So easily are the bad habits formed; but only with
tremendous effort of will and persistence in refusing their insistent
demands can they be broken or replaced by helpful ones.
But habits can be learned; and bad habits can be broken when an
overpowering emotion is aroused against them, possesses the mind, and
controls the will; or when reason weighs them in the balance and
judgment finds them wanting, and volition directs the mind to displace
them by others.
The nurse meets in her patients numberless habits which retard recovery
of body and make for an unwholesome mental attitude. Some patients have
the complaint habit, some the irritation habit, some the self-protection
habit, some the habit of impatience, some of reckless expression of
despair, some of loss of control, some of incessant self-attention. The
nurse who can arouse an incentive to habits of cheer expression when the
least cause of cheer appears, who can by reason, or if that is not
possible, by suggestion; by holding out incentives, or by making some
privilege depend upon control--this nurse can help her patient to
displace habits of an illness-accepting mind by habits of a
health-accepting one.
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