UCL in the News: How to give up bad habits forever

Excuses aside, how hard is it to give up something for Lent? Professor Jane Wardle is the director of the newly launched Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL and she's very clear. "It's very hard." Part of the problem is that many of the things that we would like to give up - say chocolate - are linked to automatic behaviours. …

"Routines and habits dictate what we do," she says. …

In an experiment designed to find out what it took to build a new habit, Professor Wardle's group got volunteers to try to adopt a new healthy habit - giving up slothful lounging at lunchtime, for instance, and taking a short walk. Or not eating biscuits with coffee. Every day, the volunteers logged into a website and completed a questionnaire as to what they had done and how easy they had found it.

How long did it take for their resolve to become a normal part of their routine? "We found it took a very long time - 70 days in fact, although for some it was shorter." …

So what are Professor Wardle's tips to help you to give something up? "Many behaviours are about context, so some forward planning may be needed to alter context and give you a better chance of success and, in this way, having a set date like Lent helps." …

Professor Wardle also recommends writing things down or saying them out loud: "I'll go straight to the sitting room and do a Su Doku when I get home." …

The Health Behaviour Centre is core-funded by Cancer Research UK and its researchers work in three specific areas: diet and weight; screening; and smoking. Robert West leads the smoking group. While we might joke that we are addicted to Hobnobs, nicotine is truly and ferociously addictive (far more so than heroin, in fact). For West, the keys to giving up smoking are emotion and identity.

"All behaviour is emotion not belief," West says. "It doesn't matter what you believe - for instance, that smoking is bad for you - unless your actions generate feelings, your attempts at giving up won't work."

Stopping smoking is clearly beneficial, but what about changes in health habits for only 40 days? "It's a kind of personal experiment which gives you good data about yourself," says Professor Wardle. "It gives you feedback about how difficult or easy something will be, and you might then try another month." …