Thinking Less Than 8 Consecutive Months Is Unrealistic for Healthy Habits

In research on habit-making, it takes two to eight months to incorporate a definite new behavior into a person’s routine and identity. It leans more toward the eight month marker for solid incorporation. Pause. Reread the first two sentences. Think.

Over the course of eight months, you may run into some travel, weekends, holidays, birthdays, illness, etc. And all of those “interruptions” are fine. Wake up call: they’re not interruptions. They’re life. But where I’ve found people wanting is in their ability to realistically anticipate life and realistically exert patience in the development of healthy behaviors and habits. Thus, an immature evaluation and, therefore, quit occur long before month eight.

Don’t bother evaluating how effective you’ve been at incorporating new routines if it’s been less than 8 months, or if you’ve failed to meaningfully alter the way you enter and exit those “interruptions.”

Yes, there are short term starts or “life hacks”, some of which I believe are helpful. As an example, in some cases (for those who can tolerate it), people can shake the habit of hitting snooze 80 times and learn to wake up immediately just by placing a caffeine source on the night stand between them and their alarm three days in a row. Pair that tactic with microdosed melatonin and that alone will re-right circadian rhythms 9 out of 10 times within the same week. But it wouldn’t be mature to assess this “fix” until eight months into having created a healthy night time and waking routine.

Thinking about anything less than 8 consecutive months would be unrealistic for healthy habits.