Quitting a habit
Self-hypnosis can help you keep a change you chose while you were calm: you learn when the habit pulls, pick one small action to do instead, and rehearse it in a settled state so it comes back to you at the right moment. It works best alongside any care you need.
The deal you’re tired of making
The urge usually sounds reasonable. You tell yourself later, or just this once, or that a long day has earned it. It might be the cigarette on the back step after supper, the third glass of wine, or the phone in bed until 1 a.m. It might be the bag of chips in front of the evening news, or the sharp reply that comes out before you can stop it. Some people are worn out from making the same deal every night. Others feel the habit is the only ritual their evening has left, especially since the house emptied or the job ended and the hours after six got longer.
This page won’t rank your habit against anyone else’s or try to shame you into a stricter personality. It offers a way to talk to yourself on purpose about a change you already chose while you were calm. It can’t promise the habit will give way, and anyone who promises that is selling a story. What it can do is help the calm version of you get a word in when the tired version of you is about to make the old deal.
The steps below take about two weeks to set up: a week of noticing, a sentence, a daily 10-minute practice, and a plan for the moment the pull arrives. First, check whether your doctor needs to be part of the change.
When your doctor needs to be involved
If the habit involves alcohol, a drug, or a prescribed medicine, talk with your doctor before you change it, and please don’t use this page as a plan for stopping. Quitting some things suddenly can be dangerous. People who drink heavily every day can have serious withdrawal, and some sleeping pills and anxiety medicines have to be reduced slowly under a doctor’s care. Your doctor can help you do it safely.
If you take an antidepressant or any other prescribed medicine, keep taking it as prescribed, even if a calm evening leaves you feeling like a new person. If you think you’re relying on a prescribed medicine more than you should, tell the doctor who prescribed it. That’s a common conversation for doctors, and they’d much rather hear it from you than find out later.
For smoking, your doctor or pharmacist can tell you about nicotine patches, gum, and other options, and many people quit more successfully with that help plus a plan of their own. The free SAMHSA National Helpline, run by the federal agency that oversees addiction services, can help you find treatment for alcohol or drug use at any hour. Self-hypnosis can be one part of your plan, next to that help.
Self-hypnosis here means a few minutes of focused attention and a sentence you offer yourself. Never practice while you’re driving, using machinery, cooking over a hot stove, or keeping someone else safe, so settle into a chair first.
Spend a week noticing the habit first
Before you try to change the habit, spend one week watching it without changing anything. Keep an index card and a pen in your pocket or by the kettle. Each time the habit happens, or you feel the pull, jot down four facts: the time, where you are, what you were feeling, and what happened just before.
After a week, most people find the habit keeps a much tighter schedule than they thought. A card might read “8:40 p.m., recliner, bored and tired, the news ended.” Another might say “after the phone call with my sister, kitchen, upset.” The cigarette might always follow coffee, or the snacking might always start when the television goes on. The phone in bed might happen every night you couldn’t think of a reason to go to sleep.
Look for the most common moment, the one that shows up on the most cards. That’s where you’ll start. Trying to change every moment at once is how most plans fall apart by Thursday. Changing one moment, the strongest one, gives you a fair test and a clear result.
Also notice what the habit gives you. A cigarette on the back step may be the only five minutes outdoors in your day. The glass of wine may mark the end of the working hours, and the phone in bed may be the closest thing to company after 10. The new action you choose will need to give you some of the same comfort, or the old habit will win on the strength of what it offers.
Choose one change and write it as a sentence
Pick one small action to do at that common moment, and write it down as a sentence. The most useful shape is “When this happens, I’ll do that.” Researchers who study habits often call this an if-then plan, and it tends to help because it links the new action to the exact moment the old habit used to own.
Here are some examples to borrow or rewrite:
- “When I finish supper, I’ll take my tea to the back step instead of my cigarettes.”
- “When the news ends, I’ll stand up, rinse my cup, and go to bed with a book.”
- “When I want the second glass, I’ll fill a glass of water first and drink it all.”
- “When I plug in the phone, I’ll plug it in on the kitchen counter.”
- “When I feel the sharp reply coming, I’ll say ‘Give me a minute’ and leave the room.”
- “I can put it off for 10 minutes, and putting it off counts.”
Choose your sentence in daylight, before the hour when the habit usually starts talking, and make it true. Skip any boast your evening self would laugh at, such as “I’m done with this forever.” Keep the new action small enough to do on your worst night. Then set up your house to help: put the cigarettes on a high shelf in the garage, move the wine to the back of the cupboard, put a phone charger in the kitchen, and put the book on your pillow.
A 10-minute practice for the habit
Practice once a day, for about 10 minutes, at a calm time well before the habit’s hour. Mid-morning or early afternoon works for many people, since the pull is usually weakest then. Use the same chair each day, with your feet flat on the floor and a glass of water within reach.
