Habits take much longer than 21 days to form, new study says

How are your New Year’s resolutions going? According to conventional wisdom, it takes 21 days for a habit to form, and so those habits put into practice at the beginning of the year should have sunk in by now.

However, a new study challenges that belief, finding that habits take at least two months to ingrain and, in some cases, can take up to a year.

Conducted and published by the University of South Australia, the analysis used common habits like flossing, drinking water and taking vitamins to measure trends in the length of time for habits to form.

“Sometimes we found that the simple behaviors, like if someone wanted to start flossing each day, might take someone a week to get into their routine, but more complex behaviors such as changing someone’s diet and physical activity can take a lot longer,” research fellow and co-author of the study, Ben Singh, told CNN.

Over 2,500 participants were involved in the study, which encompassed an analysis of 20 previous studies published over the past 20 years.

The study highlighted two stages that surround successful implementations of a habit.

First, someone must decide to take a certain action that will be fulfilled if they acquire the habit, thus, “translating the intention into behavior,” the study said.

According to the study, habits are better formed when the motivation comes from the inside and is not instead being pushed by external forces.

“Habits chosen by individuals themselves led to stronger habit formation, suggesting that self-selection plays a role in the early stages of habit development,” the study went on to say in its results.

The second stage the study found was that repetition of the habit each day made it easier, similar to working a muscle, despite how long the actual habit took to fully form.

“Individuals who exhibited a stable pattern of performing the target behavior within a consistent context demonstrated stronger habit strengths,” the study’s results said, “highlighting the importance of context stability in habit formation.

“I think the main thing is that it helps people set realistic expectations,” Singh told CNN about the study. “It’s not often a quick fix.”

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