How to break a bad habit

Healthy Way of Life and Bad Habits

Bad Habits

1. Here are some bad habits. Which of them do you have? Which of them do you hate? Which of them are dangerous to your health?

Biting nails, lips	Кусать ногти, губы
Procrastination	Оставлять всё на последний день
Gambling	Играть в азартные игры
Picking your nose	Ковырять в носу
Spitting in public	Сплёвывать в общественных местах
Smoking	Курить
Alcohol abusing	Злоупотреблять алкоголем
Cracking knuckles, neck	Хрустеть костяшками пальцев, шеей
Mumbling	Невнятно разговаривать
Cursing	Ругаться
Talking with your mouth full	Говорить с полным ртом
Slouching	Сутулиться
Picking a wedgie	Поправлять нижнее бельё под одеждой
Twirling hair	Накручивать волосы на пальцы
Always being late	Всегда опаздывать
Talking on the phone in public places	Разговаривать по телефону в общественных местах
Clicking a pen	Щелкать ручкой
Snapping a gum	Громко жевать жвачку

 

2. Read the text with correct pronunciation:

What's your bad habit?

       Everybody has a bad habit. Some habits aren't life-threatening or particularly dangerous to our health. Abandoning your socks under the kitchen table might get you into trouble with your housemates, but it will not result in any injuries. (This really may depend on what kind of forgiving people you live with.) If you have the habit of repeating yourself, you might find yourself short of conversation partners but that's about the extent of the negative reaction that you'll get to this annoying habit.

       Then again, there are bad habits which really do harm to our health and put us at risk of becoming ill, developing diseases, or detract from our quality of life. At first you may start out drinking a glass of wine with your dinner at night, but soon find yourself adding a beer to breakfast, vodka to lunch, and need some rum or brandy to help you sleep at night. What was once a conscious choice now turns into an addictive repetitive action that is very difficult to put an end to. Smoking is also highly addictive and, depending on the stress level, those cigarettes really tend to multiply during the day. Gambling is high on the list of addictive bad habits that does have the potential to damage your physical health as well as your mental health.

How to break a bad habit

       Knowing that you have a bad habit doesn't necessary make it easy to break. There are a number of reasons for why you seem unable to pull away from the vicious cycle that you've gotten yourself into. In some cases, it's because you are being innately defiant of the rules imposed by society, or maybe you don't really understand how harmful your bad habit is to your health. There are also those people who rationalize their habits and make excuses for them. In perhaps a worst case, you may have a genetic disposition to addiction, which makes it seem impossible to conquer.

       How you tackle your bad habit is dependent on your ability to identify that you do indeed have a problem, and your willingness to confront and overcome it. Some helpful things that you can do to break your bad habit are at first identifying it and being conscious of when and why it occurs. Keep a log so that you'll be able to track your progress as your bad habit lessens and eventually disappears or you are able to get it under control. Set goals for yourself so that you know what it is that you'd like to accomplish in both the short-term and long-term. Make sure that your goals are realistic and gradual so that the sudden loss of one bad habit doesn't inspire a new one. If you recognize that your bad habit is highly addictive and/or harmful for your health, it might be a good idea to seek out a counselor, self-help group, or the support of your family and friends.

 

3. Translate the words and word combinations:

 

- bad habit

- life-threatening

- trouble

- injury

- forgive

- extent

- to annoy

- annoying

- harm

- detract

- quality of life

- a conscious choice

- addictive

- to multiply

- gambling

- physical health

- mental health

- to break

- reason

- vicious cycle

- to impose

- innate

- defiant

- to make excuses

- perhaps

- genetic disposition to

- impossible

- to conquer

- ability

- to identify

- to confront

- to overcome

- eventually

- to disappear

- counselor

- to recognize

 

4. Find the pairs of antonyms:

Good, short, appear, physical, loss, start, positive, bad, possible, difficult, lose, harm, disease, dangerous, safety, long, find, negative, benefit, health, mental, finish, easy, impossible, disappear, finding.

 

5. Answer the questions:

1. Are bad habits life-threatening?

2. What bad habits do you have?

3. Is it really dangerous to drink some rum or brandy to help you sleep at night?

4. Can you identify which bad habit is dangerous for you and which of them can you excuse?

5. How to break a bad habit?

6. Who can be a counselor to help you to overcome your bad habit?

 

6. Wright Past Indefinite from the following verbs:

Forgive, depend, extent, multiply, break, impose, make, conquer, confront, overcome, disappear, recognize, keep, be, inspire, may, occur.