How to Break Bad Habits with Classical Conditioning

Bad habits are patterns of behavior that derail goals and cause pain or distress. They can develop any number of ways, but stress and boredom often have something to do with it. In this article we will explore how to break bad habits with classical conditioning.

Stress will always be present in your life. Sometimes it’s good stress, such as a job promotion or new family member, and sometimes it’s bad stress, caused by challenges and difficulties in life.

It can be easy to turn to bad habits in times of stress — junk food, drugs, etc. The problem is that when you start to rely on these things, you can develop a habit. At its core, all ‘dependence’ really means is ‘something you depend on.’

Pavlov's dogs are the popular symbol of classical conditioning — *What can your dog teach you about breaking bad habits?*

Another way bad habits develop is simple boredom. Maybe this was something you picked up in adolescence — smoking, for example, or maybe you got into the habit of watching television every day after school, and you’re still struggling to curb the sedentary lifestyle.

Either way, there is a simple method (simple doesn’t mean easy!) to break your bad habits. If you’re habit involves and addiction, though, this will take some extra effort.

Classical Conditioning Worksheet to Break Bad Habits (Free Download)

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Addictions: two-headed monsters

Additions come in many forms. Some of the more common ones are:

drugs and alcohol
tobacco
caffeine
internet
gambling

Bad habits, especially those that involve addiction, are two-headed monsters: not only is there the addiction itself to contend with, but there is the association between the addiction and the environment or ritual in which the addiction is fed.

Think, for example, of that prized stress-relieving cigarette break at work: there’s the habit-forming nicotine, but also the ritual of relaxing, going outside, chatting with friends or coworkers, or just taking a moment for yourself.

All of this is wrapped up into one blissful moment, and if you want to break your habit, you’ll need a plan to deal with both of these factors. So what can you do about it?

Enter a dusty old psychology concept called Classical Conditioning.

What is classical conditioning?

We have to go back to 19th Century behavioral psychologist Ivan Pavlov. You may remember him from Psych 101. He identified two primary ways in which we respond to stimuli:

Unconditioned responses

These are natural responses.

Pavlov knew there were some behaviors that occurred naturally – they just happen, without any learning or practice: We cry when we are sad, laugh when something is funny, and yawn when we are sleepy. No one had to tell us to do these things. They just happen. A dog salivating at the sight of food is another example. Pavlov called these unconditioned responses.

Conditioned responses

These are learned responses.

Pavlov also recognized that we learn some behaviors in ways that aren’t so natural or intuitive. These behaviors are shaped by circumstances — automatically talking quietly when you enter a library, for example. Pavlov called these conditioned responses, meaning they are behaviors that don’t come naturally. He set out to demonstrate how conditioned responses are formed in a simple experiment that went on to become very famous.

Pavlov’s experiment

Pavlov had noticed that his dogs began salivating at the sight of the assistant who fed them, even when the assistant didn’t have food. So, for the experiment, Pavlov began ringing a bell when it came time to feed them. As he predicted, they salivated, and ate.

He did this again and again. After a while, the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone — they didn’t even need to see (or smell) the food first, because they had learned that the ringing bell meant food was on the way. Simple enough, right?

So their conditioned response had been established — they had learned that when they hear the bell, they will soon be eating. Then, Pavlov mixed things up – he separated the ringing bell from the food, and found that the dogs still salivated at the sound of the bell. The dogs were salivating for no reason but sheer habit.

This is the power of behavioral learning, and it has all sorts of implications.

Conditioned behaviors and habits

We all have a myriad of these conditioned responses. The way we respond to things today are probably pretty similar to the way we responded to them yesterday, and the way we will respond to them tomorrow — even if there isn’t a great reason for it. Think of Pavlov’s dogs salivating for no reason — the remnant of a once useful behavior (salivation helps with eating and digestion) became wasted energy.

Habits — for all animals — tend to become predictable over time. We may not even be aware of our conditioned responses to stressors in our lives. Do you know yours? If not, ask a close family member or friend about your own habits. Chances are, they can tell you how your behavior changes based on your stress levels. For that matter, can’t you tell when your dog is stressed out?

Every second of every day we are strengthening our current habits and responses, for better or worse. This may strike you as bad news – every day you keep up a bad habit, it becomes more ingrained. This is true (and a good reason to take action now . . . ), but there’s actually quite an upside, too: the good habits you have today will continue to become more natural with time, and, as Pavlov showed us, new behaviors can be learned with a little intentional effort.

How do you apply classical conditioning to bad habits?

I’ll stick with nicotine for this example. Say you want to break an addiction to nicotine, and you know that nicotine is your go-to means of stress relief. Not only do you have to deal with the nicotine addiction, you also have to break the conditioned response of turning to nicotine when you are stressed.

Just taking away the nicotine won’t be enough, unless you have extraordinary levels of self-control.

Classical conditioning can help kick a bad habit — *Classical conditioning can help you break your addictions*

For the rest of us, there has to be another piece to the puzzle. If you take away one means of stress relief, you have to replace it with something else. Otherwise, you’ll be left without your main coping skill, and when your stress begins to overwhelm you, you’ll quickly return to your old standby. This is probably the single most important aspect of habit breaking.

1. Find a replacement for your bad habit

There are a number of easy replacements:

Learn a new skill or hobby
Pick up an old hobby
Take a class
Join a group/support group
Volunteer
Write or practice an art
Exercise

The last one, replacing the bad habit with a form of exercise, is my favorite. I think this one works best because exercise creates physiological change in the way that some other things might not.

2. Ingrain the new habit into your daily routine

So trade nicotine for jumping jacks, for example. Every time you would normally smoke a cigarette, do two minutes of jumping jacks instead. If jumping jacks don’t work for you, try push-ups, or something else that matches your physical capabilities. Replacement habits that don’t require extra equipment are great, because you can do them anywhere.

If your preferred exercise isn’t practical at work, try some exercises you can do at your desk. If someone asks what you’re up to, no big deal — just explain what you’re doing, and why. You may inspire others to take action, too.

Exercise, like nicotine, increases blood circulation and dopamine production, making it an ideal replacement for such a stimulant. Additionally, exercise can reduce anxiety and depression.

Commit yourself to this new habit. If you smoked five cigarettes a day, do five sets of your exercise, and do them at the exact same time of day, if possible (so, for example, in the morning, after meals, and before bed, if that was your cigarette habit. If you smoked ten cigarettes, do ten sets of jumping jacks).

But if you don’t chose exercise, you can still have success following the same basic principles. The better able you are to find something that you can do at the exact same time you would normally be doing the old habit, the better your chance for success.

3. With practice, you will create a good habit

Stick to this new behavior, and in time it will become a conditioned response to stress. You will want to exercise when you are stressed out — it will just feel like the natural thing to do. When that happens, you will have supplanted your conditioned response to nicotine — you will have created a good habit — and that will give you a much greater chance of long-term success with your goal.

Did I mention that Pavlov helped the dogs to unlearn their response to the ringing bell? The dogs eventually stopped salivating when he rang the bell and didn’t feed them afterwards. So, they learned and unlearned a habit. We can program — and de-program — ourselves as well.

So if you have a bad habit –be it nicotine or something else – now is the time to replace it with something good. Classical Conditioning is a great way to do this. Here’s the thing about habits: