How to form a new habit

how easy is it to learn a new habit?

What is a healthy habit?

A healthy habit is something small that you do that makes you feel healthier and stronger. It doesn't require much work or energy! If you really want to be healthy, fad diets and crazy intense exercise won't help. They will just burn you out and make you fall back into your old routines. Instead, try to change little things in your life, creating new healthy habits. For example, try to make it a routine to floss your teeth more often (this can prevent heart disease and dementia!) or try to start your day with a cold shower (this can improve your immune system and circulation, and help you feel more energetic throughout the day). Even something as simple as waking up half an hour earlier can go a long way towards increasing your daily productivity and energy. Once an action becomes a habit, you'll do it without even thinking. Small habits accumulate into big results.

• Check out my list of 25 easy healthy habits that you can incorporate into your daily routine to change and improve your life today.

How to form a new habit

A new habit is formed through conscious repetition.

Let's imagine, for example, that you want to floss your teeth more often. We all know that flossing is important for healthy teeth, and can even prevent heart disease. But how often do we actually floss?

We have to work hard to remind ourselves to floss. But if we do it every day, it will quickly become a part of our daily routine, and our lives will become that much healthier for it.

How long does it take to make something a habit?

There's been a lot of research into how long it takes to form a habit. In the past, research suggested that it takes 21 days (that's three weeks) to consciously make an activity into a new habit.

That's a bit too optimistic, and just sets unrealistic expectations. Newer research argues that a habit is formed by keeping up a routine action for anywhere between three weeks and three months. 21 days is too easy. It's inspiring and motivating, but it just sets you up for failure.

On average, a habit is cemented into your daily routine in around 66 days, or about two months.

Once you have made an effort to perform a daily action - whether it be flossing your teeth, stretching in the morning after you wake up, waking up half an hour earlier, or making more time to read before bed - it will just become easier and easier to do, until it's just a part of your day.

But don't give up. That's the key. You have to commit to your new habit completely. In about two months, it will be second nature to you, and your day won't feel complete without your habit.

How to keep a habit

Here's the good news: once you have made an action become a habit, you won't have to work hard to keep at it. That's why forming healthy habits goes a lot farther towards getting good results than simply motivation (which is fleeting and easy to lose).

A habit is natural. That's the beauty of it! Think of how many things you do every day by habit. Now, wouldn't it be nice if your habits could include healthy actions? It would never even feel like work, because you would be doing those actions more or less by instinct.

That's the point of this blog. I don't think that crazy exercise routines and fad diets ever did anything for anyone. They may work for a time, but sooner or later all of your motivation will run out, and you'll be right back to where you started.

All you need to do is make small changes in your life and stick with them long enough to form them into a healthy habit.