Mental Habits

We form both conscious and subconscious habits for everything we do on a regular basis, including thinking. Mental habits are our time and energy-saving auto-pilot way of navigating daily life.

The way we react in different situations, the way we walk, how we get dressed, where we choose to sit, how we go to sleep, the way we hold our cup, how we brush our teeth, and how we drive, are just a few examples of how our mental habits get us through our day. We don’t need to think about these types of things while we’re doing them, and we’re usually actively thinking about something else entirely.

As great as our mental habits are at helping us navigate life, there are times when they can have negative impacts. When we notice we’re feeling unusually stressed, depressed, anxious, distracted, having problems falling asleep, etc., there are almost always mental habits involved that we can work with to help get us back on track.

Our mental habits are like all of our habits, and in fact, all of our habits are mental habits that we can change. Working with our mental habits begins with identifying unhelpful habits, ones that are causing difficulties. Then we can work on changing them by purposely distracting ourselves from those auto-pilot habits so we can replace them with new habits through repetition…which is how we formed our current habits in the first place.

You’ll often here me say “Life sucks when we’re being stupid.” You may not like hearing it, but it has a lot to do with choices and your mental habits. Using the same mental habits to make new decisions, and expecting things to improve fits the definition of insanity…it’s what we call being stupid.

The good news is that we can purposely change our mental habits which allows us to automatically make better choices. Changing a mental habit is like a software upgrade. Things just naturally go smoother with our choices leading to happier outcomes.

An example is the Applied Awareness Stress Relief and Nature-Based Meditation programs where we create a natural mental association between being aware of breathing and becoming deeply relaxed. Then, by repeatedly paying attention to breathing when feeling stressed or anxious, a new habit for handling stress and anxiety is created.