1. 100 | NEIGHBORHOOD SEEN • April 2016 www.NeighborhoodSEEN.com
» FEATURE
How Long
Does It Take
To Make Or
Break A
Habit?
While Bloomfield Hills
psychotherapist and life
coach Pamela Vaughan
(www.pamelavaughan.com)
says it takes a minimum of
28 days to break a habit,
author Jeremy Dean notes
in his book, Making Habits,
Breaking Habits: Why We
Do Things, Why We Don’t
and How to Make Any
Change Stick, it takes 66
days to form a good habit,
though “anything hard” is
likely to take longer.
Whether you are breaking
an old habit or establishing
a healthier one, Vaughan
says it’s OK to falter. “If you
mess up at day 14, don’t
start over. Just do the next
right thing and kick it off
again tomorrow.”
A
fter a day of classes at
Michigan State University
that only a stuffy British
accountant might enjoy,
I often rewarded myself with a deep-
fried cinnamon bagel from Bagel
Fragel, coffee and a cigarette.
Let the good times roll, eh?
Though I was forced to give up the
Fragel after I graduated, I continued to
smoke, stinking up a small advertising
agency as an entry-level employee
and then my very own office at the
Downtown Detroit headquarters of a
large computer company. I gave nary a
thought to quitting, until a co-worker
brought to my attention the incongrui-
ty of it all when I lit up.
“You don’t look like someone who
would smoke.”
I don’t? I really enjoyed the habit,
but she had a point: I had a certain
rose-colored innocence. Maybe I
wasn’t meant to be a smoker after all.
That led me down a path of quitting
— but only after several attempts —
and a subsequent weight gain that led
me down another path, one of lifelong
exercise.
So it seemed I was a creature of
habit, and that I eventually replaced a
bad one with a good one.
Even so, I have since acquired habits
I should probably reconsider: Netflix,
a daily dose of anything-with-choc-
olate-or-caramel and decaf, skinny,
vanilla lattes from Starbucks.
Oh, well. We can’t all be perfect.
HOW PESKY HABITS FORM
“They develop in response to a neg-
ative feeling, an itch that needs to be
scratched,” says Ron Samarian, M.D.,
Royal Oak Beaumont’s chief of the De-
partment of Psychiatry and chairman
of Psychiatry at Oakland University’s
William Beaumont School of Med-
icine. “They get reinforced because
they reward the rewards center in the
brain.”
Once the habit is established,
thanks to the relief it likely provides,
it “results in a well-worn [neural]
path that is difficult to deviate from,”
Samarian adds.
Whether they are good or bad,
habits also “protect us from decision
fatigue,” Jeremy Dean says in his book,
Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why
We Do Things, Why We Don’t and
How to Make Any Change Stick. Doing
without thinking saves time — that’s
what makes habits so attractive in our
time-strapped world — and so hard to
give up.
HOW TO BREAK HABITS
The first step is awareness, even if it
takes a nudge from a spouse, or, ahem,
a co-worker.
“Once the dependency is formed,
the individual doesn’t always see it.
Other people see it first,” says Bloom-
field Hills psychotherapist Pamela
Vaughan. “It’s only in the state of
awareness that we can begin to dissect
what we are doing wrong and formu-
late a plan to change the behavior.”
Understanding the root cause is
important, too. “If I’m biting my nails
out of insecurity, it would be helpful
to work on that in parallel. Otherwise,
the habit is likely to return,” Samarian
says.
For the Netflix-addicted amongst
us (ahem, ahem), “Why do we come
home and watch TV?” Vaughan says.
“If the person really thinks about it,
[they might conclude] ‘Well, I just
want to numb out from my crazy day.
It’s my coping mechanism.’”
If the goal is to watch two hours of
TV daily instead of four, then knowing
why we watch makes the transition
easier. So does defining the benefit of
a new, better habit: more time with
Break ing Bad
You can conquer your bad habits!
By Pam Houghton
Pamela Vaughan Paul Carey Ron Samarian, M.D.
Continued on page 102

2. 102 | NEIGHBORHOOD SEEN • April 2016 www.NeighborhoodSEEN.com
» FEATURE
Continued from page 100
family or on hobbies, for instance.
The amount of time it takes to
break the habit is extremely variable,
Samarian adds. Some people can
stop cold turkey, while others require
gradual change. Vaughan favors
gradual change, noting that an all-
at-once approach can overwhelm.
“If you change your behavior just
a smidgeon, you’ll get a different
result.”
Eating habits are ripe for starting
small.
“What can you change with ease?”
Vaughan asks. “Maybe you can’t give
up your afternoon latte right away,
but you can give up your morning
donut. Give up something you know
you’re going to succeed at so that you
can feel the success,” which builds
self-control. Eventually, you’re more
likely to give up the latte, too.
The most important thing is to
make the change a priority, Samarian
says. “Otherwise, it becomes an in-
convenience that gets tossed aside.”
Several ways to do that include
writing it down, telling others
of your commitment or putting
obstacles in the way. “When you
feel anxiety about jumping into a
bad habit, go do yoga or work out,”
Vaughan says.
HOW A TIGERS’ LEGEND
QUIT SMOKING
Former Detroit Tigers broadcaster
Paul Carey quit smoking on the ad-
vice of his physician: If he didn’t quit
his decades-long habit, his health
and livelihood were at risk.
“He made his living with his
voice,” wife Nancy says of the legend-
ary announcer, who was smoking
three packs a day and headed toward
a series of health ailments, including
emphysema.
But there was a hitch. The doctor
told them if one quits and the other
doesn’t, it wouldn’t work. That meant
Nancy, also a heavy smoker, had to
quit, too.
Then he had Paul and Nancy set a
date. “The doctor said, ‘Smoke your
heart out [until your next appoint-
ment], then quit once you are here,’”
Paul says. “On Dec. 13, 1989, at 9:15
a.m., we threw the remaining packs
in the trash at the back entrance of
Troy Beaumont.”
According to Dean’s book, “In
order to break old habits, the attempt
needs to be paired with new habits.”
For Paul and Nancy, the new, though
temporary, habit was Nicorette
gum. “That gave us a little bit of a
boost,” Nancy says, though instead of
using it for the recommended three
months, they needed six.
But it took more than pairing up
with a new habit. They had to get rid
of triggers — environmental cues
that reminded them of smoking.
“I bet we had 40 ashtrays in our
house. That was a temptation,” espe-
cially whenever they had a drink or
were on the telephone, Nancy says.
“We got rid of them.”
Still, it took a year before the crav-
ing was gone. “The fact that they had
each other to rely on made it more
likely they would succeed,” Samarian
says.
Today, Paul and Nancy are firmly
in the anti-smoking camp. Not that
the change of heart is all that surpris-
ing. “The social pressure to smoke
isn’t nearly as strong as it used to be,”
Nancy says. “And that helps.” NS
FOR MORE INFO
Contact Pamela Vaughan at vaughan.
pamela@yahoo.com or call
(248) 752-1275.
To contact Dr. Ron Samarian, call
(248) 290-2220.
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