What habits are you carrying forward from your childhood?

Habits from childhood (both positive and negative) can have a lasting impact well into our adult life.

As a child I suffered from asthma/ cough for years. Since my condition was not improving, I was referred to a child specialist for specific treatment. I guess I was about 9 years old at the time.

I still vividly remember my first visit to the child specialist’s clinic one early morning. During the examination, the doctor performed a Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR) test on me using a peak expiratory flow monitor. The monitor is a simple handheld device with a mouthpiece on one end and a scale on the other. When you blow air into the mouthpiece, a small plastic arrow moves forward. How far the arrow moves depends on your actual lung capacity. In my case, the arrow didn’t move much, which meant that the test result was not so promising.

Considering the circumstances and other indications such as a ‘concerning’ X-ray, I was prescribed certain ‘high dose’ medicines for two weeks to attack the acute illness, and then certain medicines to be taken on a lifelong basis for ‘maintenance’. Needless to say, this rattled my parents. Today, I don’t remember all those details quite well, but I do remember how the strong medicine made me dizzy and weak. Since I was absolutely unwell, my school exempted me from appearing the annual examination for that year for health reasons (not that I was complaining!)

However, not willing to accept a lifelong ailment for her son, my mother put me on a strict diet of non-oily foods plus boiled vegetables for the next few weeks. That meant that I even had to give up eating the regular chapati. The humble Jowar Bhakari plus raw jaggery became my staple food instead. Also, other things that went off menu included refined flour i.e. cakes, biscuits, etc. (basically no junk food). Even fruits I loved such as bananas, oranges, custard apple, and guava, were off the menu and so were milk preparations such as yoghurt (dahi).

More importantly, being a devout believer in ‘His’ power to heal a broken body, my mother invoked Lord Hanuman (the God of Strength) during her daily prayers to restore my health.

The medicines coupled with a strict diet (and of course, the Divine intervention) dramatically improved my health in the next few weeks, and during the subsequent consultation, the specialist was pleasantly surprised to see my ‘miraculous’ recovery. He was happy to ‘un-prescribe’ that lifelong tablet all together.

But although I had won that battle, my war with chronic cough was far from over.  Having started with western medicine to get the initial acute illness under control, I soon switched to Ayurveda for stability, and finally to Homeopathy for a complete cure. But the path to recovery was slow, and it took me more than 10 years to heal completely!

During that time, although I was otherwise healthy, even a small helping of a shev puri, or a quick pani puri would make me sick. Even ice cream was out of question. Since most outside food (including a samosa, or a wada pav, or even a chocolate cake) could be consumed only in moderation, I had to be careful with what and how much I eat all the time. Most of my friends thought I was crazy to think that a wada-pav could trigger any illness! But I knew the consequences of a slight indulgence, and over the years, through experience, I had concluded that it was best to avoid off-limit food rather than to indulge and then to suffer.

* * * * * * * * *

Fast forward to today, I can eat whatever I want with a high degree of certainty that it would not make me sick anymore. But now I hardly find myself indulging in food. The long periods of food abstinence while growing up has helped my mind to effortlessly say ‘no’ to a craving of comfort food. And the years of conditioning is keeping me in good stead and that too well into my adult life. The habit is now hard wired.

While this habit unknowingly turned out to be in my favour, what about those which did not?

For instance, my screen time back in college and even for a few years after I started working was at least 3 hours of late-night TV (Note: the only screen available before a smartphone was the idiot box). Every. Single. Day. If I started to watch a film, there was no way I could switch if off. I compulsively needed to finish it fully (even if it was just a re-run). I just could not leave it mid-way.

Consequently, not only did I sleep late every night, but it also made me groggy the next morning! I was to the TV like the humble iron filings are to an electro magnet.

Several years and a lot of hard work later, I don’t have the same affinity to the TV anymore (or for that matter, towards any screen!)

So how does one break free of a mind which is conditioned for a long time? Here are some ideas that I used.

Pre commitment. One of the best ways to deal with a habit is to form a pre-commitment. Basically, we decide to do or not do something 100%. Go cold turkey. For my cell phone time, I simply deleted all the infinity loop apps and since even that did not help a 100%, I exited more than 35 WhatsApp group I was on (only kept the critical few meant for work) in one go. With nothing left in my phone to catch my attention, my phone time went down significantly.

Delayed Gratification. When I was sick, cutting back or abstaining from delicious mouth-watering food was hard initially. However, I knew that the short-term consequence of such abstinence was nothing compared to the long-term reward. I knew that once my condition improves, I would be able to enjoy all the food I ever wanted. The thought of not missing any food eventually kept me on the right track. As Nido Qubein has rightly quoted “The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret”.

Hack into the habit loop. According to Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit”, every habitual behavior involves three elements as under:

(a) Cue – some sort of trigger that makes the behavior unfold automatically.

(b) Routine – the behavior itself; and

(c) Reward – the benefit derived from engaging in the behavior.

Duhigg writes that while the cues will continue to trigger, if we don’t do some sort of a routine, then the last phase of reward cannot be achieved. As such, according to him, the best way to deal with this issue is simply to change our routine once we get the cue to perform the habit that we wish to change.

For example, whenever I had the cue to watch TV, I noticed that my brain was simply craving for more information/ novelty. So, rather than switching on the TV, I changed the routine by picking up a book. With reading, I got the reward by gaining new knowledge. This completed my habit loop. With some conscious practice, I was able to hack into the habit loop, thereby breaking my previous habit.

A habit loop can be a powerful tool to change our habits. But its important that we understand each habit loop so that we can change the ‘routine’ in it.

Find an accountability partner. Research has shown that people achieve better long-term success to do or not do something if they have an accountability partner to push them along. Years ago, I had decided to go to tekdi in Pune every Sunday morning, but I could hardly wake up. When I discussed this with my friend and he also joined in, our success of waking up early morning every Sunday to go to tekdi went up significantly. Even you can find an accountability partner, with whom you could check in every evening on the progress.

Pause. And then Act. Several productivity experts suggest this strategy. And it can work wonders. The specific instance noted is in cases when people have this urge to buy something fancy that they eventually don’t end up using. In such circumstances, the strategy is to not make the purchase when we are in a heightened state, but to instead hold back the urge and revisit the decision when we have cooled down.

I know a friend who loves to shop on Amazon. She cannot resist the urge to buy something when it is offered at a discount. As a result, there used to be an Amazon delivery at her place almost every other day! And many a times, she didn’t even open the boxes that were delivered for days. Recently, she told me that whenever she wants to buy something, she will just add that product to her “wish list” on Amazon and revisit that page after seven days. If she still wants that product, she will go ahead and buy it. 

(Side tip: This strategy to Pause, and then Act later also works when you are in a heightened mood (mostly bad mood!) and want to give someone (in most cases, a person you love) a piece of your mind.)

Concluding Thoughts 

We should not look at our habits in isolation, but rather as a package where one habit can positively or negatively influence each other. In my case, I suspect my parents allowed me to watch ‘a little extra’ TV in my childhood possibly because they wanted to ease my struggle with sickness. And I carried both habits well into my adult life.

Ultimately, it takes great effort to undo things that we’ve been used to doing in a particular manner over several years. However, I can tell through experience that if we decide to change our habits, we can change. The journey will be difficult, but never impossible!