How long does it take to learn a new habit?

The other day I was watching a program where they were trying to figure out how to make fast food disgusting. The answer was: if you order a hamburger, smell the smell and then throw it away, at some point you're going to find it disgusting. Only then I think: how many times do you have to drive past that McDrive to flick away a hamburger? How much does that cost? How long does it take to train a habit?

I don't know exactly how much such a burger costs, but let's say it's 5 euros. It takes a few weeks for a habit to be in your system. Let's say you have to drive through that McDrive for 3 weeks, 3 times a day. 15 euros a day times 21 is 315. You then spend 315 euros, but well, then you find that burger disgusting. Then I think, well a hypnosis session is cheaper. So I thought it was a bit of a strange answer, because there are two ways that work very well to change something.

To learn a new habit, the first step is to perform the action consciously. For example, you have decided to take a 15-minute walk every day after work. Then you need to do that consciously for several days - or maybe even weeks - before it has become an unconscious habit

Repeating a new habit

Learning a new habit is a matter of repeating, repeating and repeating the action again. Just until you do it automatically and thus it has become a habit of yours.

What is very helpful in making this easier for yourself is to link the action to a habit you already have. Ordering, looking at and smelling that burger you are already doing, just not throwing it away yet.

For example, I drink a green smoothie every day. I was already used to taking a glass of water in the morning, but now by adding some vegetables or fruits in it as well, I have easily found a healthier morning drink as a habit.

For me, this has made it easier to develop the habit of eating more vegetables.

You, too, can use this approach to link a new habit to an existing one. Want to drink less coffee? Start your day with a cup of tea instead of coffee (that’s already one less cup).

Do you want to exercise more? That can be difficult to incorporate into your routine, but you need a trigger and a reward to do it more often.

A lot of people find it difficult to add a good habit, let's say some stretching exercises in between, yoga or some other sports practice. Science says you have to have a trigger and a reward. Okay so you already have habit, the trigger can be anything. For example: I walk downstairs and look, where do I always walk by? A closet. Okay, the moment I get to that closet, I do three squats and then I walk again.

Or perhaps when you quietly have a drink in the morning and start meditating right after .

After that, you need to do something as a reward. For example, literally giving yourself a pat on the back or a high five to your partner because you succeeded again. Something to get positive feedback so you get good feelings about "doing" your new habit.

This makes it easier to stick with the habit.

Hypnosis for learning a new habit

Still find this hard to stick with? Then you can also learn a new habit very quickly with hypnosis. The habit of exercising more, the habit of eating healthier or even the habit of breathing clean air ( stop smoking).

For example, if you want to quit smoking, you can think of smoking not as an addiction but as a very strong habit. This is because smoking does not involve a physical addiction. Physical addiction lasts a maximum of 36 hours, and with many drugs, such as coke, it’s really just a psychological addiction—in other words, a very strong habit.

Mental addiction can be otherwise very annoying, but it is easier to solve with hypnosis.

If you’re addicted to alcohol or heroin, you also have a physical addiction. In that case, you need to go to a clinic to detox. You really need to go through withdrawal, and the substances need to be removed from your body.

For the rest, it's just a habit, a persistent one admittedly. Only then can you create a habit, but that is quite difficult. In this case, hypnosis is much easier because then you can quickly adjust the unconscious program. In addition, you look at the cause: Hey, why am I actually doing this? Those reasons can be very important.

In the case of addictions, learning new habits independently is very difficult and it is better to seek help, such as from a hypnotherapist for the mental part of the addiction.

Research shows that hypnosis works to get rid of addictions to speed, marijuana and alcohol[1]. Hypnosis also reduces relapses and impulsive use, and it reduces cravings for drugs[2]. When you compare hypnosis to other therapies, such as motivational interviewing, it works better for staying off alcohol than stressing your motivation[3].

Why do something

Speaking of your motivation for certain behaviors...

When learning a new habit, you often don't figure out why you're not doing something. With a habit that you actually find very inconvenient - and want to replace it with a better habit - you can ask yourself why you have the habit in the first place.

The reasons why you don't or don't do something can be very important.

After all, you often have a positive intention behind what you do or don’t do.

For example, not doing something gives peace of mind or ease.

Doing something that is not good for you, such as taking drugs, can give you a kick and take you out of the delusion for a while.

It delivers many things to you and you still want it to deliver. If you take that cocaine away, suddenly you're just in that delusion, you don't want that so you take an occasional sniffle. So then you actually have a bigger problem and that's why people do it, they want to fill up or supplement something. With hypnosis you can find out what that something is because, such a new habit goes wrong if that reason is not filled in.

