By Karen Hand

Where do bad habits come from? The same place as good habits: we learn our behaviors along the road to life. And the same way good habits can be formed, bad habits can be eliminated simply though the use of new information.

The easiest example deals with eating issues. Every baby is born naturally eating when hungry and stopping when full. Every parent knows the wail of a hungry baby. And every parent knows that when the baby is full the eating stops. You can't make a full baby finish a bottle of formula or a serving of baby food. We're all born with a natural ability to take care of our hunger and naturally use food as the fuel for our body and naturally stop when we've filled the tank.

The truth is food is the fuel to keep our body running efficiently.

But as life moves along, we learn inappropriate uses for food.

We fall and skin our knee and Great Aunt Suzy hands us a cookie and says: "Here, this will make you feel better." Now, we're beginning to learn that food can be used to make us feel better when we're hurt. We take in the same lesson when we're bored and it's suggested that we have a snack, or when we're sad and someone offers an ice cream cone as a pick-me-up. And then we're on the road to using food inappropriately. 

We're set up for linking food to mood or comfort or relaxation. And behaviors start to take shape. Progressively, without even thinking about it, we use food to solve problems with inappropriate solutions and a bad behavior pattern is formed. It often takes years and years before those bad behaviors catch up with us, but when they do we start seeing the results spilling over our belt.

For sure, not all learned behaviors are bad. We weren't born brushing our teeth. Along the road to life we had to learn to start and end every day with a good cleaning of our teeth. And that's a great learned behavior that you now do without even thinking about it. It's just a part of the daily routine.

So, good and bad behaviors come from the same place: living life!

When negative behaviors are identified, and there's a desire to make healthy change, it's time to simply learn new appropriate ways of dealing with life. Then the subconscious mind will jump on board with the changes and, like a good co-pilot, naturally direct you to the appropriate action making it a part of the daily routine, before you give it conscious thought.

Learning new behaviors happens naturally in all stages of life. Therefore, change can be made at all stages of life. Studies show behavior can be easily changed using the power of the mind. But, using the conscious mind with every bit of willpower you can muster takes about a year and a half to make real change. Using the subconscious mind, change can be made in as little as three weeks. To find out more about using the power of your mind to turn bad habits into good behaviors call Positive Changes Hypnosis Centers, 877-POSITIVE.