354. How to break a toxic habit
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 November 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We all have habits we wish we could change - patterns we repeat even when we know they’re hurting us. So why is it so hard to stop? In this episode, we explore the psychology behind toxic habits. How they form, why they become automatic, and what they’re actually doing for us emotionally.
We explore:
• How habits become wired through repetition and reward
• Why some people are more vulnerable to toxic habit loops
• The role of emotional regulation and self-soothing
• The four key mistakes that keep us stuck
• Practical tools to implement positive habits
If you’ve ever thought, ‘I know better… so why don’t I do better?’, this episode is for you.
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The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:08.5 | Hello everybody. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk |
| 0:15.4 | through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. |
| 0:28.2 | Before we get into it, I want to let you guys know that this episode you're about to listen to |
| 0:33.0 | is also on YouTube. |
| 0:35.1 | Yes, we now do video podcasts over on YouTube. So if you prefer to watch |
| 0:40.1 | episodes rather than listen to them, go and check it out. There will be a link in the description. |
| 0:45.3 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, |
| 0:50.5 | old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back |
| 0:54.4 | for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Today, we're going to |
| 1:02.0 | talk about the psychology of toxic habits, the little rituals that, you know, we swear we're |
| 1:08.8 | going to quit, the behaviors that we hide, that we justify, |
| 1:12.6 | that we laugh off, the ones that make us promise ourselves like tomorrow it's going to be different. |
| 1:18.6 | You know, when I turn 27, I'm going to quit smoking. When I turn 28, I'm going to quit drinking. |
| 1:23.0 | And then surprisingly, it never happens. And, you know, it could be procrastination. It could be procrastination it could be smoking it could be |
| 1:29.4 | using your phone way too often it could be self-sabotaging we're going to cover them all i think what's so |
| 1:35.4 | difficult about these toxic habits is that so often let's be honest like we want to stop and we really |
| 1:43.2 | do want to you know create a good future for ourselves in our 20s |
| 1:48.2 | and we simply can't not because we don't know any better not because we don't care about ourselves |
| 1:54.5 | but because our brains are doing what they've been trained to do perform Perform a pattern rather than learn a new one. |
... |
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