Last week we asked you about any bad habits or behaviors you had that came in pairs, wondering if they were likelier to stick. You've had the past week to try and separate your bad habits to see if it made them easier to break. Today's the day to let us know how it went.
For the experiment, I decided to try and separate television and food because I felt like I watched too much television and sometimes this would cause me to eat more food than I needed because I wasn't paying attention. What I discovered in the process of not watching television while eating is that eating is very boring when you have nothing else to do. I also found television pretty boring by itself, in many cases, as a lot of the shows I watched were just for the sake of having something on for the noise. At first I started watching those shows while cleaning, or doing other chores, but eventually I just opted for podcasts or music because it was hard to really devote any attention to what was on. Nothing really changed with the food, however, as I just eat too fast—but the food thing wasn't a huge problem to begin with. I've found that I eat slower if I have a few ounces of water before I start eating. So did this little experiment solve my problem? Sort of, but really only by making me more aware of what was going on. I still want something to do while I eat if I'm eating by myself, but I'm going to continue to try new things rather than just default to a bad TV show for the noise.
For those of you who made an attempt to break some sticky behaviors, what did you discover? How did it work for you?
Photo by Caroline
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