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.



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