Emotional Bad Habits

The question of whether moods constitute bad habits is an interesting one.  Many mood disorders have been identified.  These and other psychological problems are seen by some as strictly bad habits.  

In fact, it has been shown that continuing to dwell in your present mood perpetuates it.  When you decide to pretend you are happy, studies show that you may actually improve your mood in time.  This is not a hard and fast rule, but there is some indication that people do have some control over their moods.  

Moodiness, for example, may be more than bad habits for many.  It may be a bipolar disorder or some other psychiatric problem.  However, for some, it may just be that they are giving in to every feeling that comes along.  They have the bad habits of not trying to have any control over their whims.  

Being pessimistic is one of the bad habits that can also be seen as a symptom of depression.  Yet, for many, it is just a habit of thought.  They may tell themselves that pessimism is a win-win way of thinking.  

If things go right, you win.  If things go wrong, you were correct, so you win.  These people can improve their moodiness by looking at the positive side of things in the beginning.   

Being in a worrying mood is similar to being pessimistic.  The difference between the two bad habits is that when you worry, you become obsessed and dread upcoming events.  If you have the bad habit of worrying, you can slowly train yourself out of it, especially if you have the right kind of help.  

Codependency is not exactly a mood, but it is an emotional state.  It is a set of bad habits that encourage a loved one to do the harmful behaviour.  You do not want your son to be an alcoholic, for example. 

However, you constantly make excuses for his behaviour to others.  If you want him to get better, you have to stand up and decide to stop with your bad habits.  You have to hold him accountable for his actions.  

If you have hypochondria, you have an emotionally painful bad habit.  Certainly, a person with hypochondria needs psychological help.  However, the treatment that person will receive will probably centre on helping them change their bad habits of thought.  They will learn new ways to think about illness and their own bodies.  This will give them some control over their emotions.  

If you do a lot of attention seeking, you have bad habits that you can learn to abandon.  This could relate back to something in your past.  Perhaps, you were ignored as a child because there was some other needier person in the home.  You learned bad habits of getting attention by annoying means.  Taming this bad habit requires acknowledgment of it and possibly professional help.  

Bad habits that relate to emotional states are often hard to break.  Sometimes you need help to overcome them if you cannot do it on your own.  The sooner you stop doing your emotional bad habits, the happier your life will be.