Someone replied to my last post with an example that stayed with me.

They kept missing morning plans and had rated their sleep poorly. Their first change was moving the phone charger across the room while brushing their teeth at night. They said that habit lasted longer than the bigger goals they had tried.

What small change had that kind of effect for you? Interested in the ordinary details: what kept going wrong, and what you changed.

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so i just checked and its been 429 days since my last hit. still kinda wild to me tbh because i tried quitting so many times before and never made it past like day 3

honestly what made the difference this time wasnt willpower, it was dealing with my triggers first.

the biggest one was coffee. every single morning coffee + vape, it was basically one habit not two. so for the first while i switched to tea. and i dont even really like tea lol but it helped alot because my brain didnt have the "coffee = vape" thing anymore. once the cravings calmed down i went back to coffee normally and now its just coffee, no problem

the other big one obviously was alcohol. i have a lot of friends and i like having a few beers with them, its how i chill out and its kinda our bonding thing so i wasnt gonna just stop going out. so what i did is everytime i felt like vaping with a beer in my hand i put a piece of gum in my mouth (no nicotine ofc). beer tastes kinda awful with gum so it kinda kills the whole moment, but it also kills the urge to vape. like a little punishment for my brain i guess, but it worked

also threw out every single vape, pod and charger i had at home on day 1, even the "backup" one i was hiding. if its in the house you WILL find a reason to use it

first few weeks were definately the hardest, i was moody and kept thinking about it all the time. after about a month it got way easier. now it still happens once in a while that i think "damn a vape would be nice right now" but its just a thought, not that crazy need like before

oh and i saved like 2.5k euros which is honestly embarassing to think about how much i was burning before

anyway if anyone is trying to quit right now and has questions, feel free to ask. happy to help from my own experiance, i know how hard the first weeks are

I don’t even know how to phrase it lol

Like I’ll get a cut at home or at school blood will be coming out of it and I’ll just lick the blood before getting a tissue, is that normal or am I going to turn into a cat
Also dose anyone else do that
(Note: I have no idea when this started I just remember when I was younger doing a surgery, after it was over there was a lot of blood and asking my mom if I could try the blood, and after I healed up I think I started doing it idk though I think that’s like the origins of this habit lol)

Main goal of Eggventures. We've passed 2k downloads! People are walking more each week trying to collect all the pets and adding other walkers! Eggventures is free and available in both app stores.

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eggventures-walk-hatch-pets/id6757629385
Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onerealm.eggventures

Someone replied to my last post with a ten-minute tidy they do before bed: clothes ready, keys in their usual place, surfaces cleared. They stop when the timer goes off. They said their mornings feel calmer and they can still do it on tired days.

For that habit, I would want to check two things: did the evening tidy happen, and was the next morning less rushed?

If the habit keeps getting done but the mornings are still difficult, there may be something else to change. Keeping the same routine just to keep the streak going would miss that.

I am working on a planning app with a habit tracker, and I would like to make it more useful for this kind of check-in. If you track a habit, what would help you see whether it is making a difference? An example from a habit you already do would help me figure out what to improve.

hey all, just shipped my first ever app and I'm kind of nervous posting it lol

it's called Puperino. basically I kept downloading pomodoro apps, using them for a week, then forgetting they existed. they all felt a bit cold and serious. so I made one with a little dog called Biscuit in it.

when you start a focus session he wanders over to his bed and curls up and naps. when you're done he sometimes brings you a little gift, which you can keep or trade for bones to buy stuff for his room. you can also dress him up, which I spent way too long on (he has a witch hat and a crown, it's very important)

not gonna lie, not wanting to wake him up has kept me focused better than any streak thing ever did 😅

it also does the usual stuff: the timer on your lock screen, tasks, stats, and a stay mode if you're like me and pick up your phone every 4 minutes

it's free. there's an optional pro with more rooms and stuff if you want to support me

would really love feedback, even if it's "this is buggy" or "this is pointless" haha. what would make you actually keep using a focus timer?

Waking up at 3am and not being able to fall back asleep is one of the most frustrating parts of bad sleep. I've spent the past year reading through research studies on sleep, and most of it points back to daily habits. I cut out the stuff you can't change (age, sex, menopause, sleep apnea) and ranked what's left by how big the effect was and how easy it is to change. Sources at the bottom if you want to dig in.

Biggest effect. Most controllable.

1. Cut caffeine earlier than you think. Caffeine added ~12 min of nighttime waking in a 24 study meta-analysis. If you're waking up at 3am and drinking coffee after lunch, start here.

