There is an old saying that goes “it only takes a couple days to forms a habit, but 21 days to break that habit.” While the saying isn’t exactly true, it does take a lot longer to break a bad habit than it does to form one.
Dr. Elliot Berkman, a neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of Oregon, said, in an article for ScienceAlert.com, “It’s much easier to start doing something new than to stop doing something habitual without a replacement behavior. That’s one reason why smoking cessation aids such as nicotine gum or inhalers tend to be more effective than the nicotine patch. People who want to kick their habit for reasons that are aligned with their personal values will change their behavior faster than people who are doing it for external reasons such as pressure from others.”
Here are three apps to help you form better habits or break bad ones:
HabitBull is an app that can help you organize your lifestyle habits in order to help you break bad ones. You can keep track of day-to-day habits and routines, measure your goals, and track bad habits like nail biting, smoking, or excessive drinking. The app shows you your patterns and helps you find a way to break them.
According to the app’s description, “Easily keep track of all your habits, routines and repeated to-dos! The app is a powerful companion, which helps you keep track of your day-to-day habits and routines. You can measure and track anything and everything. The app will also notify you whenever you need to do something important. Simply start tracking bad habits like nail biting, smoking or drinking too much. Once you see the patterns, it’s easier to break them. HabitBull keeps you accountable. Whether you want to read some more, stop smoking, start working out or even just track how many hours you wasted on Facebook, this app lets you do it!”
HabitBull is free and available on both iOS and Android devices.
Good Habits is an app that will help you replace bad habits, like eating junk food, with good ones, like eating healthy meals. The app creates a chain that helps you develop good habits, set reminders, and check your progress for the day.
According to the app’s description, you can “develop skills and keep your new year’s resolutions by doing a little every day. Get into the habit and don’t break the chain! This app is based on Jerry Seinfeld’s advice and makes it easy to keep track of your daily habits, with reminders so you never forget what you have to do.”
Good Habits is free and available for download on iOS devices.
Beeminder:
Beeminder is an app that works similarly to Good Habits in that it will always help you stay on task. You can simply set a goal and start working towards it. If you get off track with your goal, the app with charge you.
According to the app’s description, “The app keeps track of your goals and plots your progress on a yellow brick road. The app also has you pledge some money to the process and if you get off track several times, they will take your money! The Beeminder app also allows you to sync goals with your Apple Health data, so you can automatically track steps, distance, and other metrics without manually entering data.”
Beeminder is free and available on iOS and Android devices.
With these three apps, you are sure to start breaking bad habits and creating good ones!
Featured Image by Noliv O on Flickr
Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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