you’re overeating, you may be doing this in response to feelings of stress or loneliness. Because this habit likely gives you relief as a result of your brain releasing dopamine (which fights unpleasant feelings), it’s a harder habit to break.
Embracing discomfort: the key to lasting change
Change is uncomfortable. It involves breaking away from your routines and automatic behaviors that may play a large role in your daily life. The key to sticking with your habit changes is learning to embrace discomfort instead of avoiding it.
Here are a few tips for getting comfortable with discomfort:
- Develop a growth mindset: A growth mindset can help you view challenges as opportunities for growth. It focuses on the benefits of change instead of the negatives. Developing this mindset involves believing that skills and intelligence are things you can learn and develop.
- Identify your limiting beliefs: Limiting beliefs are things you believe that stop you from doing something. For example, if you believe you’ll never be able to overcome a certain habit, you’re less likely to put in serious effort. Make sure you’re aware of any limiting beliefs you may experience so you can challenge them.
- Embrace the unknown: Trying new things doesn’t have to be scary. It can actually be exciting. If you’re trying to replace a bad habit with a new one, consider tapping into something you’ve always wanted to try. Maybe you can start those guitar lessons you’ve been dreaming of for years or join a local hiking group. This excitement can motivate you to stick with your new routine.
- Be patient with yourself: Habits don’t change overnight. They require a long-term commitment to create sustainable change. If you slip up one day, don’t let it get you down. Learn from your mistakes and start again the next day.
How to break a habit and create lasting change
The answer to “How long does it take to break a habit” differs for everyone. It could take you 18 days or 18 weeks. The key is to stick with your habit-breaking efforts until you notice a difference.
Breaking unhealthy habits is a matter of strategic behavior change. BetterUp Coaches specialize in employing evidence-based strategies to enable sustainable growth. Stay on track with a BetterUp Coach to break unhealthy habits and create lasting change.
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