THERAPEUTIC IMPORTANCE OF HABIT

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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 in 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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