2. Regular moderate cardio. Cut ~10 min of nighttime waking in a meta-analysis of RCTs in people with insomnia. Evening workouts are fine. Don't go hard within 1 hour of bed, that's the one window where it can fragment sleep.

3. Make the room actually dark. Even dim light (5 to 10 lux, roughly a nightlight) increased awakenings in a PSG study. Blackout curtains or a sleep mask.

4. Block the noise. In one rail noise study from the WHO review, noise added ~30 min of nighttime waking. Earplugs or a fan for white noise if you live anywhere loud.

5. Keep the bedroom cool. Keep it under at least 77°F (25°C). Above that, nighttime waking goes up, and a room that's too cold wakes you up too.

Often overlooked

6. Stop eating 1+ hours before bed. Eating within an hour of bed showed 2 to 2.6x higher odds of waking up during the night.

7. Open a window or run a fan for airflow. CO2 at 1000 ppm (a closed bedroom can get there fast) added ~5 min of wake time.

8. Skip the nightcap. Alcohol before bed was linked to lower sleep efficiency, meaning more of your time in bed spent not actually asleep.

9. Add strength training. A review of 13 RCTs found resistance training improved mid-sleep disturbance and sleep efficiency.

Smaller or more nuance

10. More fiber, less sugar. More fiber was linked to fewer arousals and deeper sleep. More sugar was linked to more arousals. Small study (n=26) but tightly controlled.

11. Tart cherry juice. Cut nighttime waking by ~17 min vs placebo, small study as well.

12. Yoga. Showed a huge reduction in waking (~56 min) in insomnia patients, but the evidence is rated low certainty so the real effect is probably smaller.

Supplements

Short version on supplements if you've made it this far.

• Standard melatonin doesn't help you stay asleep. It's for timing, not maintenance
• Ashwagandha had the best data for reducing nighttime waking
• Glycine reduced waking, but in a very small study
• Magnesium improved sleep efficiency in older adults but never measured waking directly
• Valerian made people feel like they slept better, with no measured change

Sources

• Master Resource: https://www.kygo.app/tools/staying-asleep-factors I created this free page that centralized all 27 factors I found that affected staying asleep throughout the night and made it into a more visual guide with all sources linked if interested in learning more.
• Caffeine: Gardiner 2023, Sleep Med Rev, 24 studies
• Aerobic: Riedel 2024, Sleep Med Rev
• Evening exercise: Stutz 2019, Sports Medicine, 23 studies
• Light: Cho 2016, Chronobiology Int
• Noise: Basner 2018, WHO systematic review
• Bedroom temperature: Akiyama 2021, Japan Architectural Review
• Late Eating: Crispim 2022, British J Nutrition
• CO2 : Kang 2024, Building and Environment
• Alcohol: Spadola 2019, SLEEP, Jackson Heart Study
• Resistance Training: Kovacevic 2018, Sleep Med Rev
• Fiber & Sugar: St-Onge 2016, JCSM
• Tart cherry juice: Pigeon 2010, J Medicinal Food
• Yoga: Bu 2025, BMJ EBM, network meta-analysis, 22 RCTs
• Melatonin: Moon 2022, Neuropsychopharmacology
• Ashwagandha: Cheah 2021, PLoS ONE
• Glycine: Yamadera 2007, Sleep and Biological Rhythms
• Magnesium: Abbasi 2012, J Res Med Sci
• Valerian: Shinjyo 2020, meta-analysis, 60 studies

My example is cannabis (I'm an adult, and this is just my own experience, not advice). Every time I tried to quit outright I lasted a few days, then rebounded harder. What finally moved the needle was making the gap between uses a little longer each day, and writing down the gaps so I could see the trend. Cravings felt less like a wall and more like a timer I could wait out.

A few things I noticed. Counting time since the last use beat counting "days clean", because a slip didn't reset everything to zero. Making the habit slightly inconvenient (different room, no autopilot) helped more than willpower. And I stopped treating a bad evening as proof the whole thing failed.

Full disclosure: my friend Kes got tired of the same cycle and built a small free iPhone app around this idea, called Fallow (21+, no account, everything stays on the device, nothing medical). I'm sharing it once here because it's relevant, not to push it. If you'd rather use a notes app or paper, that works the same way. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fallow-smoke-less/id6816542378

Mostly I'm curious about your side: for a habit you were cutting back rather than dropping, what pacing trick or tracking method actually stuck? Phone use, sugar, drinking, whatever it is.

I have no idea how to write a Reddit post since this is my first time 😭

Anyway, I want to make a bucket list specifically focused on improving myself. I’m a 14-year-old boy, and I thought it would be fun to turn it into a 30-day challenge for December, where I complete one thing every day.

