People can effortlessly fall into addictive or excessive behaviors as a result of the Christmas season’s stresses, high COVID-19 rates, and the consequent social isolation from friends and family. These are behaviors that can occasionally be taken to an unhealthy level, bordering on addiction.
This could look like eating too many cookies or ice cream, doing a lot of online shopping (Amazon parcels keep coming up! ), watching too much TV (binge-watching Netflix), or staying up all night playing Minecraft or League of Legends.
If you’re wondering how to keep these bad behaviors under control, here are five tips to assist you to do so.
1. Investigate the behavior
Examine the behaviors you believe are excessive. The more information you have about the behavior, the more chances you’ll have to stop it.
Questions to consider include: When are you most likely to eat or drink more than you intended? Is it possible that it’s the end of a long day at work? Where does it take place — on the couch in the living room? Is there anyone else involved? What are your favorite foods and beverages? How do you feel about it?
If you know someone who enjoys gaming (playing video games) and maybe wasting too much time doing so, find out what gaming means to them. Inquire about their favorite aspects of gaming. They may appreciate it because it is skill-based, because they have had gaming success, or because it is team-oriented and social.
Inquire about their gaming experiences. Is it making them feel proud, energized, or disconnected from school, for example? When are they more likely to engage in these behaviors for longer periods of time than expected (for example, at night)? Where do they carry out these acts (for example, in the bedroom)?
2. Recruit others for their good ideas
When it comes to concerns about excessive behavior, family members frequently have excellent ideas and insights. When it comes to gaming, for example, young people frequently come up with brilliant ideas such as creating a timetable and playing video games at specific hours or earning screen time.
According to studies, most people who recover from addiction and excessive behaviors do it with the aid of a social network and people close to them.
3. Experiment with the place, time, and objects
According to studies, the context and location of casinos and drug use spaces encourage excessive use. Other habits benefit from context as well.
If you find yourself nibbling out of control on the couch while watching Netflix in the evening, limit your eating to the kitchen. Limit gaming to the living room before 10 p.m. if someone is gaming until all hours of the night in the bedroom. By altering the location and timing of behaviors, the practice itself evolves — even if only a little.
Addiction behaviors to junk food, gambling, and video games have all been linked to marketing and consumerism. These items’ creators want people to keep using them, so they create them to keep people hooked. To progress to the next level, video games are designed to take a long time. Apps include features such as likes, messages, and comments that reward and entice users to engage more.
These appear to be games built for near-miss characteristics, speed of play, and the appearance of control in the gambling industry. These features boost gaming productivity by allowing you to play for longer periods of time and spend more money.
Former Silicon Valley technologists who built the “addictive” technologies utilized in social media are now warning of possible digital addiction and its detrimental consequences.
Examine the items that are crucial to the behavior you want to change. Taking gaming vacations, designing a cellphone hotel in the kitchen (a place where cellphones stay), limiting video game and social media use to common areas, or turning off the internet by 10 p.m. each night are all suggestions made by some people.
4. Pay attention to what you think and say
It affects how we communicate about excessive behaviors and what we say to ourselves and others about them. When we refer to ourselves or others (such as our spouses or children) as “addicted” to anything, such as video games, it’s simple for them to live up to that label, which can almost define who they are. Our identities and how we see ourselves and others are linked to addiction and the words we use.
It’s unlikely that telling your teen they’re addicted to gaming and forcing them to stop will be helpful, and it may trigger undesirable behaviors. Invite your teen to participate in decision-making to avoid resentment, protest, and sly behavior.
Consider what you tell yourself when you indulge in self-destructive behavior. Do you ever believe in yourself, “I need this drink to relax” or “Doing X gives me me-time?” ” Any use of the words “should” or “shouldn’t” may be setting yourself up for failure.
Avoid “shoulds,” extremes, and black-and-white thinking instead. Live in the grey area, and treat yourself and others with respect and compassion. Experiment with new methods of speaking to yourself (and others) in everyday situations.
5. Experiment with other activities
Are there any other hobbies than mulled wine and cookies that help you relax?
What if you brew a cup of tea and go for a stroll in the evening instead of munching and watching Netflix? Other activities to consider include card games, game nights, puzzles, dance parties in the kitchen, neighborhood scavenger hunts (counting reindeer or inflatable figures), family karaoke nights, and themed evenings.
Consider spending a night in Mexico, replete with nachos, mocktails, dancing to mariachi music on YouTube, and wearing shorts and a T-shirt. You may plan a party around someone’s favorite video game or character.
Invite everyone in the family to suggest ideas for activities, and then take turns trying them out. You end up crowding out the behaviors you want to minimize by adding new activities. The more we repeat a behavior, the more the brain becomes wired to it, encouraging us to keep doing it. We may help our brain rewire towards preferred ways of thinking, being, and behaving by adding more preferred activities and behaviors and repeating them.
