Therapeutic Importance Of Habit
The most important therapeutic element in the formation of good
habits, mental and physical, is that habit does away with the
necessity for conscious regulation of many details of life. Without
habits of doing things, we have to make numerous decisions and keep on
making them under conditions that require special effort and waste of
energy. When habit asserts itself, there is little or no difficulty.
Habits of living i
airy rooms, of taking exercise, of food regulation
as to quantity and quality, of methods of taking food as regards
mastication, the quantity of fluid ingested, the hours of meals and
the like, can all be formed and then followed without effort. Just
inasmuch as life can be ruled by habit, nerve force is conserved. This
is as true for our attitude towards life, our disposition and
consequently our satisfaction with life, as for anything else that we
do. Habitual cheerfulness, habitual readiness to make allowance for
others and to be helpful to them, habitual self-control--all of these
things can be cultivated. Properly cultivated, they save much of the
wear and tear of life, and make for contentment and happiness much
more than many of the things for which men strive so anxiously because
they seem to promise happiness.