Teenage Woes 1: Bad habits

[Cloud-uk]

The strong ask for help

Why do things the hard way? You're going to have it ****ing hard anyway, and the way to get what you want in this life is to use everything at your disposal. When improving yourself, a bit of psychology can help you.

Research done by the scientist Pavlov shows an interesting model of how we lean things (he won a nobel prize for it, so he's pretty ****ing clever). You may have heard of Pavlov's Dogs, his experiment that showed the conditioning model of learning. Pavlov's Dogs salivated when presented with food. He found that if a bell was sounded as the food was pesented, the dogs associated the food with the bell. The dogs then salivated when the bell was sounded, even when no food was presented.

But what in the sweet name of **** does this have to do with you? Knowledge is power, and if you want to win you better get smart and get cunning. You need to practically apply knowledge to get you to where you want to go.

Its time to start by killing off those bad habits. Biteing your nails, smoking, picking your arse, whatever- IT STOPS NOW. Its time to do some conditioning...

So- we need a stimulus with an unpleasant effect...how about an elastic band round your wrist? You pull it back, you let it go, you hurt yourself:

Elastic Band --> Pain

Now let's add in the habit:

Elastic Band + Bad habit --> Pain

Give it a few weeks to settle in....

Bad Habit --> Pain

Should help you stop whatever you are giving up. Repeat for all other bad habits you have and enjoy being a better person.

Next: Getting a Job

 

[RawkinKaoticStyle]

why dont i just use a bell too

 

[Cloud-uk]

erm...the idea here is to stop bad habits. A bell doesn't have an effect on people so you can't use it instead of the rubber band. The idea is you associate the pain caused by the band with the bad habit. The rubber band is to the food as the bad habit is to the bell. The pain and salivation are the learned characteristic. By learning Bad habit= Pain we can stop doing it.

Are you suggesting you hurt yourself everytime you hear a bell? That would just give you an unhealthy fear of bells. I don't think that is what we're after, but it sure would be funny as ****.

 

[gav]

insightful cloud, somethings here i had forgotten about for a while.

I think that there should be included in size 32 text, PROCRASTINATION and how to stop that. Biting nails and trivial things like that are no where near as important as not procrastinating. So to stop procrastinating, for example, every time you feel yourself procrastinating, smack yourself over the head with a frying pan or something nearby.

cheers 4 the post m8

 

[Cogent Ops.]

I have been using this for awhile... and it really works if you keep up with it.

Even more important than the bad physical habits you listed, this can be used for bad thinking habits!! I have struggled with anxiety/depression for years, and my therapist told me to use a rubber band and snap it whenever I became anxious and ruminated on every little mistake/regret/worry in my mind. I am still recovering (It will take a good portion of a year) but this is making it so much easier, and I feel better each day.

Good advice.

 

[zachamun]

This really is great advice Cloud-uk. Good job. This can also be used to anchor good feelings and with some practice it really does work. I use a snap of the fingers to send good feelings throughout my body and I hit a certain spot on my leg to prevent me from my bad habits. Whenever you feel anxious about doing something like approaching a girl just do your good anchor and if you have practiced it enough you will feel a lot more confident about the situation. Good stuff!

 

[Cloud-uk]

heh heh, or snap it if you don't approach?

Thanks for the kind words all