How To Change Unwanted Habits - by Hugh Byrne

COURSE

How To Change Unwanted Habits

With Hugh Byrne

All of us have habits that we’d like to change—eating or drinking unhealthily, smoking, spending long periods online, or judging ourselves and many others. Mindfulness is a key to habit change because it brings into awareness behaviors and thought patterns that have become unconscious and automatic. In this course we’ll develop skills to work with a range of different habits—skills that can help us live with greater well-being and freedom.

AddictionRecovery & HealingHappinessHealth & HappinessMindfulnessSecularResilienceMindfulness MeditationSecular MindfulnessPerformance

Meet your Teacher

Hugh Byrne
Silver Spring, MD, USA

Hugh Byrne, PhD, is a senior teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW). He has practiced meditation for thirty years and has been teaching mindfulness and Insight meditation since 2000. Hugh has worked extensively in the field of human rights and social justice and helps lead resilience trainings in Jordan for humanitarian aid workers responding to the Syrian refugee crisis. He has a law degree from London University and a doctorate in political science from UCLA. He is also trained in and teaches mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body approach to healing trauma. Hugh is the author of The Here-and-Now Habit: How Mindfulness Can Help You Let Go of Unhealthy Habits Once and For All. He teaches classes, workshops, and retreats in the Washington, DC area, and in the United States and internationally.

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10 Days

20.9k students

4.7 stars

15 min / day

Addiction

English

Lesson 1

Changing Habits Through Mindfulness

In this session we discuss how habits form and their role in conserving energy and resources, and how, once they have formed, they can be difficult to change because the repeated behaviors become automatic and unconscious rather than intentional and conscious. We then explore how mindfulness is a key to changing habits because it brings behaviors that have become unconscious into the light of awareness where we can choose to make change. This session concludes with a meditation inviting us to connect with our deepest intentions and what gets in the way of living freely—so that we can make a commitment to making beneficial change.

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Lesson 2

Bringing the Power of Attention to Changing Habits

In this session we discuss the key role of attention in mindfulness and its importance in helping us change habits. We explore how attention allows us to step out of automatic behaviors and choose to respond with awareness to our experience. Practicing mindfulness of breathing is one common and beneficial way of building the ‘muscle’ of attention and bringing awareness to habit patterns in three time periods—before they happen, when they are happening, and after they occur. We conclude this session with a meditation cultivating mindfulness of breathing and returning to the breath when our attention moves into thinking.

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Lesson 3

Cultivating Attitudes of Mindfulness that Support Habit Change

In this session we explore the importance of attitudes in cultivating mindfulness and in changing unwanted habits or developing beneficial ones. Three key attitudes or qualities of mind are discussed—1) acceptance—a deep-rooted acknowledgement of our experience; 2) kindness—meeting our experience with an attitude of friendliness and compassion; and 3) curiosity—a quality of interest that allows us to step out of identification with what we are feeling. We finish this session with a meditation on attitude in which we cultivate these three qualities of acceptance, kindness, and curiosity that can support us in changing habits.

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Lesson 4

Bringing Mindfulness to Habits We Wish to Change

In this session we discuss four different habit energies—1) habits of wanting—the energy of moving toward what we desire (e.g., food, drink, drugs, etc.); 2) habits of resistance—getting caught up in feelings of wanting to get away from something unpleasant (e.g., expressed in anger, judgment, impatience, etc.); 3) habits of distraction—moving away from our present-moment experience toward something that seems more exciting or interesting (e.g., social media, TV, email, etc.); and 4) habits of doing—feeling like we are always on the way somewhere, stressed out, or disconnected. We explore ways of working mindfully with these different habit energies and conclude with a meditation to work skillfully with these energies.

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Lesson 5

Working with Habits of Wanting and Craving

In this session we explore working with the energy of wanting something we don’t have—food, drink, cigarettes, drugs, material possessions, etc.—and how mindfulness can help us open to the challenging energies of wanting without needing to act them out. We practice a meditation of ‘riding the waves’ of craving—experiencing the way that urges, triggers, and cravings come and go like waves and that we can learn to ride the waves and make more beneficial choices of how to respond.

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Lesson 6

Working with Habits of Resistance and Aversion

In this session we discuss how to work skillfully with the challenging energies of resistance, aversion, or not liking our experience—and how by getting to the ‘roots’ of these habit energies we can move away from unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns without simply replacing one unhealthy habit with another. We conclude with a meditation to cultivate the skills to experience aversive habit energies by opening fully to the bodily sensations, emotions, mind states and thoughts that typically trigger unhealthy behaviors.

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Lesson 7

Working with Habits of Distraction

In this session we bring mindfulness to habits of distraction where we are pulled away from our present-moment experience in ways that don’t serve us., We discuss how pervasive habits of distraction are in these times and how with mindfulness we can learn to stay with the underlying energies, letting them come and go, without responding in a habitual way. As with other habit energies we can ask ourselves a key question: what would I have to be with and open to if I were to not respond in the habitual way? What would I have to feel? We finish with a meditation that helps us bring awareness to the energies of distraction and learn to stay with the difficult energies, letting them come and go, without acting on the triggers or urges.