Without a good reason for a new habit, it is much harder to learn that new habit.

For example, if snacking makes you feel fulfilled and you don't want to snack anymore, that's very difficult. So you need to find something to replace snacking to make you feel fulfilled.

So, to replace an unhealthy habit for a healthy one, you have to make sure that the healthy habit fulfills the why of the unhealthy habit.

Time to learn a new habit

It is different for each person how long it takes to learn a new habit. It can take 21 days or even 90 days.

For example, I started crossfit, the first two weeks went well but then I had a dip. Once you get through that dip, then you can build that habit. With some people this might be the same, maybe it goes a little faster, maybe it goes a little slower. With me it's linked to all kinds of positive feelings so now I have a strategy of pleasure instead of pain. It's really hardwired into my system, I'll keep doing it and there's no goal attached to it. With other sports I sometimes had a goal, for example, to achieve a black belt in three years. Once I achieved that, I fell into a hole and found it hard to keep motivating myself. With crossfit I don't have that, it's not goal-oriented but has become a habit. It makes me feel good when I do it, and painful when I don't. That's nice, you have to find something like that for yourself, too. With hypnosis, it's often right there after just one session, which is so interesting.

By making it enjoyable and linking it to positive emotions, it’s also easier to stick with the new habit. In addition, I don’t have a specific goal for the new habit. For example, eating healthy to reach a certain target weight works very well, but once you’ve reached that weight, it’s often difficult to maintain the new habit. It’s better to eat healthily simply because it generally makes you feel good. In the long run, that ensures you’ll stick with it—perhaps even for the rest of your life.

With hypnosis, you often have this after one session anyway.

So then you learn a new habit in a day.

This could involve how you interact with those around you—such as standing up for yourself, if that’s not something you normally do at all[4]. In fact, it can be about just about anything.

For example, if you want to lose weight, this often requires changing many habits. A hypnotic virtual gastric band can help people with this, and it is usually placed in three sessions. Scientists consider this a promising alternative to an actual stomach reduction[5].

Also listen to this webinar:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1175279-hoe-creeer-je-een-nieuwe-gewoonte

Hypnotherapy for quickly learning a new habit

With hypnosis, you can very quickly associate positive emotions with the good habits you want to cultivate. In addition, you can use hypnosis to associate negative emotions with habits you want to break.

For example, with habits involving consuming unhealthy things, you receive a suggestion that makes you feel bad just by thinking about it. Or even that when you consume or eat it, you feel nauseous.

This can provide a negative feedback loop in such a short period of time that you very quickly let go of your bad habit and adopt the new habit.

Finding out the why with hypnosis

Don't actually know why you do something the way you do it? Then you can find out during hypnotherapy. While in hypnosis, for example, you conduct a socratic conversation. During such a conversation you repeat the why question several times and in this way you get to the core of why you do or don't do something. Then you know immediately how logical or illogical it is and that insight can also bring about a change in your habits very quickly.

In addition, this also helps you in self-hypnosis to repeat affirmations that also make it easier to learn and stick to habits quickly. These can be suggestions such as:

"I can do anything I really want."

"I am strong."

"It's simple."

These are just examples. Depending on your beliefs about the habits you want to unlearn or learn, you can get different suggestions from a hypnotherapist to help you learn and stick to a new suggestion in no time.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis—for example, whether you can put people under hypnosis? Then come to a hypnosis workshop. The workshops are held in Wormerveer and Zwolle.

Would you like to see hypnotherapy in action and try it out for yourself? Then come to a hypnosis seminar.

Would you like to get started right away to help yourself or others with hypnosis? Then sign up for one of the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. The courses are held in Wormerveer, Zwolle, and online.

[1] https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=256699203059684;res=IELHEA

[2] http://etiadpajohi.ir/article-1-1314-en.html

[3] https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/addit/2019/00000018/00000003/art00006

[4] https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tried-hypnosis-first-time-heres-happened-151038340.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAK0HxYbWqdMBDwf0CeR_SjNFiQVOKF58sc1dDJpUQ0hfkPSAzNj89jG-ZED_n6GduwagrJ98ZlXOLBrAIBblhSdEpR3BOxThlZO4YGiNoyThqklGdWThb14H2mwmWYJQyYObLJot1r1jAnks5izX8Hy5SbcPNpGVIKR2r9vV29K6

[5] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207144.2016.1209037