Soft addictions can be habits, compulsive behaviors, or recurring moods or negative thought patterns. Their defining characteristic is that they gratify a exterior want but disregard or block the deeper need. They numb us to feelings by substituting a superficial high for genuine feelings of accomplishment. Numerous soft addictions have to do with basic activities like eating, reading, and sleeping. These activities turn into soft addictions as soon as we go overboard with them and start using them for things other than their intended purpose. Soft addictions, unlike hard ones such as drugs and alcohol, are captivating in their softness. E-mailing, shopping, and talking on the phone appear to be completely harmless, pleasurable activities. When we realize how much time and energy we dedicate to them, however, we can see how they lower the quality of our lives. You need to understand that an almost infinite variety exists. While a universal soft addiction might be television watching, a personal form could be sketching geometric figures or counting items for no reason. Several men and women have a difficult time telling the difference between an infrequent behavior or brief mood from a soft addiction. If you watch television one hour per day, is it only a harmless habit,while if you watch three hours per day (the national average), is it a soft addiction? As a general rule, keep the following in mind: The incentive and the function of your behavior decide whether or not it's a soft addiction. For example, TV can be a window to view new worlds -- or it could be used to escape this world. I know a woman who is extremely selective in the things she watches. She uses TV as a tool to gain knowledge about foreign cultures and to better understand the behavior of animals. Another woman vegetates on the couch in front of the TV daily. Her job is rough and she mistakenly believes her viewing habits reduce her stress. Very rarely does she have a specific program she wants to watch or a real cause for watching it. As you compare these two TV watchers, the dissimilarities in motivation and function are clear. The 1st woman's motivation is to learn; the second woman's motivation is to turn her brain off. The first woman uses television to enhance her life; the second woman uses it to escape from her life. Do not allow soft addictions to take over your life.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Judith Wright
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