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Lesson 8

Transforming Habits of Stress and Anxiety with Mindfulness

In this session we bring mindfulness to habits of stress and worry—where we become focused on the future and all the things that might go wrong, and lose connection with the present moment. We discuss how stress is a natural part of life and not inherently negative or problematical. But when we respond without awareness to challenges and difficulties—particularly when we get caught up in narratives about what ‘might’ happen—stress can cause serious physical, mental, and emotional problems. Mindfulness allows us to step into the direct experience of challenging bodily sensations, emotions, and thought patterns, and see that these come and go and do not need to be problematic when met with awareness. We conclude with a meditation on bringing mindfulness to stressful and anxious thinking.

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Lesson 9

Cultivating Self-Compassion to Help Change Habits

In this session we explore one of the most important qualities we can cultivate to help change unhealthy habit patterns and develop more helpful ones—self-compassion: a quality of meeting our experience with kindness and without judgment, while recognizing that our difficulties are part of the suffering shared by all humans. We discuss the scientific research on the benefits of cultivating self-compassion that link this quality with improved mental health and well-being and a reduction in depression and anxiety. We finish this session with a self-compassion meditation, using phrases that evoke kindness and acceptance towards ourselves.

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Lesson 10

Transforming Habits through Mindfulness

In this session we sum up the major themes of the course and stress the importance of seeing these practices as a training—the more we practice the more we strengthen our capacity to stay with our direct experience and let go of unhealthy responses. We conclude with a meditation on working with habit energies that arise in the mind and practice watching them arising and letting them go. When we meet our experience in these ways—meeting them with kindness, acceptance, and curiosity—we can choose alternative, more healthy responses that lead to greater happiness and well-being.

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Ask your teacher

This course includes 331 community questions and 93 audio replies from Hugh Byrne. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

331

4.7 (1506)

Recent Reviews

Pauline

January 17, 2026

So very helpful to be back with you, Hugh, it’s been a long time. Thank you for this wonderful course, I was meant to see it. Warmest wishes Pauline

Helen

Helen

November 15, 2025

This is the most helpful guide I've yet discovered regarding habits. I will now repeat the course to try to imbed the mindful changes.

Lucinda

November 10, 2025

Really helpful for developing a mindfulness practice that addresses the drivers for addictions of all kinds. Thank you.

Rachel

October 15, 2025

Thank you. Very helpful understanding this technology. Will have to re-listen. Namaste 🙏

Mark

August 18, 2025

Excellent and insightful.

Ash

Ash

August 9, 2025

Wonderful course filled with information on habit forming paired beautifully with gentle meditations to enhance our awareness of our habits and their root causes. Hugh brings the unconscious into the spotlight of our attention. Highly recommend.

Martha

Martha

July 23, 2025

This is such a wonderful course. Thank you ❤️

Jane

Jane

June 2, 2025

Very thoughtful and concise overview. Straightforward, not overwhelming. I will look for Hugh’s book on the subject. Well done.

Queen

May 7, 2025

It was more of a talk about mindfulness than strategies to help change habits.

Philip

March 12, 2025

Super calming for me!!

Kylie

Kylie

December 24, 2024

🙏

Elisabeth

December 21, 2024

Excellent. Just the right depth and speed for me. I did this hoping to control my addiction to playing games on my phone: I've gone about 36 hours so far and have had no success with other methods in the past. An outstanding contribution to improving my life

Rodney

September 21, 2024

I think you deeply for bringing this course to me I felt extremely enlightening and helpful My best, Rodney

Lucy

Lucy

August 29, 2024

This course has been very useful to me. I will repeat it and it’s meditations again and again, if necessary, to help me change ingrained worry habits. Thank you very much, Hugh!

Karin

Karin

August 3, 2024

Thank you 🙏 💝

Linda

Linda

June 9, 2024

Thank you. 🙏

April

April

April 24, 2024

I thoroughly enjoyed this course and found Hugh’s teaching effective in helping me change a habit. Thanks so much Hugh!

Anne

Anne

April 21, 2024

Hugh Byrne’s How to Change Unwanted Habits is perhaps the only online course I’ve completed within the time period ie 10 days. His voice, empathy and guidance encouraged me to ‘show up’ every morning and I found myself putting into practice his very helpful words and advice. I was also grateful for the shorter meditation practices. Thank you, Hugh 🙏🏽

Wendy

Wendy

April 6, 2024

Rich with wisdom! Highly recommend!

Polly

Polly

March 15, 2024

Thank you, Hugh. This wonderful course is already helping me with some longstanding habits. I will be exploring all your other content and your book.

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