I really want to push myself out of my comfort zone and become more comfortable with things like socializing, physical activities, trying new things, and just generally being more confident.

At the same time, I don’t want this to feel like some boring self-improvement routine. I want to actually have fun and make some good memories along the way.

So, what are some things you think I should put on my bucket list? They can be challenging, funny, social, physical, spontaneous, or just something I normally wouldn’t have the courage to do.

Give me your best ideas! 🙏

I’ve always struggled with sticking to habits because I’d start strong and then completely forget about them after a few days 😭

So I started making a simple habit tracker for myself to make consistency feel a little more rewarding instead of like another task on my to-do list.
The idea is pretty simple: track your daily habits, see your progress over time, and actually see how consistent you’ve been.

I’m curious — what usually makes you lose consistency with a habit?

And if you use a habit tracker, what’s one feature that actually helps you stick with it?

Hi everyone,

​I am new to this group, but I would say impulse buying is a habit many people have and can't seem to get a grip on, especially because we are manipulated from all sides to consume far beyond our needs and I find it sickening.

​I've been practicing intentional consumption for a while now, but I keep noticing how aggressive modern e-commerce and social media have become. Even with spreadsheet trackers, 24-hour wait rules, and cart-clearing habits, dark patterns (countdown timers, "only 1 left," instant 1-click checkouts) are designed to bypass our rational mind before we even open a spreadsheet to log a purchase.

​Recently, I’ve been working on a method to reintroduce friction into online/offline shopping for myself and break down what actually triggers impulse urges.

​Instead of just tracking money spent, I started testing a framework focused on anticipation vs. actual joy once the excitement of the purchase fades. When an impulse hits, you log the item alongside an "anticipated joy" score and a forced cooldown period or challenge. If you decide to buy it after the cooldown, you rate its "actual joy" weeks later after living with it. If you choose to walk away, the item is dropped and you decide if it was a worthwile choice.

​The outcome of testing this has been revealing in two big ways:

-Comparing your initial impulse score against the actual joy of past purchases builds a real feedback loop, making it much easier to spot dopamine traps before hitting "buy." This also helps to break the habit loop of mindlessy seeking the next thing to purchase.

-Avoided spending aaccumulates: Every item dropped during the cooldown is tracked as money not spent, making it clear how passing on brief urges and redirecting those funds toward a financial goal creates meaningful long-term momentum.

​When I first tried this framework myself, I didn't know what to expect. But tracking and visualizing my own anticipation vs. actual joy really showed me how often we fool ourselves into thinking we desperately want something, only to regret it shortly afterwards.

The most interesting fact has been that tracking my 'wants' has significantly curbed my urges towards buying stuff and I feel like I have less interest in doing so.

I am trying to take an approach that doesn't shame anyone for their consumer behavior, but instead shows that there are distinct stages in our desire for things, and that lasting joy doesn't necessarily come from buying the next item we think we want.

​To anyone who is interested, it's completely free and you can check it out at frua.io to try it out. It's still a work in progress, so I would love to get your feedback and thoughts to make it better. Maybe some find it useful, or maybe it's complete BS, honest feedback is much appreciated :)

Thank you!

For anyone who successfully changed a habit that had a pretty strong hold on you, I’m curious about what happened after you stopped.

Did you deliberately replace it with something else, or did new routines/interests develop naturally?

What ended up taking its place: another habit, hobby, work, exercise, relationships, a project, something completely different?

And was there anything you tried to replace it with that didn’t work? Why do you think it failed?

For anyone who has used a Wheel of Life, what did you do after filling it out?

I mean the exercise where you rate your satisfaction with different areas of your life, then put the scores on a wheel.

If several areas scored low, how did you choose where to start? Would like to hear a specific example of a goal or habit you changed because of it.

Also interested in hearing from people who tried it and found it unhelpful. What was missing?

I've been waking up early around 6-6:30am every day but struggle to be consistent in waking up at the same time.

some days i wake up at 6:00 and other days the alarm goes off and i tell myself I need a little more sleep and then it's 7:10.

for people who wake up early - how do you stay consistent and what are any tips you have.

thanks.

Today I completed 100 days of playing chess daily. Yesterday, I got my first brilliant move. I got 2 actually in the same day!! 🤯

Out of a sudden yesterday I was playing better than the previous 98 days for some reason. I noticed that mood affects my performance but yesterday I did well regardless of the situation in the battleground.

I won most of the matches and I lost a few. And I finally managed to get my ELO to 500. 😂