Begin by letting your shoulders drop and taking three slow breaths, each one out longer than in. Rest your eyes on one spot in the room until your eyelids feel heavy, and let them close. Count slowly down from 10 to 1, one number for each breath out, picturing yourself walking down a familiar staircase, a step at a time.
Then rehearse the moment. Picture the exact scene from your cards: the recliner, the end of the news, the light from the lamp, the feeling of being tired and bored. Notice the pull arriving in the picture, and then watch yourself do your new action calmly. See yourself stand, rinse the cup, and walk down the hall. Feel the ordinary relief of the book in your hands. Say your sentence to yourself slowly, about five times, as if you respect the person who has to keep it.
Then count up from one to five, open your eyes, feel your feet, and name three objects in the room. Stay in the chair for another minute before you stand. If you feel strange afterward, stop, look around the room, and check with your doctor before you try again. The page on closing the practice has more about coming back fully.
The rehearsal matters because the pull usually arrives when you’re tired and your judgment is thin. If you’ve already pictured the moment a dozen times in a calm state, your new action has a better chance of coming to mind before the old one does.
When the pull arrives
The pull will come, often right on schedule. When it does, use a short version of the practice with your eyes open. Put both feet on the floor, take three slow breaths, and say your sentence once, out loud if you’re alone. Then do the first piece of your new action straight away, before you start arguing with yourself. Standing up is often enough to break the spell.
Many people find that a craving rises, peaks, and fades within a few minutes if they don’t act on it, a bit like a wave at the beach. If you can’t do the new action, try putting the habit off for 10 minutes by the stove clock. Fill a glass of water, step outside, wash your hands with warm water, or call someone and talk about the weather. At the end of 10 minutes, decide again. Sometimes the pull is gone, and sometimes it isn’t, and either way you’ve practiced waiting, which is a skill that grows.
If the habit is the phone in bed, the moment of pull may be midnight with the screen glowing. In that case your plan is about the hour before bed, and the page on nights with the phone has more ideas. If the habit is the sharp reply to someone at home, your sentence is about your own part only, such as leaving the room or lowering your voice. The when other people press page looks at that kind of pressure.
The next morning, and what to do after a slip
In the morning, write one honest line on the card: you kept the sentence, you didn’t, or you kept a smaller version of it. Skip the medal and skip the punishment. Some nights the habit will win, and that tells you how strong the pull is, which is useful. Start again the next time you’re calm enough to choose, rather than in the middle of a craving.
A slip is one night. It becomes a relapse only if you decide the whole plan is ruined and stop trying. When you slip, look at the card from that night and find what was different. Maybe you were more tired, maybe someone called with bad news, or maybe the wine was in the front of the cupboard again. Change one detail and go on. If the same moment keeps winning, make the new action smaller, or add another person: a friend who expects a text at nine, or a neighbor you walk with after supper.
It’s also fine to adjust the sentence. If “I’ll go straight to bed” never happens, try “I’ll turn off the television and stand up,” and build from there once that holds. The page on after habits betrayed looks at how to come back after a promise to yourself didn’t hold.
What a good month can look like
Habits loosen slowly, and most of the progress happens in small steps you’ll only notice if you keep the cards. A good month might look like this:
- In week one, you noticed the habit on most evenings and found its strongest moment.
- In week two, you kept your new action on two or three evenings, and the practice felt awkward.
- In week three, you kept it on four or five evenings, and the sentence came back to you on its own at least once.
- In week four, you had one bad night, wrote down why, and kept going the next day.
Once that first moment feels steady, usually after three or four weeks, you can choose the next most common moment from your cards and start again with a new sentence. Keep the old sentence for a while in your daily practice, so the first change stays put.
If the habit is hurting you or the people you live with, or you can’t tell anymore whether you’re choosing it, asking for help is a sensible step. Signs to take seriously include needing more to get the same effect, feeling sick or shaky when you go without, hiding how much you use, or friends and family telling you they’re worried. Your doctor can point you toward treatment that fits, and so can the SAMHSA helpline. In the meantime, you can still keep one smaller promise, once, in a real room with the lights on.
Learn more from trusted sources
These public health agencies explain the medical side of hypnosis and of alcohol and drug treatment in more detail than this site does.
- Hypnosis from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health explains what hypnosis is and what is known about it.
- National Helpline from SAMHSA offers free, confidential help finding treatment for alcohol or drug use, any time of day.
If you need care
If you’re in crisis in the United States, call or text 988 now. If you’re outside the United States, call your local emergency number or a local crisis line. Habits tangled up with alcohol, drugs, or prescribed medicine need a doctor’s help, and any prescribed medicine stays as prescribed until you’ve talked it over. There’s more in the hypnosis room, short definitions of hypnosis and self-hypnosis in the glossary, and answers to common questions in the hypnosis FAQ and the Site FAQ.