How long does it take to change behaviour

People usually debate on how long it takes to develop a habit and they say that it usually takes more than 55 days to develop a habit. But, in terms of behaviour development it is a bit different.

How long to break a habit

Well, in order to understand behaviour, let us first understand what actually behaviour is. It is said to be anything any individual does such as response and action to the stimulation, the manner with which one conducts oneself, the response to the group, species, and the environment.

Healthy behaviour

A research was conducted in order to get information about creating the good and healthy behaviour. People adopted a new behaviour in almost 55 days, but to maintain it is a different story. How is that? Well, if you have developed a habit of drinking 14 glass of water per day in 55 days. Now, there is turn for making it a healthy behaviour and adopting this behaviour for life time. It was seen in the research that it took one to five years that people changed the behaviour to healthy behaviour.

Overcoming the environment

How will you check out that the behaviour you just adopted, is it truly established or not? In order to find this out we need to put that new established behaviour in a new environment to get the results. Let us understand it with an example by supposing that you are in a party and you just have arrived there, now the issue is that there is everything in liquid except water, such as wine, juice, soda etc. What will you do? All day long you just had 10 glasses of water and 4 glasses are not yet consumed. At this very moment your decision will decide that is it a healthy habit or not? Had you just established it fully or you need some more time.

You may be thinking to drop the idea of having these 4 glasses of water and have something else instead. If so then you have not established the behaviour as yet, you need some more time.

If you thought earlier that there might be shortage of water or you just had a habit of taking a bottle of water everywhere you go then this is the right thing now. You have successfully established the healthy behaviour now as in this way you have overcome the environment and its factors.

Now it is a known fact that behaviour takes time to change or to develop, and after you have gone through this new concept then you can set the time frame accordingly; of course, after knowing your calibre to change the specific behaviour which you want to change.

Some tips on “How to change behaviour”

We will check some tips on how to change a behaviour if you want to change any particular behaviour or want to establish a new one, let us check the tips out:

1. The first question you need to answer is what kind of behaviour you want to establish or change? As some of them are easier and some a difficult from the others. After knowing that what kind of behaviour it is you can understand that how long is it going to take to change or to establish it.
2. Now, if you want to change some behaviour that is not very beneficial and you want to change it due to its drawbacks then first of all you need to convince yourself that this behaviour is hitting you for a long time. Once you have convinced yourself then there are fair chances of changing that particular behaviour in less time.
3. If you are into some bad behaviour which is automated and you do it automatically then there are less chances of it to get changed in less amount of time. This one surely going to take longer time then the other ones. You can replace it with some other behaviour and in this way, you can change that particular behaviour.
4. This tip goes with all the other tips as if you are doing this one then you can change the behaviour without any hassle and in shorter span of time. There is no rocket science! It is just the matter of repeating the thing you are doing to get rid of some behaviour or to establish a new behaviour. By repeating the behaviour your mind will get used to the new behaviour easily and in this way, you can change it with ease.

Now that you know that there is no specific time frame of changing the behaviour but it depends on the person who is trying to change it.

Why so long?

Well, the simple answer to this question, why behavioural changes take so long is that the behavioural changes require physical changes and the brain undergo these changes. A person takes time to adopt a new behaviour as well as to change the old one, the same way the behaviour takes time as well. Repetition and time is required to establish a new behaviour and to change the older one.

If you are planning to change or establish a new one then keep these things in mind:

• The length of the old behaviour and the new one, for example, smoking for 20 years and changing it in five years.
• Why you are changing it? Is it beneficial?
• Practicing the new behaviour time to time, for example, eating bad food and changing it with salads and healthy food; then eating the new healthy food on daily basis.

End note

Now you know the fact that it is not just a physical change your body is going through but a neural change that your brain is going through as well. Make a commitment and stick to it is the key to success in this very issue, do that and you are good to go! Sooner than later your brain will get used to it and you will establish or get rid of the behaviour which you want to.